Frans Barends is the Chief Procurement Officer and Sr. Director of Procurement & Business Services at the Georgia Institute of Technology, managing Purchasing, Accounts Payable, Travel, Insurance, Assets and Logistics.
Frans has a Bachelor of Sciences degree from West Point in Engineering and Economics and served in the United States Army in Europe, the Middle East and United States and was awarded 2 Bronze Stars during Desert Storm.  He has the CPSM and lifetime C.P.M. certifications and is a Six Sigma Green Belt.
After leaving the Military, he worked in Supply Chain positions across industries including, Leaf Inc. and Hershey - Food Industry, UtiliCorp United – Energy and Utilities, MA Mortenson, Construction and Dartmouth College before coming to Georgia Tech. Prior to Georgia Tech Frans was the Director of Procurement and Auxiliary Services at Dartmouth College.   
Across industries, he has focused on process improvement, organizational redesign and system enhancement and integrations.  Over the last 15 years he has conducted ERP implementations and upgrades with PeopleSoft and Oracle, and multiple eBusiness, Imaging and travel and expense system implementations. His experience includes leadership, personnel development and change management in the office and in field. His Supply Chain experience includes Procurement, Warehousing, Manufacturing and Logistics. Additionally, he has experience in project management, organization and process design, integrated operations and team building.
While at Georgia Tech he has led changes to the organizational structure and processes by implementing a range of systems including a full eBusiness Procure-to-Pay SciQuest Suite, electronic Travel and Expense system, Integrated Imaging storage and workflows, eSourcing, electronic vendor registrations and Spend Analytics.  Georgia Tech achieved a rare 100% Federal Audit score on the recent Contractor Purchasing System Review (CPSR).
He was recently the Keynote Speaker at ProcureCon Asia 2016 in Singapore.
He enjoys travel, the outdoors, water activities and sports and has traveled to more than 35 countries.  He played on the winning U.S. team for the 1985 European Amateur Rugby 7’s Championship in Berlin.