Helping broadband service providers simplify, innovate and grow
DRIVING SMART SOURCING
Iwan Kwak on Building a Resilient, Tech-Enabled Procurement Future at Calix
In an era where supply chain agility and innovation are more critical than ever, Iwan Kwak is leading the charge at Calix by reimagining what sourcing can and should look like. As AVP of Sourcing, he brings a career shaped by global operational expertise and a passion for continuous improvement. Under his leadership, the sourcing function has become a strategic enabler, supporting Calix’s mission to help broadband service providers simplify, innovate, and grow communities.
In this interview, Iwan shares how his team is leveraging AI, risk intelligence platforms, and cross functional collaboration to drive greater value, compliance, and sustainability. From proactive supplier risk mitigation to long term partner development and future focused investments in generative AI, he offers a clear eyed view of what it takes to stay ahead in a fast moving, highly technical procurement landscape.
Professional Journey
Can you share your career path and what led you to your current role as AVP of Sourcing at Calix?
I began my career in Customer Care with Lucent Technologies, followed by operational roles in supply chain, sales operations, material planning, fulfillment, and program management.
While most roles in the supply chain can be very gratifying, I gravitated early on toward Sourcing. It requires a person to gain expertise in multiple business areas and to build strong partnerships both cross functionally and with external third parties. My first sourcing role came in 2004, when Avaya centralised international procurement in the UK. In 2007, I relocated to the US and managed Avaya’s Contract Manufacturing business, followed by roles overseeing OEMs, raw materials, and NPI program management.
In 2016, I joined an embedded computing company in Oregon, leading the supply chain organisation. This was a great opportunity to put into practice everything I had learned throughout my career to date.
Talking to procurement leaders at cross industry events, I’ve come to really appreciate having landed in the technology sector. The constantly changing environment allows for continuous learning. For my next move, I knew I wanted to stay in tech but I was looking for a company with a growth mindset and the right culture. Calix checked all these boxes, and I was fortunate to have the opportunity in 2020 to lead Sourcing and Procurement Operations
Calix supports a wide range of broadband providers from traditional BSPs like WWZ in Switzerland, to wholesale operators such as CityFibre in the UK, Eurofiber in Germany, to over the top experience providers like LitFibre. We work with municipal networks, tribal operators, and rural cooperatives. That variety means we must be globally scalable, regionally agile, and capable of supporting providers at very different stages of growth and complexity.
Sourcing at Calix
How does the Sourcing function at Calix support the company’s mission to help broadband service providers innovate to deliver experiences and grow value for the communities they serve?
The Calix mission is to enable broadband service providers (BSPs) of all sizes to simplify their operations, innovate for their subscribers, and grow value for themselves and their communities. Sourcing plays a pivotal role in aligning our suppliers to that mission. We help foster the right partnerships, ensuring that innovative technologies are delivered in a timely and cost competitive manner, while maintaining a strong focus on sustainability and efficiency across our supply chains.
We ensure access to forward looking solutions that BSPs can leverage to deliver differentiated value. These technologies support experiences across residential, business, and community markets, enabling smaller, rural communities to thrive. Many of our customers began as electric cooperatives. While they’ve evolved to deliver broadband connectivity, their core mission remains the same: to do good for their communities.
Sourcing at Calix identifies, evaluates, and collaborates with Product Line Leadership and Engineering to adopt innovative components and systems. With the right technologies and well developed partner relationships, we deliver impactful solutions that empower our BSP customers to simplify, innovate, and grow.
We also recognise the importance of sustainability for the communities we support. By prioritising environmentally responsible suppliers and materials, the Sourcing function helps our BSPs reduce their carbon footprint and promote green initiatives.
Sustainable Procurement Practices
With Calix’s emphasis on empowering smart communities, what sustainable procurement practices have you implemented that align with broader environmental and social goals?
As part of our commitment to society and our people, Calix appointed Martha Galley as our Chief Sustainability Officer. Martha is a pioneer in broadband, known for her expert leadership in driving customer engagement through data driven strategies and a strong focus on the broadband experience. She brings strategic vision to ensure that sustainability is not only part of Procurement but embedded in everything we do at Calix.
Sustainability is a core element of our supplier onboarding process. Most Calix suppliers not only participate in EcoVadis self assessments but also receive recognition for completing training through the EcoVadis Academy. By partnering with EcoVadis, the world’s most trusted provider of sustainability ratings, we create transparency within our supplier network and work toward a more sustainable future for all.
