LevelUp 2026: How Levelpath (and Its Customers) Are Rewriting the Procurement AI Playbook (Part 2)

Today’s article highlights the keynote addresses by Ace Hardware and Acrisure from Levelpath’s 2026 conference. It is the second of two articles covering Levelpath’s inaugural LevelUp 2026 conference held in San Francisco on March 4 and 5 at the Contemporary Jewish Museum.

A Procurement Transformation in Real Time (ACrisure)

If the founder keynote laid out the vision for AI-driven procurement, the customer keynotes showed what that transformation looks like inside a real organization.

Adam Andolina, Chief Procurement Officer at Acrisure, took the stage to describe how he has been building a procurement organization from the ground up at the fast-growing global InsureTech company.

Acrisure, which generates roughly $5 billion in revenue and employs 20,000 people worldwide, hired Andolina in 2024 with a clear mission: transform procurement into a trusted advisor to the business by 2026.

To achieve that goal, he developed a three-year roadmap.

2024: Build relationships and understand the business.
2025: Stand up the procurement team.
2026: Execute and deliver results.

In the early stages, Andolina said his approach to stakeholder engagement was intentionally simple.

“I went into meetings without a slide deck,” he said. “I just asked: What do you need?”

His goal was to leave each conversation with one tangible action item he could deliver for the business.

Building the Business Case

One of Andolina’s first priorities was building a financial case for procurement’s value.

The analysis revealed $450 million in procurement spend, with roughly $360 million considered addressable.

Based on expected sourcing outcomes, the team projected 4–8 percent savings rates, translating into $5–10 million in annual value.

Additional opportunities included:

• 3–10% savings on new RFP spend
• 1–3% gains from beating inflation escalators
• Savings from proactive contract renewal management
• 0.5–1% improvements through payment terms negotiation

These projections helped secure executive support for expanding the procurement function.

Standing Up the Team

Andolina emphasized that technology alone doesn’t transform procurement, talent does.

He built his team around a few simple principles:

• Play to your strengths
• Treat career development as a personal responsibility
• Recognize that talent is a team sport
• Ensure every team member understands the business

Roles were structured according to experience levels, from analysts with 1–2 years of experience to procurement directors with more than a decade in the field.

The team now includes 12 procurement professionals.

Choosing the Right Technology

Once the team structure was in place, Acrisure turned to technology.

The organization identified several key gaps:

• Contract lifecycle management
• Procurement analytics
• RFx sourcing tools
• Savings tracking
• Intake management

To address these needs, the company conducted a single RFP involving five technology providers, seven internal stakeholder teams, and fourteen evaluators.

The result: Levelpath was selected as the platform of choice.

Early Results

Since implementing Levelpath, Acrisure has already begun seeing tangible results:

• $15 million in savings
• $12 million in cost avoidance
• 25+ RFP events completed using the new sourcing module
• 400 contracts executed representing $400 million in value

The team has also launched its contract management module and negotiated multiple master service agreements while building stronger partnerships with business units.

One particularly notable result: a 15 percent reduction in professional services spending.

For an organization still in the early stages of building its procurement function, those numbers represent a significant return.

TL;DR Acrisure CPO Adam Andolina demonstrated how a procurement organization built almost from scratch can quickly deliver measurable enterprise value, using a structured roadmap, strong stakeholder relationships, and the right technology foundation from Levelpath to generate millions in savings and cost avoidance.

Cutting Through the Procurement Noise

The next customer keynote of the event came from Leigh Barbeau, Director of Indirect Procurement at Ace Hardware.

Her presentation was titled “Cutting Through the Procurement Noise” and focused on the realities of managing procurement in a highly decentralized organization.

Ace Hardware operates with:

• 12,500 employees
• 16 distribution centers
• $1.1 billion in spend
• 5,000 contracts
• A procurement team of just 14 people

The company also receives roughly 100 new contract requests every month, and onboarding new suppliers can cost thousands of dollars.

Complicating matters further, Ace operates under a co-op structure rather than a traditional franchise model. Individual stores have significant independence, which creates a complex environment for procurement governance.

Building a Foundation for Supplier Management

Barbeau described Ace’s strategy as building “a foundation that gives stakeholders a reason to return.”

At the heart of that strategy is a more structured approach to supplier management.

The first step was creating a centralized intake and orchestration process as a front door for procurement requests.

This approach provides a consistent stakeholder experience while enabling automated workflows that track supplier relationships across the entire lifecycle.

Next, Ace focused on improving supplier data quality.

By using AI-assisted supplier enrichment and centralized data management, the team has been able to categorize suppliers more effectively and make information easier to access across distribution center teams.

As supplier relationships expand, this structure allows internal teams to identify the right partners more quickly, reducing procurement friction and improving operational efficiency

Last was Sourcing Efficiency.

Where the team used AI-powered sourcing and centralized reporting to eliminate fragmented bids. This enabled the team to source more with less, faster.

Ace Hardware’s “Transformative Outcomes” speak for themselves:

• Scalable foundation managing a complex supplier ecosystem
• Streamlined workflows with centralized intake and onboarding
• Enhanced visibility with enriched, accessible supplier data
• Increased efficiency with reduced manual effort and structured processes
• Strengthened governance with improved tracking and compliance
• Better decision-making with centralized sourcing and insights

TL;DR At Ace Hardware, Director of Indirect Procurement Leigh Barbeau showed how her small procurement team cut through organizational complexity by working with Levelpath to create a centralized intake process and stronger supplier data foundations that balance governance with speed across a highly decentralized business.

The Bigger Picture fromLevelUp

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