Marketing Procurement Awards

Emma McInnes Interview ‘Pushing boundaries in a changing discipline’: Marketing Procurement Awards Winner – Person of the Year

Marketing Procurement Person of the Year

Winner: Emma McInnes, Senior Category Manager, Marketing, Specsavers.

Photo: Emma McInnes (Winner)

Criteria: To identify and celebrate an outstanding professional, who has contributed above and beyond the expectations of their colleagues, stakeholders, and Marketing Procurement peers.

Judges Comments: Emma McInnes met every dimension of that brief. Judges singled out the geographic range and depth of her work: redesigning the pitch process in Australia and New Zealand to make it markedly more dynamic and efficient; standardising brand tracking across markets to deliver both hard cost savings and the comparable cross-market norms her stakeholders had long asked for; and putting in place a new operating model for high-volume influencer contracting at the scale of thousands of activations a month.

As one judge observed, her approach married qualitative improvement with quantitative efficiency, showing strong cultural sensitivity to local marketing teams and agency partners alike.

The judging panel summed her up in a single line, calling her “the procurement person I’d want to deal with,” and noted she was “all over everything, in the best possible way.”

Insight Interview: Emma McInnes

By Morag Cuddeford – Jones

At the Marketing Procurement IQ Conference 2026 the inaugural Marketing Procurement Awards (MPA’s) recognised some of the function’s brightest talent.

We sat down with Marketing Procurement Person of the Year, Emma McInnes to talk about her career so far, her approach to marketing procurement and who the judges described as “a worthy inaugural Person of the Year, going above and beyond for her colleagues, stakeholders and peers”.

Pushing boundaries in a changing discipline

Why Specsavers’ Emma McInnes believes marketing procurement’s biggest opportunities lie not in technology itself, but in how businesses, agencies and procurement teams work together.

Winning Marketing Procurement Person of the Year at the inaugural Marketing Procurement Awards (MPA’s) was not something Emma McInnes anticipated, and she admits she’s not a fan of the spotlight. But, with a body of work spanning multiple markets and disciplines, the judges clearly felt her nomination (from her manager, not herself) was a standout winner.

Above all, it’s McInnes’ approach to marketing procurement – a willingness to question established processes, challenge assumptions and look beyond traditional measures of success – that impressed. “Emma is exactly what the best procurement professionals need to look like today, not just in marketing procurement, but across the entire profession,” claims Carl Ferrand, Head of Procurement at Specsavers.

“Commercially sharp, naturally collaborative, and always looking for ways to make things better, she consistently delivers tangible results across multiple markets while building strong relationships with stakeholders and agencies.”

Like many in the profession, McInnes arrived at marketing procurement more by accident rather than design. After beginning her career in general procurement and buying roles, she moved into marketing procurement within the pharmaceutical sector before progressing through positions at Virgin Media, John Lewis and, more recently, Specsavers.

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Emma McInnes will be speaking at the Magic & Logic Webinar

All change please

McInnes quickly discovered that marketing procurement offered something different. “Marketing procurement… it’s one of those areas that’s constantly changing,” she says. “I’m someone that will get bored easily, and you don’t get bored easily in marketing procurement. There’s always something.”

That constant change is one reason the discipline has become increasingly important to marketing organisations. As brands operate across a growing number of channels, technologies and suppliers, procurement teams are expected to understand not only commercial arrangements but also how marketing itself is evolving.

For McInnes, the task has become noticeably more complex over time. “It’s probably the sheer volume,” she says of the challenges when it comes to navigating range of services and vendors. “There’s just so much more out there.”

The growth of marketing technology, expanding data requirements and increasingly fragmented media environments have all added layers of complexity. Yet she argues that understanding technology is only part of the role.The bigger challenge is often helping organisations navigate change while maintaining productive relationships with stakeholders and suppliers.

That has been particularly evident during recent discussions around artificial intelligence.

Few topics currently generate more attention within marketing, agencies and procurement. Yet McInnes believes the conversation is often running ahead of reality. “I honestly think it’s still slow and it needs to be picked up,” she says. “I don’t think the change is happening as quickly as people think it is.”

Much of the discussion centres on efficiency. Agencies are investing heavily in AI-enabled tools that promise to automate tasks, accelerate delivery and improve productivity. Procurement teams, meanwhile, are trying to understand what those changes mean for commercial models that have traditionally been based on time and labour.

