“Procurement is not just about cost savings. It’s about risk savings as well.” —Tammy Beggs

At Argentus, we speak with senior leaders in the supply chain and procurement fields every day. On the Argentus Blog, we aim to share what they’re saying: what are the biggest drivers of success in the industry in 2026? What are the hottest emerging skills and disciplines? Most relevantly for our recruitment practice, what does the hiring picture look like within supply chain and procurement—and how should people in the field go about developing their careers? 

To that end, we’re happy to bring you a new interview with one of those leaders on the topic of procurement and corporate governance. Governance is an often unsung, and sometimes misunderstood, function within procurement and organizations more broadly. But it’s crucial, whether an organization is in a highly regulated industry or not. So what exactly is procurement governance, and how should organizations go about tackling it? What are the biggest barriers, and why should candidates think about developing their careers towards it?

There’s no one better to speak about these topics than Tammy Beggs. Tammy is a leader in Canada’s procurement field, with over 20 years of progressive leadership experience at large financial services organizations, most recently at the AVP level, where she has executed successful governance programs. Tammy is a true builder who loves to establish new processes, identify risks, and equip procurement teams to act as true enablers of overall business strategy. 

In this interview, we touched on a host of topics related to governance, and her passion for the topic shines through. Whether you’re an organization looking to boost your procurement governance function, or a procurement professional wondering about how to develop your career towards governance positions, consider this your primer. 

Thanks for taking the time to do this interview, Tammy! To start, can you tell us a bit about your background and what led you to the Procurement Governance space?

I’m a career procurement professional with over 20 years in the field, mostly in leadership roles, on both the indirect and direct side, driving everything from strategy to sourcing to establishing supplier relationship management. I moved into governance about 12 years ago, as my special projects lined up nicely with that focus. I worked for a large organization at the time, dealing with a lot of external changes, and we were ramping up risk programs to demonstrate compliance and put controls in place. I love building things from inception, so it really drew on my creative nature. I love that aspect of procurement.

Do all organizations need a governance function? When does it become important?

Most organizations need some form of governance. How formal it needs to be, and the depth and breadth of that oversight, is really scalable depending on the size and type of risk associated with that business, as well as their products or services. For a smaller organization, it can be a little less formalized, but mid-to-large scale organizations need to approach it with a bit more formality. Organizations that are multi-jurisdictional or multinational, or publicly traded, have governance obligations. Industries that are subject to regulatory guidelines may wish to consider investing in governance. Foundations and nonprofits will also benefit from procurement governance. Boards are becoming more interested in risk management, 3rd party spend, and what we’re doing in procurement. In a big picture sense, governance is about asking, “is the business operating in a way that we expect it to? Are we getting the outcomes that align with the organizational priorities, and the trends that we want to see?”

What do typical governance measures or reporting look like in practice? 

It can vary depending on the type of business, the type of products or services, whether it’s indirect or direct spend that you’re looking to govern. Typical areas are around compliance: is there adherence to governance policies and mandates? How is it being measured? Is there contract compliance, and what does that look like? If it’s a regulated entity, are the risk requirements and controls being met? Vendor management is another big one. What percentage of spend is coming through procurement channels, and through negotiated contracts? All of this governance work feeds into demonstrating procurement’s value. It’s not just about cost savings. It’s about risk savings as well. It builds operational efficiency, and gives benefits in terms of quality, delivery, and other aspects of vendor management too. 

What role does governance play in a procurement or supply chain function?

It can vary. Governance leadership will work within the procurement or supply chain leadership function, working very closely with them to determine the strategy, purpose and outcomes. If you’re starting from inception, those are important things to capture in terms of procurement policies or spend management policies. A governance function will set up the vendor management and controls framework. What are the guard rails that the procurement team needs to work within? Governance allows an organization to measure, monitor, and report back on what sort of risks there are in the supply base. It becomes very effective where you can focus on standing up these reporting obligations, and build them into your operating model, technologies and toolset. 

How are internal and external (eg. legislative, regulatory) obligations addressed?

It really draws on collaboration with other functions: What are we spending, and does it cover multiple business lines? What are the checks and balances that we want to put in place to address the risk that comes with certain sorts of suppliers or spend? What are the risks in terms of access to systems, data, and similar considerations? What obligations need to be built into the contract and placed on the supplier, before we can comfortably proceed? The regulatory aspect arises from the legislative environment: what are the laws? All the risk functions will keep you well informed and proactive if there are changes coming. 

How does governance contribute to risk management and organizational resilience?

Governance helps drive organizational trust. People within organizations will ask, “Why is this important? Why does this affect me? Why do we need to do things differently”? Business wants to move quickly, so these are questions that always come in. Moving quickly, but with the right protections in place, is what’s going to build resiliency. 

Helping to embed the right practices builds resilience, and can mitigate operational risk. Governance helps improve decision making by measuring and monitoring, and providing data. It equips leaders to decide, “is this something worth proceeding with, or not? Let’s go into it with our eyes wide open as to the possibilities.” It aligns with operations: what are the long-term strategic goals for the procurement function, as well as the stakeholders? Governance contributes reporting and metrics that keeps the executive, committees and other leaders informed and demonstrates to them that procurement is delivering the desired outcomes. 

What are some challenges or resistance that governance faces?

The challenges for governance are different from procurement in general. It’s about adoption, compliance, and education. Having an unwavering tone at the top is paramount for compliance. But it’s also about continuous education and reiteration of the expectations. People need the playbook, the guidelines, and the resources to draw upon. People move around in companies. People come on board. People leave. How are you keeping people aware of the processes, and how do you give them the support they need? Challenges come from things being out of date, so it’s important to make sure that your policies and processes are current. It demonstrates that it’s still important. For me, I like to have an ongoing refresh, and also make sure there’s education for new hires at a certain level so they know their governance obligations if they have budget and if they have third parties. 

At Argentus, we speak with a lot of procurement candidates. Why should people in procurement consider building their career towards governance?

There’s more awareness in large organizations around some of the obligations, so it’s a growing area. No matter your role in procurement or supply chain, there are a number of steps and processes that you need to take. If you’re interested in developing those processes and taking on the role of measuring and monitoring, it’s a good discipline to get into. It’s a slightly different area of interest, but I think it’s great if you like structure, measuring and monitoring. It’s quite similar to a risk or compliance function within some of the larger organizations. 

On the flipside, what skills are helpful in a governance role, and what challenges do companies have hiring in this area?  

Governance rewards a combination of skills. At the leadership level, strategic thinking is very important. It’s crucial to have deep end-to-end procurement expertise to understand the best practices. Ethical grounding is key. You need to be able to deeply understand the obligations that the organization faces, and translate those into operational practices: how can we measure ourselves to make sure we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing? Communications and relationship-building skills are crucial, as is a good understanding of risk management. 

For hiring, one of the key challenges is interest in a role like this. At the onset it may not seem as exciting as what it turns out to be in practice, for the right person. You have to like the idea of building a roadmap and the processes to get where you want to go. Someone from a vendor management background, where you’re working within a contract and driving relationships, is a good fit. If you have an analytics background, but you’re not interested in say pure accounting, governance is a great opportunity to use data to gather insights and issue recommendations. It’s a great field to get into. 

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We hope you enjoyed our interview with Tammy Beggs! Stay tuned for more Argentus interviews and articles where we share perspectives from across the supply chain and procurement landscape. And as always, if you have any immediate or upcoming hiring needs in Supply Chain or Procurement, reach out to Argentus today! Send an email to recruit@argentus.com and we’ll be in touch.