VP Global Procurement Solutions at Pacific Life, Michael McKenna is delivering procurement transformation on a massive scale…
Pacific Life is a Fortune 250 company headquartered in Newport Beach, California and has been supporting policy holders for nearly 160 years. Pacific Life provides a variety of products and services designed to help individuals and businesses in the retail, institutional, workforce benefits and reinsurance markets, achieve financial security. Whether their goal is to protect loved ones or grow their assets for retirement, Pacific Life offers innovative life insurance and annuity solutions, as well as mutual funds, that provide value and financial security for current and future generations.
When Michael McKenna joined the team, procurement capabilities existed across multiple business divisions, geographies, and operating models. While talented teams were delivering locally, the organisation lacked a single global framework for supplier management, spend visibility, third-party risk, and strategic sourcing.
As a result, in 2025, the procurement function at Pacific Life decided to develop a new identity as Global Procurement Solutions (GPS). As an integral part of the wider journey that Pacific Life is on, GPS aims to operate in a more holistic, unified way across the globe and over the last 16 months has worked hard to create a foundation for that goal.
Moving from a structure where each function focused on a single entity, to a multi-functional approach was challenging, with some teams going from having 300 stakeholders in one country, to 5,000 in eight countries. GPS therefore brought procurement teams together that had previously worked in silos, finding synergy between them and developing new opportunities through collaborative working, which they could build on in the future. GPS now works with shared central divisions, which represents a fundamental change from Pacific Life’s former procurement model.
From fragmentation to global scale
The organisation started its transformation by aligning category management and sourcing, supplier management, procure-to-pay, and third-party risk management under a common operating model while expanding support across Pacific Life’s insurance and global reinsurance businesses. At the same time, GPS introduced new governance structures, clarified roles and responsibilities, and established more consistent ways of working across functions and geographies. “Transformation starts with transparency,” says McKenna. “You need visibility into spend, suppliers, contracts and risk before you can make better decisions.”
Building the digital foundation
One of the most significant accomplishments during the transformation has been the expansion of Pacific Life’s procurement technology capabilities and the continued globalisation of its procure-to-pay processes. GPS focused on creating more consistent purchasing disciplines, improving supplier data quality and increasing visibility into enterprise spend. By bringing together information that was previously dispersed across jurisdictions and business units, the team has strengthened decision-making and enabled more strategic supplier conversations. The result is a function that can collaborate with business leaders using data rather than assumptions, helping Pacific Life make more informed decisions about supplier investments, commercial models and risk.
Modernising third-party risk management
While efficiency gains are important, Pacific Life operates in a highly regulated industry where resilience and risk management are equally critical. GPS therefore devoted substantial effort to modernising third-party risk management practices. Working collaboratively with Legal, Operational Risk & Resilience, Internal Audit, and business stakeholders, the team reassessed risk methodologies and streamlined assessments while continuing to build a more scalable and risk-aware approach to supplier oversight.
Rather than treating every supplier engagement identically, the organisation has increasingly focused on matching review rigor to actual risk exposure. “Our objective is simple,” McKenna explains. “We want strong risk management without unnecessary friction. If we can improve both control effectiveness and user experience at the same time, that’s a win for the enterprise.”