Leveraging Learnings from Diverse Supplier Relationships

Wednesday, 29 July 2026

Interview with Joseph DeGrazia, Head of Contracts and Procurement at Ampol

Interviewed by Paul Vorbach

Introduction

AcademyGlobal’s Sustainability and Procurement interview series feature exclusive interviews with industry pioneers driving environmental and social impact across global supply chains. This interview series is curated as a key learning resource for students undertaking the University of Queensland Diploma and Advanced Diploma procurement and contracting qualifications, as well as professionals studying with the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) on their pathway to attaining Member status (MCIPS). Explore the practical strategies, governance structures, and innovative solutions transforming modern supply chains into drivers of sustainable value.

Conversation

Paul Vorbach:

Joseph DeGrazia is an accomplished procurement and people leadership executive, currently serving as the Head of Contracts and Procurement at Ampol, Australia’s largest fuel retailer and a leader in integrated global fuel supply chains. With a diverse background spanning the energy, automotive and property sectors, Joseph brings deep cross-industry and cross-market experience to large-scale transformation programs. Joseph, it’s great to have you with us for this conversation. Welcome. Please tell us a little more about your background as you lead into the discussion on leveraging learnings from diverse supplier relationships.

Joseph DeGrazia:

Thank you, Paul, for the opportunity today. It’s good to be able to talk about diverse supplier relationships. It’s something I’m very passionate about, both at Ampol and at every company I’ve been at. I am passionate about it because, as I tell my team, it is a unique opportunity for procurement to directly support reconciliation targets just by doing our day-to-day jobs. It’s not often that we get that chance. Today, I wanted to talk about my view on how we can leverage these relationships, but also, most importantly, what the procurement function can do to bring them to life and make supplier diversity a strategic enabler for organisations.

Coming from an automotive background initially, my focus is always on process efficiency and clarity. In every organisation, I ensure that when we talk about social or Indigenous procurement, we apply a lens of strong processes, clear targets, and a defined runway forward. That sets the scene for our discussion. As background, I wanted to talk about Ampol’s journey over the last three years.

From an Indigenous-owned supplier perspective, what have we done differently? Why have we done it? And what have been some of the learnings? To set the scene, three years ago, our approach to Indigenous-owned suppliers was very much a procurement-led, “tick-the-box” mentality. We had a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) that stated we needed to engage Indigenous-owned suppliers, so we did it purely to meet that compliance requirement. Our spend was limited, around the $200,000 mark, and heavily focused on a corporate head office perspective of what could easily be sourced.

In this case, it was the promotional items category. The wider business wasn’t engaged, and the procurement team was looking for opportunities in isolation without broader stakeholder engagement. An observation I’ve had in this space is that there can often be a reluctance to provide honest feedback on pricing or proposal quality to diverse suppliers. Finally, as a result of this lack of deep engagement, we had very few case studies. We kept using the same promotional items supplier for years to explain our story, meaning we lacked diversity in our experience. That sets the scene.

When I came in three years ago, I thought, “That’s not good enough. What are we going to do differently?” There were a few things we did to evolve our approach. First, we engaged our contract owners, the people in the business who manage suppliers day-to-day and brought them on the journey. Ultimately, selecting a supplier must be a business-led decision that procurement facilitates. We can support the strategy, but the business has to live with the operational outcome of that sourcing decision.

How we did that was through education. We talked about the diverse sectors where Indigenous businesses operate and their geographical footprints. As a result, our spending went up significantly. Last year, we achieved $5 million. This year, we are at $2.93 million across 17 suppliers, and most importantly, across multiple categories, including cleaning, logistics, facilities management, and merchandise. By changing the framework, we naturally built diversity in our spend.

