334: Rewind - The Story of a Procurement Fraud w/ Sylvain Mansotte

For the rest of August, I’m taking a road trip across the United States, and so because I’m out of the recording studio, I’m going to dip into the archive all the way back to 2016 to share some of my favorite episodes from that year with you that are still just as relevant as today - and if you found the podcast after 2016, there’s a good chance that you haven’t yet heard these conversations.

Today’s is a conversation with former procurement practitioner Sylvain Mansottee, now the CEO and Co-Founder of Whispli. It is a story about procurement fraud.

 

As a practitioner, Sylvain received the call from the newly appointed CPO of a large Australian based construction company to assist in building a new procurement function.  

Within 2 months, he had uncovered a $20M fraud that spanned 12 years and led to the perpetrator admitting to the crime, and ultimately being sentenced to 15 years prison.

Today’s Art of Procurement is Sylvain’s story.  Sylvain discusses how he uncovered the fraud, and the decisions he had to make in blowing the whistle.

We then talk more specifically about procurement fraud.  Sylvain shares a number of fraud red flags and provides tips on how you can ensure you have an environment where a whistleblower feels safe in coming forward if they have information to share.

Sylvain’s story is really absorbing, and also, for me, a wakeup call to realize that procurement fraud is real, and that any one of us in procurement may find ourselves in the same position as Sylvain given the nature of our roles.