Joaquin Rivamonte has enjoyed a rich and varied career. It has taught him numerous lessons in preparation for his role with market intelligence platform, AlphaSense. He cut his teeth in the financial service sector. He was the Director of Procurement for some medium-sized investment banking companies in San Francisco, helping support Silicon Valley before the businesses he worked for were bought by bigger banks. One was acquired by JP Morgan Chase, and Rivamonte became VP of Procurement. He then moved to New York, just as Silicon Valley experienced the dotcom boom.
A learning curve
Alongside specialising in software and hardware contracts, Rivamonte started to develop his leadership skills. In one of his early procurement roles, he wrote a paper to the CIO on how sourcing should be conducted for the entire company. This was shown to the CFO. As a direct result of that, the CFO invited Rivamonte to become the Director of the department.
“I’ve always been pretty innovative,” he explains. “Looking at different ways to solve problems, what are the root causes, and collaborating with the different business partners to figure out what the data is about and how we’re spending money. A lot of what drives me is understanding what the business is trying to do, what its main goals and objectives are. Collaboration is key to that.”
Procurement at AlphaSense
Before Rivamonte, procurement at AlphaSense wasn’t used as strategically as it could have been. It wanted to be ISO certified in cybersecurity. However, to do that, the business needed to put together a workflow process that projects would go into – not a procurement system, just a ticketing system. Various other departments, including finance, security, IT and legal were involved in this process. Eventually, the business talked about bringing in a procurement professional to help move the process along.
“It was all about IPO readiness,” says Rivamonte. “We wanted structure without bureaucracy. We need governance, infrastructure, and processes to enable scalability that is data-driven. My job was to build in that scalability. All the teams involved with the previous system knew it needed building out. The path was paved for me to take the company there. I’m connecting those workflow processes and automating them.”