What stood out to me during this process was the importance of language. We often hear terms like “Indigenous suppliers” or “Aboriginal businesses,” but we made a targeted effort to shift to the term “Indigenous-owned.” One of the reasons behind this is the common misconception that an Indigenous-owned business must employ a 100% Indigenous workforce, which is statistically unrealistic when Indigenous populations in metro areas sit around 3% to 4%. Changing the language shifted the focus to ownership and commercial maturity. As I alluded to before, we addressed the reluctance to give commercial feedback. When we invited an Indigenous-owned supplier to participate in a Request for Proposal (RFP), we gave them the exact same rigorous feedback on pricing, delivery, and performance expectations as we would any other supplier. This represented a major maturity uplift for our procurement team.

On business benefit: Ampol is a supplier to corporate and Business-to-Business (B2B) clients. In most key tenders we participate in, we are evaluated on our social procurement and Indigenous business engagement, which can account for 5% to 10% of the tender score. By maturing our own supply chain, we have seen an uplift in our tender scoring, allowing us to win and retain major contracts. Finally, we now have 17 active diverse suppliers in our supply chain, providing a rich repository of case studies to share internally and externally.

In summary, we evolved our approach because it delivers clear business benefits, improves reconciliation outcomes, and ensures we get high-quality services. Supply Nation statistics show that every dollar spent with an Indigenous business delivers around $4.43 in social benefit back into the community. Most importantly, we select these businesses because they are the best suppliers to satisfy the commercial need. Ensuring our approach is sustainable, business-led, and commercially viable has driven this sustainable increase in spend.

In terms of a case study, I want to highlight a company called Aboriginal United Services (AUS), based in Perth, Western Australia. As context, Ampol delivers fuel to service stations nationwide, but we also deliver to mining sector customers in the Pilbara. We needed to expand our fuel cartage capacity from our terminal to a client site for Roy Hill, because the Pilbara is remote, supplier diversity is limited, and we wanted to find an alternative to our single existing supplier to mitigate risk.

We followed a standard procurement supplier identification process by searching Supply Nation and consulting internal networks. George McLeod, the head of our terminal business, had successfully dealt with AUS at a previous company. We vetted them to understand their capacity. Initially, we didn’t have the data to confirm that AUS could handle 100% of the volume, so we put them through our standard accreditation process but allocated them 30% of the total volume.

It is vital in procurement to think about how to build supplier capability while managing risk. Splitting the vendor load allowed AUS to develop, learn, and scale without the overwhelming operational and governance pressures of a 100% contract allocation. We signed them to our standard carrier agreement, meaning they were treated identically to all our other carriers, giving them enterprise-level experience. We implemented standard performance reporting and benchmarking, which helped both businesses develop.

The feedback from AUS was that they gained invaluable insight into operating at an enterprise rhythm, which positions them to win future work with other large corporations. The outcome for Ampol was highly successful: we resolved a monopoly supplier risk, introduced a high-performing Indigenous-owned business with traditional owner connections to the local area, and reinforced our relationship with Roy Hill. Furthermore, because Roy Hill has its own RAP targets, our engagement with AUS simultaneously supported their procurement goals. It is a prime example of how procurement can solve an operational business problem while championing supplier diversity.

Paul Vorbach:

It’s an excellent case study, thank you for being so transparent about the journey. It’s not always common for corporates or government organisations to be this open about their operational challenges and strategic solutions. This material will greatly benefit our University of Queensland Diploma and Advanced Diploma students, as well as our Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) students at Academy Global.

Many of our students struggle with this exact challenge, particularly in the public sector where policy specialists design noble targets, but operationalising them remains difficult. I like that you started with a real business problem rather than treating it as a superficial RAP compliance exercise. Engaging a senior executive like George McLeod to secure business buy-in is a key takeaway.

I also noticed your focus on maintaining commercial rigor. You didn’t alter your standard commercial or contractual expectations to accommodate their size, but you mitigated risk for both parties by starting them with a manageable portion of the work. You didn’t set them up to fail, yet you maintained the integrity of your commercial framework.

Can you expand on that negotiation process? Was it difficult to establish those boundaries? Did they require significant legal counsel or support to navigate your corporate contracts?