“I remember having conversations with agencies within the last decade about how do we go from hours to outcome-based,” she says. “It’s always been a hard conversation to have, and nobody had the answer.” AI has given these conversations a bit of a boost but her frustration is clear that it’s a debate that should perhaps have been sorted out years ago.

In her view, agencies and clients are still not talking openly enough about how efficiency gains should be measured, shared and rewarded, and in her mind hours-based assessments simply don’t cut the mustard.

It’s not about the money

The discussion, she argues, should also not begin with the expectation that technology automatically leads to lower costs. Instead, organisations should be asking whether new ways of working create greater value.

“It might be that we end up spending more because we can prove things are working better, and we’ve got the data behind it, and we’re able to work quicker,” she says. “It’s not necessarily a conversation that costs are going to be cut.” The opportunity, she believes, lies in understanding efficiency rather than simply pursuing savings.

What it all comes down to, whether talking about AI, change or remuneration, is maintaining dialogue. It’s good to talk, she suggests, it’s just not something procurement is doing often enough with agencies or perhaps even internally. “We just need to start having those conversations,” she says.

It may seem like a modest observation, but it reflects a broader view of how procurement creates value. Increasingly, the role involves bringing together different parts of the business, agencies and suppliers to address questions that don’t invite an easy resolution: “Maybe we don’t know what the answer is.”

A willingness to engage, explore and not necessarily demand an immediate solution underpins her whole procurement philosophy and it bleeds into how she works internally to drive her function forward.

McInnes points not to technology or process but to culture as being the engine of effectiveness. At Specsavers, she reveals, procurement enjoys strong engagement with marketing teams, creating an environment where people are willing to challenge existing ways of working.

One project involved reviewing internal approval and contracting processes that had become burdensome and inefficient, bogging the team down rather than liberating it. Rather than accepting them as fixed, McInnes questioned whether they were still serving their purpose. “Why we were doing this,” she says. “It was taking forever. Something had to change.”

The solution did not involve introducing an entirely new system. Instead, the team identified capabilities already available within the organisation and used them more effectively. The result reduced administrative burdens and allowed colleagues to focus their time elsewhere.

Procurement professionals are often expected to operate within established structures, but McInnes believes there is value in challenging assumptions. “Sometimes people are a bit scared,” she suggests. “That’s the process. We’re not going to question it. But you’ve just got to push the boundaries a bit.”

That willingness to ask difficult questions appears to have become a defining characteristic of her career.

It is also one reason marketing procurement continues to hold her attention after more than a decade and why winning an award, while it perhaps flips her cringe switch, is a valuable step forward for her, her team and her function overall.

Historically, she believes, procurement professionals have often been reluctant to celebrate their achievements or promote their work externally. As she herself admitted, she doesn’t tend to seek the spotlight.

But awards such as these help address that problem by providing visibility for a profession that is frequently misunderstood by those outside it.

The response to her own award win demonstrated how widely that visibility can travel. “I’ve had people in other countries saying, ‘Well done’. It does reach far.”

Ferrand agrees, adding, “Recognition at the MPA Awards is thoroughly deserved, particularly given the strength of the other finalists, and Emma has undoubtedly set a very high benchmark for others to follow. I’m excited to see how future submissions continue to raise the bar and showcase the growing impact and value of our profession.”

More importantly, she believes recognition helps raise awareness of marketing procurement as a career. Like many practitioners, she found her way into the discipline unexpectedly. She would like future entrants to have a clearer understanding of the opportunities it offers.

Team development is a priority and she is already thinking about colleagues who might follow her onto future awards shortlists, revealing that “I’ve got somebody amazing coming through the team.”

She hopes that they, too, will get a sense of what it means to be an active part of the procurement community, something that shone through on the day of the awards itself. “The emotion in that room on the day was brilliant,” she recalls. “Everybody was rooting for each other.” For a profession built on relationships, collaboration and problem-solving this is crucial.

The technology will continue to change. New platforms, tools and challenges will emerge. But for McInnes, it’s always going to come back to people, their unending curiosity that drives interesting, and challenging, conversations and the ultimate ability to find solutions – even imperfect ones.