We’ve made clear commitments across three focus areas. First, through leadership and compliance, Calix audits suppliers to ensure alignment with our Code of Conduct. Second, sustainability is embedded into every step of the supply chain, from onboarding to continuous performance reviews, fostering a culture of ongoing improvement. And third, our supply chain and sourcing managers are trained in sustainability and are empowered to innovate and improve products and processes.
We also provide our suppliers with access to the EcoVadis Academy and actively encourage them to use these tools to drive continuous improvement, focusing on areas such as environmental practices, labour and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement.
Supplier Relationship Management
What strategies do you use to build and maintain long-term, value-driven relationships with suppliers in a highly technical and competitive landscape?
Building long term, value driven relationships is critical to maintaining a resilient supply chain. It begins with selecting the right suppliers, a task that is often more complex than it seems.
While the fundamentals like technical capabilities, quality, certifications, footprint, and financial stability are essential, once those appliances are checked, it ultimately comes down to relationship building. And like all meaningful relationships, it takes time, honesty, clear expectations, trust (with some degree of “trust but verify”), and frequent, open feedback
We focus on maximising the time we spend with our suppliers. We want them to feel like an extension of our team because our success is their success. By sharing more about why we do what we do, we enable suppliers to suggest solutions we may not have otherwise considered, and to reframe discussions around cost reductions. For example, reducing costs enables us to sell more appliances, which ultimately results in more appliances for them to manufacture.
We’ve also designed our business performance scorecard to make it easier for suppliers to understand how they’re being evaluated. It allows them to see exactly where they stand and how they rank against others. This level of transparency has increased competition, boosted performance, and strengthened trust.
In the end, collaboration, clear communication, and mutual investment are key to fostering trust and achieving shared goals. These partnerships must be nurtured because when done right, they become a powerful source of competitive advantage and long term success.
Supplier Risk Management
How do you assess and mitigate supply chain risks, especially in the context of geopolitical tensions, component shortages, or regulatory changes?
Supply chain challenges are inevitable in today’s dynamic environment, but we manage them through proactive assessment, strategic mitigation efforts, and strong supplier collaboration. Continuous communication with our suppliers, who are upstream and often closer to potentially impactful events—ensures that we receive timely information to inform our Supplier Risk Management (SRM) strategies and address material shortages effectively.
Proactive risk management is part of our DNA. We’ve developed a dashboard that provides visibility into all risk areas critical to our operations. We also leverage tools from industry leading partners for business continuity planning, cybersecurity, ESG monitoring, and financial health, such as Rapid Ratings for financial analysis and Resilinc’s Resiliency Risk Score for operational insights. These tools proactively push risk data to our supplier managers so they can act quickly and with precision.
In 2021, we implemented Resilinc, a global leader in supply chain risk intelligence. Their autonomous AI driven solution helps predict disruptions, evaluate their impact, suggest response strategies, and support execution. With this platform, we often notify our manufacturers of potential risks to their operations before they’re even aware of them.
Alongside technology, we use traditional methods like product and raw material buffers, and have started expanding regional manufacturing. For Calix, supply chain risk management is not just an operational necessity, it is a strategic advantage in a volatile world.
Technology and Procurement Integration
How has Calix integrated digital tools or platforms into its sourcing and procurement processes to improve efficiency, visibility, and compliance?
Process compliance is a critical component of procurement at Calix, and we’ve implemented a range of digital tools and third party services to automate compliance checks, ensuring that all sourcing and procurement activities meet our internal standards and ethical guidelines.
We leverage the Supply Chain Management module within our ERP software suite to simplify and accelerate supplier onboarding and procurement compliance. This system works in tandem with our Supplier Risk Management platform, allowing us to evaluate suppliers before they are approved for purchasing. Together, these tools not only ensure process compliance but also provide the visibility needed to identify opportunities for cost savings and process improvements.
Additionally, we use an AI supported contract lifecycle management platform for contract negotiations. This system streamlines document control, e-signatures, and secure digital contracts, while also offering analytics and automated alerts for both Procurement and Legal teams.
Partnerships and Collaborations
Can you discuss how Calix engages with strategic partners and suppliers to co-innovate or drive joint value creation in product development or supply chain initiatives?
