Olivier Ponton is the CPO for Europe at Air Liquide, where he manages a procurement team of approximately 250 professionals operating across 17 countries. His current work focuses on procurement strategy, process optimization, and the digital transformation of the procurement function. He is passionated about Procurement, AI and new technologies. Prior to his current position, Olivier served as Air Liquide's Group Transformation Director for Procurement and as CPO of its Global Healthcare division, where created the "Explor!" Center of Expertise for medical devices. Before joining Air Liquide, he was the Chief Procurement Officer at Gibela Rail Transport Consortium in South Africa and held several procurement director roles at Alstom. Earlier in his career, he gained supply chain and purchasing experience working in the Airbus Group and L'Oréal. Olivier holds degrees in Engineering from Centrale Paris (Advanced Systems, AI) and University of Stuttgart in Germany (Cybernetic), with a specialization in Procurement at the ESCP Europe Business School.