Kate Vitasek


Kate Vitasek
Faculty, Graduate & Executive
  • Category: Supernova Hall of Fame
  • Year: 2018


Kate Vitasek

The first five inductees into the Supernova Hall of Fame included: 

  • Lawrence Kane, Senior Leader, Strategic Sourcing Functional Excellence & First Time Quality, Boeing 

  • Deborah Manos-McHenry, Chief Sourcing Officer, Huntington National Bank 

  • Greg Tennyson, Chief Procurement Officer, VSP Global 

  • Linda Tuck Chapman, President, Ontala Performance Solutions 

  • Kate Vitasek, Author and Faculty, University of Tennessee 

Kate's Biography

Kate Vitasek is an international authority for her award-winning research and Vested® business model for highly collaborative relationships. Vitasek, a faculty member at the University of Tennessee, has been lauded by World Trade Magazine as one of the “Fabulous 50+1” most influential people impacting global commerce. Her work has led to six books, including Vested Outsourcing: Five Rules That Will Transform Outsourcing; Vested: How P&G, McDonald’s and Microsoft Are Redefining Winning in Business Relationships; and Getting to We: Negotiating Agreements for Highly Collaborative Relationships. Vitasek and her work have also been featured on CNN International, Bloomberg, NPR and on Fox Business News.   

Accomplishments

  • Author/co-author of six books, including: Vested Outsourcing: Five Rules That Will Transform Outsourcing; Vested: How P&G, McDonald’s and Microsoft Are Redefining Winning in Business Relationships; and Getting to We: Negotiating Agreements for Highly Collaborative Relationships.   

  • Kate’s work has been featured in over 300 articles and she has been featured on CNN International, Bloomberg, NPR and on Fox Business News challenging organizations to use more progressive procurement practices such as Sourcing Business Model theory and Vested outsourcing for large outsourcing relationships. 

  • Decision to make much of our research and work open source, enabling organizations to more easily adopt the progressive practices and concepts developed as part of Kate’s research. 

  • 20 universities and three professional associations (including SIG) have embedded Kate’s work into their teachings. For example, SIG University’s CSP course teaches Sourcing Business Model theory.