CPO appointments, team moves, hiring and the procurement job market.
As AI agents move from drafting supplier summaries to acting inside business systems, procurement teams need enough security literacy to question outputs and vet vendors, and a plan to keep training junior staff.
Zakaria Dahkoun, who ran the snack maker's cocoa business, became chief procurement officer on Aug. 1. His predecessor left for chocolate supplier Barry Callebaut. The company says cocoa supply is now more than sufficient.
Aug. 1 Dahkoun's start date as CPO
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President Trump's Oct. 23 proclamation under Section 338 pulls plywood, paper, machinery and refrigeration equipment off the 50% duty list and adds carpets, vinyl flooring, paints, valves and chest freezers, effective for entries on or after Oct. 30.
50% Section 338 duty on covered Canadian goods
The FOMC paused its tightening cycle on Oct. 28 in a 10–2 vote, saying inflation remains elevated, while fed funds futures and the dot plot point to another hike in December that will keep supplier financing and capital costs tight.
3.75–4.00% federal funds target range, maintained on Oct. 28
The Postal Service announced Oct. 26 that a weekly fuel surcharge tied to EIA diesel and jet fuel prices will hit four domestic package services from January 2027, with percentages published only three to five days before each change.
Jan. 2027 first month the USPS fuel surcharge applies
Announced the same day, Oct. 20, the two deals lock up domestic capacity for recycled grade-5 titanium and semiconductor-grade critical minerals, the newest links in buyers' reshoring files.
$100M Apple's three-year purchasing commitment to Perryman Company titanium
The IEA does not expect distillate stocks to rebuild before the second half of 2027, and new missile strikes on Saudi energy sites threaten the Gulf export recovery that was easing prices, so fuel clauses in 2027 freight contracts need to hold up for another year.
2H27 earliest the IEA expects diesel stocks to be rebuilt
Contract linehaul is up about 10% to 18% on the year depending on the index, carriers are exiting faster than freight is falling, and analysts say the repricing is only half done. Here is how procurement teams should approach bid season.
$2.72/mi contract truckload rate plus fuel, a 52-week high (SONAR, Oct. 9)
The maker of syringes, needles and infusion pumps will expand U.S. output and use American steel for needles in exchange for conditional Section 232 relief. Hospital and health system buyers should expect more deals like it.
$19B BD's planned U.S. investment over several years
The Spanish family-owned operator is buying the Rotterdam-based multimodal group outright, with the deal set to close Jan. 1, 2027 and combine 21 maritime terminals, five rail terminals and more than 500 trucks.
At TechEd in Berlin, SAP paired its agent-build stack with agent-governance controls — the observability and audit layer a Pathlock survey says most agent adopters still lack.
An Oct. 26 court filing expands the refund path for roughly $166 billion in struck-down IEEPA duties, while a certified importer class and a Nov. 23 government appeal deadline now decide who waits and who sues.
One week after reserving substrate, packaging and testing capacity with six suppliers, Nvidia and Oracle announced plans on Oct. 27 to expand OCI superclusters to multi-gigawatt scale — a signal that AI hardware scarcity will persist into 2028.
The Oct. 22 proclamation closes the 232 probe into turbine imports without new levies, directs Commerce and USTR to negotiate, and flags foreign-made inverters as a cybersecurity risk to the grid.
The London startup's Chalfen-led round backs agents that find suppliers, place purchase orders and pay them for consumer brands, following Freehand's $75M and Magentic's $18M raises this year.
