Visionaries Council

Jim has been a Senior Advisor with Greybeard Advisors LLC since 2005. His most recent corporate role was as Vice President of Global Information Technology Procurement for Reed Elsevier, a New York based publisher / information provider. Prior to that, as Director of Technical and Services Procurement for Bayer Corporation at its US Headquarters in Pittsburgh, he led IT sourcing teams in NAFTA and globally. Jim also has extensive experience in IT Management and a successful career in IT sales. He’s conceived and successfully implemented both corporate and international sourcing strategies for Indirect Materials and Services to manage and reduce total cost of ownership. Other achievements in Procurement include developing and institutionalizing an international contracting process and associated negotiations training. His client engagements include overseeing numerous sourcing teams ranging from fleet management, to all aspects of IT, to marketing, as well as being a SSNM trainer.

Jim served on several industry association advisory boards and community associations in various capacities including the Institute for Supply Management, Society of Information Managers, and the Board of Governors of the Joint Chemical Group of Pittsburgh the Executive Committee of the Chemical Association of Pittsburgh Executive Committee, Chemical Processor Directors – Information Technology Subgroup. Some of his speaking engagements include Marcus Evans, the Institute for Supply Management, IACCM, the Center for Business Intelligence and the Pharmaceuticals Technology Congress.

Lee Garbowitz has over twenty years of procurement, operations, and commercialization experience, working at GE, McKinsey, Honeywell, and Cadbury. He began his career in 1988 when he joined GE’s Manufacturing Management Program. Since then, Mr. Garbowitz has held a series of leadership positions including Indirect Procurement leader at Honeywell, Engagement Manager at McKinsey, and Chief Procurement Officer of Cadbury NA. Mr. Garbowitz also played a leadership role in creating GE’s eAuction program while working as part of GE’s Corporate Initiatives Group. Lee earned his bachelor’s of science degree in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon, his MBA in Finance and International Business from New York University, and has been recognized a Top 25 Supply Chain Executive by Supply Chain Technology magazine.

Mr. Huber is Director of CPO Services for TPI. Bill joined TPI in 2006 following a successful career as a sourcing leader spanning four Global 500 companies with responsibility for all areas of outsourcing and procured services. Since joining TPI, Bill has led strategy and implementation initiatives in the manufacturing, financial services, energy, construction, consumer products and life sciences industries, result­ing in both internal and outsourced solutions.

Bill worked in several senior management positions in the financial services industry before joining TPI. He was Senior Vice Presi­dent of Outsourcing Strategy and Governance, SVP/Chief Procurement Officer and Head of Strategic Sourcing, and VP/Head of IT Sourcing at Wachovia. As Senior Vice President Outsourcing Strategy and Governance, Bill completed the enterprise service delivery transformation strategy for Wachovia Corporation. The transformation included an enterprise offshore strategy, multi-process human resources outsourcing, and the establishment of a large virtual captive offshore solution for business and knowledge processes. As Chief Procurement Officer & Head of Strategic Sourcing, he was responsible for procurement transformation and attained more than US$300 million in annualized savings, led merger integration and rationalization activities, implemented a leading sourcing management system and outsourced facilities management for office towers.

Bill holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government from Dartmouth College, and a Master of Business Administration degree in International Business from the University of Bridgeport. He completed additional post-graduate work in Accounting at Western Connecticut State University. Bill was two term Chairman of the Board for the International Association for Contract and Commercial Management and currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Sourcing Interests Group.

Mike Wilding is Vice President-Accounting and Chief Procurement Officer at Rent-A-Center, Inc. In this role he assists the Rent-A-Center finance team with interpretation and implementation of applicable accounting policies, principles and standards. Mike also serves as a technical advisor and business process improvement counselor on special financial and information technology projects. In December 2009, he was appointed as Chief Procurement Officer and now leads the newly established Spend Management Organization at Rent-A-Center.

Prior to joining Rent-A-Center, Mike spent 15-years in public accounting with Grant Thornton. Among the leadership roles he held at Grant Thornton are director of operations in the Dallas office and director of the international business center-assurance/auditing for the central region. He also served two years in Grant Thornton’s Leeds, England, office where he was the U.S. GAAP/GAAS help desk for the Grant Thornton offices in Northern Europe. Mike is a graduate of the University of Utah. He is a certified public accountant and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.