Strategic collaborations thrive when built with a long term mindset. This level of commitment fosters deeper integration, greater innovation, and the ability to overcome challenges collaboratively.
By sharing our current product lifecycle, long term roadmap vision, and software ecosystem requirements with our ODM and silicon partners, we enable them to adjust development schedules and prioritise design features that align with our market and customer needs. This collaborative approach drives value in the form of increased customer retention and market competitiveness, while also ensuring meaningful value generation for our partners.
Our investments in risk mitigation tools such as Resilinc’s EventWatch also provide significant advantages to our contract manufacturers by alerting them to potential disruptions within their supply chains. These proactive insights allow all parties to respond quickly and efficiently, strengthening our collective resilience and agility.
Adaptability in Procurement
How does your sourcing team stay agile and resilient in response to rapid market shifts, such as changes in telecom infrastructure needs or global logistics disruptions?
We continuously monitor changes in market dynamics to anticipate and respond effectively to new challenges. With limited resources, we rely on multiple digital platforms to push critical information to the right stakeholders, enabling faster reaction times to supply chain disruptions, geopolitical risks, and environmental impacts.
Business continuity planning is part of our annual planning cycle not just a check the box exercise. We conduct simulations to test our preparedness, and we expect the same from our suppliers. We don’t just ask for documented processes, we verify and test them to ensure real world effectiveness.
In today’s volatile global environment, scenario planning is a top priority. We proactively explore potential disruptions and build contingency plans in advance. Our digital platforms provide rapid alerts, so we make sure mitigation strategies are ready to activate as needed.
A well trained team is key to our resilience. Calix provides ongoing training in areas such as emerging technologies, negotiation techniques, and risk management, ensuring our sourcing professionals are equipped to handle complex challenges with confidence.
In 2024, Calix was ranked 16th out of 140,000 companies in the electronics, telecom, and semiconductor industries for supply chain excellence by Resilinc, a global leader in supply chain risk intelligence. This recognition reflects our proactive and holistic approach to building a resilient and agile supply chain.
We continuously monitor changes in market dynamics to anticipate and respond effectively to new challenges.
Team Development and Knowledge Sharing
What initiatives do you have in place to ensure continuous learning, upskilling, and collaboration within your sourcing and procurement teams?
At Calix, we are committed to ensuring that employees continuously learn and grow throughout their careers. We recognise that skill development can take many forms, including formal education, hands on experience, feedback, and coaching.
We provide team members with a wide range of learning resources and subscriptions to help deepen their knowledge whether it relates to their current scope of responsibility or supports a desire to grow into new areas of the business.
Within the Sourcing and Procurement function, our entire Supply Chain organisation is provided with membership to the Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM). This membership offers access to certifications and credentials that can be achieved through online courses and certificate programmes, supporting both professional development and industry best practice.
Future Vision for Sourcing at Calix
Looking ahead, what are your key priorities for evolving the sourcing function at Calix, particularly in areas like sustainability, digital transformation, or supplier collaboration?
I’m particularly interested in solutions that make greater use of artificial intelligence to process data and deliver insights, or even actions, in real time or near real time.
Accelerating supplier onboarding and controlling off contract spend are important goals. An AI driven solution that can integrate data sources and establish relationships across databases would provide much deeper insight into supplier disruptions, geopolitical risks, supply constraints, cost reduction opportunities, value engineering initiatives, and design input to support greater manufacturing automation and potential nearshoring strategies.
Generative AI has the potential to transform how we work. It can help automate tasks, analyse vast datasets, and support better decision making ultimately driving efficiency, cost savings, and risk reduction. I envision this capability enabling sourcing teams to conduct rapid should-cost analysis, perform early design iterations based on high level requirements, improve BOM grading for lifecycle and multi source resilience, and evaluate regulatory risks more effectively.
These are exciting times for sourcing, and with the increased flow of data and intelligence comes a new challenge: deciding how to harness that information and turn it into value generating actions for the business.
Calix is a cloud, platform, and managed services company helping broadband providers simplify operations, engage subscribers, and drive growth. Its end-to-end solutions empower providers of all sizes to leverage data, deliver exceptional experiences, and transform communities, supporting continuous innovation through a collaborative ecosystem focused on long-term success and value.
Iwan Kwak AVP Sourcing