Curt Miller, Operations Consultant at Littlejohn & Co., describes himself as a “classically trained GE” veteran.
Emerging from the Jack Welch era, Curt spent years navigating the rigorous internal audit staff and manufacturing tracks that served as the training ground for the world’s top CEOs.
Today, he applies that high-octane problem-solving to the private equity world, focusing on procurement as a strategic lever for portfolio growth.
In this episode of Evolving Industry, Curt pulled back the curtain on the pragmatic reality of value creation in the middle market.
Curt talked with us about:
Curt observed that many leaders in the middle market are initially skeptical of procurement, seeing it only as a reactive cost-cutting tool rather than a strategic lever.
“The only way that I get past that, honestly, is coming in, picking some trial projects and demonstrating the value, and then they live it themselves,” he explained.
To avoid the “purist” trap of demanding a seat at the table on day one, he advocated for building credibility through small, tangible wins like mobile phone or fleet vehicle contracts.
“Sooner or later, I end up demonstrating examples to them live. [That’s] how you win them over,” Curt hammered home.
Curt warned leaders that forcing change before proving value is a recipe for resistance. This skepticism often stems from businesses that have operated for decades without formal procurement.
Jumping straight into complex direct-spend categories can overwhelm a leadership team that doesn't yet understand the “power of the collective.”
“Half of it is numbers,” he said. “The other half is [that] people have to want to work with you again. You can’t be a bull in a china shop.”
One of the most critical elements of industrial sourcing is what Curt called his “special sauce,” the partnership between operational excellence and subject matter expertise.
He pointed to a common mistake where consultants try to “fake it” without respecting the deep knowledge of the people already in the business.
“I’m still going in and sourcing categories that I have never done before,” Curt argued, citing his recent work with wholesale food distribution contracts. “The process that you follow is always the same [even if] the content is very different.”
This approach has led to massive organizational shifts. By winning over internal experts, Curt can introduce operational excellence into their subject matter expertise without burying the business in bad decisions.
“You really have to partner with them directly. I’m not all-knowing,” he acknowledged. “I’ll get in and play ball. I’ll show you how it's done. I'll do the actual negotiations.”
To bridge the gap between finance and operations, Curt used his engineering background to rely on pattern recognition and the “supercharged problem-solving” he learned at GE.
By acting as a peer on the factory floor rather than a voice from the ivory tower, he ensured that procurement strategies are sustainable long after the private equity firm exits.
While Curt is a veteran of traditional systems, he has come to see AI as a massive productivity multiplier that is currently revolutionizing the “Wild West” of procurement.
Unlike previous undertakings that failed to drive results, he believes AI is now providing pragmatic, value-driven outcomes in contract management.
“Just in general, I’m probably two to three times more productive,” he suggested. “A contract review could take you half a day to a day... Now, it takes you 15, 30 minutes. It's [light] years faster”
Since modern tools can now ingest thousands of documents to flag problematic clauses, leaders can automate the mundane tasks that once stalled procurement cycles.
This efficiency allows professionals to focus on higher-level strategy rather than getting bogged down in administrative minutiae.
Ultimately, Miller believes the goal of private equity isn't to reach an unattainable “best-in-class” status immediately, but to focus on continuous, incremental improvement.
That notion was reinforced by an old colleague of his at Cerberus Capital: that the market often misjudges the value of simple, steady progress in favor of flashy transformations.
“There’s an awful lot of money to be made from taking a company that’s really bad and making them only ‘slightly less bad,’” Curt recalled. “We’ve only got to be better than what we bought it at.”
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