Gerardo Aguilar
Global Head Indirect Procurement
For Gerardo Aguilar, a career in procurement was never the plan.
Growing up in Mexico, he qualified as an industrial engineer, began working at a factory and developed a passion for efficiency in all areas of the business.
It was not long before Gerardo discovered that efficiency and procurement go together like coffee and cake.
He says: “How can we find efficiency in a process, in an activity, in everything that we can identify? Efficiency, that has always been my passion.
“And when I came to procurement in the early 2000s, that's when I actually made the connection with my background and saw procurement as a great function to drive efficiency.
“I find it fascinating and it has a strong connection with my background as an industrial engineer, always looking for efficiency and to drive productivity.”
His commitment to continuous learning is clear from how he has travelled to new countries for fresh professional challenges.
Gerardo's career took him from Mexico to the UK, The Netherlands and now to Basel in Switzerland, where he heads up the global indirect procurement team at Syngenta Group, a worldwide agriculture technology firm whose mission is ‘to help feed 8 billion people while reducing emissions and improving biodiversity’.
He arrived at Syngenta Group as Head of Global Category Management in April 2019 and is now revelling in his latest role.
He says: “I've been in procurement for many years. I have had the chance to work in four different countries and four different industries, proving that good practices of procurement are universal.”
He adds: “I find procurement really fascinating. I think there has been an incredible evolution of procurement in the last 20 years, coming from being price negotiators, contract managers to actually trusted business partners.
“And for me, what keeps me going is the timing of being in procurement and knowing there's more to come. So it is never a boring time in this function.”
Gerardo is very clear that success is rarely coming from a single person. Great achievements are made based on teamwork and collaboration. “It is always important to acknowledge and recognize all team members' efforts, since it is by adding our individual contributions that we can achieve great results,” Gerardo says.
Gerardo’s long-distance career fits snugly with the fact that he used to be a keen marathon runner. And the psychological and physical challenge of completing the 26-and-a-bit miles gives him inspiration for his professional motto – never stop running.
He says: “One of the best bits of advice that I got when I was preparing for my first marathon was that the secret to finishing a marathon is… just simply don't stop running [he laughs].
“And you can apply that to a lot of things in life, of course, not only for running a marathon, that is ironically true, but a lot of things cannot be done in springs.”
Gerardo adds: “My learning from that advice is that it's very important to make sure that we are resilient, that we are patient and we look at the long term and never stop running.”
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