Umbrex is pleased to welcome Adrian Blake with Portrane House.  Adrian spent five years as a digital specialist at Partners in Performance, focusing on using digital tools to drive Operational Improvement. Prior to PiP, Adrian led the Advertising Business Group of DTN in its turnaround for private equity investors, including serving as Publisher of The Progressive Farmer, the world’s biggest agricultural magazine. He spent 6 years at McKinsey & Co., specializing in Media & Entertainment. He began his career in the Entertainment industry,…

Michael Wise recently co-authored this article for McKinsey that explores how best-practice purchasing is now an even more potent source of value creation for private-equity leaders. A careful review of purchasing is typically part of any private-equity (PE) playbook, with procurement savings factoring prominently into 100-day and longer-term business plans. As part of the process, procurement professionals are typically charged with finding and acting on low-hanging opportunities like requesting price reductions and volume discounts from suppliers. Leading PE firms are adopting…