Olga Pavlenko
Head of Global Procurement at Medela
Speaking at TFEST26: Tuesday, December 1 2026 at 12:55–13:25 on the Main Stage: “Procurement as the Reality Test: Why Human Judgment Matters in AI-Driven Supply Networks”.
About Olga
Olga Pavlenko is Head of Global Procurement and Contract Manufacturing at Medela, where she leads direct and indirect procurement across all categories, sources the materials and parts for its three manufacturing plants in Switzerland, China and the USA, and runs the PMO office. At Medela she built a new strategy for outsourcing the development and manufacturing of its B2C products, which cut development costs tenfold and brought products to market four times faster, and launched three new products in 2025.
She has more than 25 years of experience leading procurement transformations and end-to-end supply chains in FMCG and MedTech. Before Medela she was Senior Director Supply Chain at Carlsberg Group, leading supply chain for DraughtMaster, the group's largest breakthrough innovation, and representing the function on the business unit's executive board. She spent 13 years at PepsiCo, latterly as contract manufacturing lead for the beverage and juice category in Europe, with more than $1B in total spend, and led PepsiCo's Women in Supply Chain European diversity network.
She is an Adjunct Professor at SKEMA Business School, where she teaches supply chain innovation to international master's students, and an Ambassador of the Sustainable Procurement Pledge.
Session Overview
Corporate ambitions for AI, end-to-end resilience, and net-zero sustainability sound flawless in the boardroom, until they hit the procurement desk. This session cuts through the hype to explore procurement as the ultimate proving ground where strategic mandates meet operational reality. Join us to unpack the execution gap between high-level targets and daily sourcing decisions. We will examine how procurement leaders are navigating complex trade-offs when algorithmic efficiency inevitably clashes with ESG goals or long-term supplier trust, proving that the future of the supply chain isn't just automated; it's human-governed.
About TFEST26
TFEST26 is Europe's most senior supply chain conference, taking place December 1–2 2026 at Colosseum Berlin. It brings together 400+ Director-level and above leaders (Chief Supply Chain Officers, VPs, and senior directors from Cisco, Henkel, Estée Lauder, Diageo, Schneider Electric, Novartis, Mars, and others) for two days of peer benchmarking, candid practitioner firesides, themed roundtables, and pre-scheduled 1:1 meetings.