Marketing Procurement Awards

Felix Ezewuzie interview: ‘Standing out and being accountable’ Marketing Procurement Awards: Best Use of Technology Winner

Best Use of Technology Category

Winner: Felix Ezewuzie, Procurement Director – EMEA Indirects & Cross-BU Media Lead at Haleon.

Photo L to R: Craig Inglis (Chair of Judges) Felix Ezewuzie (Winner)

Criteria: To recognise the best use of technology to drive innovation and transformation of Marketing performance.

Judges Comments: Felix Ezewuzie, Procurement Director – EMEA Indirects & Cross-BU Media Lead at Haleon won this category for negotiating an industry-first digital media contractual framework.

Working hand-in-glove with the global media team, Felix tackled an area where there is hidden waste in digital advertising in areas such as Made for Advertising (MFA) sites, invalid traffic, ad fraud and ad tech inefficiencies.

The framework introduced contractual KPIs focussed on media quality from the outset and going beyond traditional performance-based remuneration measures. The team also introduced a new global monitoring tool which gives procurement and marketing real-time oversight of campaign setup and settings.

Independently confirmed as an industry first by media consultants and ISBA, it sets a new bar for how innovative contractual frameworks and technology can drive governance and accountability in digital media.

Insight Interview: Felix Ezewuzie

By Morag Cuddeford Jones

At the Marketing Procurement IQ Conference 2026, the inaugural Marketing Procurement Awards (MPA’s), launched by industry evangelists Tina Fegent and Jeff Cobb, recognised some of the function’s best talent.

Marketing Procurement iQ sat down with ‘Best use of technology winner’, Felix Ezewuzie to talk about his career so far, the winning moment and why curiosity is what transforms good procurement into game-changing growth.

Stand out and be accountable

‘Accountability in digital media’. A phrase almost guaranteed to elicit an eye roll client side as their audit trail vanishes into the murky depths of digital media buying and effectiveness.

But this is exactly what Felix Ezewuzie, Haleon’s Procurement Director, EMEA Indirects & Cross-BU Media Lead, has set out to deliver with his award-winning framework and media monitoring tools that lift the veil on this most opaque of marketing services.

With facets including contractual KPIs for media quality and brand safety the framework seeks to go beyond traditional performance-based remuneration. A process that is not for the faint-hearted.

“Procurement metrics are generally far behind, our KPIs and dashboards are traditionally focussed on crude cost savings,” Felix admits, highlighting the perennial challenge faced by agencies, marketers and their procurement colleagues.

Naturally, there’s a drive to cut cost and eliminate waste, especially in the current climate. But all too often there’s a strong focus on driving down the numbers and not enough appreciation of the consequences.

An obsession with blunt cost-cutting risks underfunding, resulting in missed opportunity that, left unchecked, can stunt growth – and even send it in reverse.

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Felix Ezewuzie will be speaking at the Magic & Logic Webinar

Cut cost, cut growth

The agency supply chain seems to have been an ‘easy target’ for cost-cutting efforts and frustrations abound.

In media buying alone, the complex web of arbitrage and markups, principal-based buying, proprietary media and rebates arouses suspicion among clients, worried their ads will end up on MFA sites or junk mobile apps rather than quality inventory.

Having funded the gravy train, they’re keen to shave cost wherever possible.

But not all agency models are created equal, and marketing procurement needs to box clever to identify genuine savings, rather than cuts that risk further undermining future success.

“You can’t continue to cut cost from an agency’s fees because the quality of service inevitably diminishes,” Felix predicts. Without the revenues to invest in talent, hires may be sub-par, and the client may wonder why their marketing performance drops.

Instead, marketing procurement and their agency suppliers should find themselves in a collaborative relationship, working together to secure success and growth for both.

The question must be: How can we set up agency models that work effectively, remunerating agencies the right way in order to drive growth?

Felix says, that collaboration is the part he has enjoyed the most. “Both within Haleon itself and with agencies, working together to come up with a model that helps reduce waste in the digital media buying ecosystem and ensure investments are channelled into high quality media.”

Procurement as a growth engine

Felix’s framework highlights the areas where there is genuine waste but also digs deep into the budget’s potential. “It’s about marketing effectiveness and driving growth within the business.

Marketing Procurement is an engine where yes, you can derive cost savings but you can also help the company grow by working smartly with agencies to ensure you’re investing money in the right areas.”

Marketing Procurement, he says, is that rare discipline “where you can influence both the top and bottom line”.

It’s also a creative discipline. It couldn’t be further from the purchasing role he started his career in. “Marketing procurement definitely isn’t about buying commodities. It requires a distinct mindset and offers a challenge I find genuinely rewarding.”

That challenge is diplomacy, dealing with competing motivations both inside the business and with suppliers. The challenge is also working with finance, understanding the needs of the organisation and how savvy procurement can drive growth and turn cost into investment.

It’s also technology, because in this increasingly AI-driven world, procurement specialists don’t just need to know what tech exists, they need to understand what it does and how it fits into the organisation’s future plans.

“Given the rate of development in the marketing and media space, marketing procurement has had to evolve rapidly, with many different and smarter ways to do things. People are coming up with new ideas, pushing boundaries and driving the whole area forwards,” Felix insists.

New ideas are exactly what the Marketing Procurement Awards (MPAs) were set up to celebrate and stimulate – and according to Felix “The awards are about giving a boost to the whole function. It shines a spotlight on it, helping people outside who aren’t aware of it gain a better understanding of what it is.”

The contest for talent

This can only be a good thing if collaboration is going to be at the heart of stimulating investment and growth, but they have another purpose – talent generation.

The sector is woefully under subscribed with new entrants. Felix himself admits it’s something he fell into, rather than actively chose to pursue. But now he has reached the giddy heights of award-winning Procurement Director, he sees more clearly than ever the need to bring in fresh blood.

“There isn’t a good enough talent pipeline for marketing procurement,” he warns.

He continues: “I’ve been trying to recruit for a role for around four months at a junior level. The calibre of the people that come to the conference and the quality of the awards is about encouragement and pushing people to drive the industry forwards, but it’s also a magnet to pull people into the function and create an awareness of what an amazing space it is.”

He admits that the award itself is a nice to have, however it’s not something he holds for self-gratification. “We’re in a bubble of people that get it – we understand the challenges we’re facing.

A community like MPAs is almost like a support group. But I want to see it grow. The award is something that’s going to keep that momentum going.”

This year’s inaugural MPAs is hopefully just the first of many opportunities to thrust the sector into the limelight, bringing a deeper understanding of the function, its potential to grow businesses – and their suppliers – beyond current expectations.

It offers the marketing sector as a whole the chance to evolve, meeting new challenges head on and devise new models that benefit all parties.

Above all, they’re a chance for marketing procurement professionals to ask ‘what if…?’ in their own roles, whether that’s entering the Awards themselves next year, or just taking the learnings from this year’s winners and applying them today.

To quote Felix’s own maxim: “Curiosity is key … and in the end, curiosity is what transforms good procurement into game-changing growth.”

About Felix Ezewuzie, Procurement Director – EMEA Indirects & Cross-BU Media Lead at Haleon

About Marketing Procurement Awards