Joseph DeGrazia:

Those are excellent questions, Paul. There is often an industry reluctance to support a supplier that may not initially sit at an enterprise tier. To add some color to the journey: I should clarify that we actually engaged AUS as a subcontractor through Linfox initially. This gave them on-the-ground operational experience before we transitioned them to a direct contract for 30% of the volume.

Utilising a subcontracting arrangement is an excellent capability-building strategy that I highly encourage for onboarding new diverse or small-scale suppliers. When it came to the contract itself, while we held them to our standard agreements, we dedicated more time to sitting down and walking through the clauses with them than we might with an established multinational. However, we do the exact same for any new non-Indigenous small business. They received thorough onboarding, not special exemptions.

Another critical pivot our procurement team made was “normalising” our engagement with Indigenous businesses. When we work with a supplier like AUS, we talk about them internally strictly as a high-performing logistics supplier. We intentionally stop referring to them as an “Indigenous-owned business” in day-to-day operations. When teams constantly highlight a supplier’s diverse status, it inadvertently creates an internal bias that the supplier is a token appointment, or is receiving special treatment to satisfy a policy.

By calling them by their company name and focusing purely on performance, we eliminate unconscious bias. Their Indigenous-owned status is documented in our backend strategies, but operational procurement treats them normally. The feedback from the Indigenous business sector explicitly validates this approach: they want to be treated like any other commercial supplier. They have to be the best supplier for the job, and that mantra has driven our capability uplift.

Paul Vorbach:

That is an excellent point. Another fascinating aspect of the case study is the mutual benefit realised by Roy Hill, as it directly advanced their own Reconciliation Action Plan. That synergy may not have been the primary objective at the outset, but it was a fantastic secondary outcome.

You also noted that as AUS delivered on this contract, they built the corporate fluency and confidence required to pitch to other global, sophisticated organisations. Have you observed visible shifts in how they conduct business development or approach new opportunities since partnering with Ampol?

Joseph DeGrazia:

We have seen a significant transformation in how they approach commercial opportunities. I spoke with them just yesterday about a new piece of work, and they arrived with a highly polished, capability-focused presentation tailored precisely to our requirements. Looking back to our initial discussions three years ago, they didn’t have those enterprise pitching capabilities ready.

They have truly evolved in how they pitch for work and how they manage enterprise-level performance. Even in a highly challenging operational environment like the Pilbara, where driver shortages and logistical constraints are constant pressures, their execution has been excellent. They delivered on their promises, which proves they have successfully scaled as a corporate partner.

Paul Vorbach:

That is a brilliant case study and a true success story. Many commercial organisations struggle to find the right formula here. The strategic, realistic approach you took, setting them up for success via subcontracting before scaling them to a direct principal contractor, is highly educational. Thank you very much, Joseph, for sharing these insights with our students.

About Joseph DeGrazia

Joseph DeGrazia is the Head of Contracts and Procurement at Ampol, Australia’s largest fuel retailer and a leader in integrated global fuel supply chains. With a diverse background spanning the energy, automotive and property sectors, Joseph brings deep cross-industry and cross-market experience to large-scale transformation programs. He is passionate about leveraging procurement to deliver reconciliation outcomes and making supplier diversity a strategic enabler for organisations.

About Paul Vorbach

Paul Vorbach MCom, LLM, MBA, FCG, F.ISRM, FAICD, FGIA is the Founding Managing Director of AcademyGlobal(AG). He has taught at post-graduate university level and for leading professional associations including the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA) and the Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA). He is Vice President of the Institute of Strategic Risk Management (ISRM) and Adjunct Academic at the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) at the University of New South Wales.

AcademyGlobal partners with public sector, private sector, and not-for-profit organisations to build the capability that underpins sustainable delivery performance. AG is the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) Centre of Excellence, and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), the first APCC-certified provider of the Procurement and Contracting qualifications through its partnership with the University of Queensland.