Vladimir Keil
Author
New York, 10.04.2026
Lio, the world’s first multi agent system for enterprise procurement, today announced the appointment of Jared Petras, effective April 13, 2026. Petras joins from Walmart, where he served as Senior Director of Digital Transformation for Procurement and led the company’s engagement with Lio an engagement that ultimately led him to join the company he helped bring on board.
In his new role, Petras will spearhead Lio’s go to market strategy across North America, leveraging his extensive network across Fortune 100 companies and a career long background in enterprise procurement. His appointment marks a significant step in Lio’s US expansion following its $30M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Petras’s path to Lio reflects a rare convergence of vision and timing.
Agentic Procurement
For years, he had developed a concept he described internally as an “agentic procurement neuronetwork”, a system designed to understand users within their organizational context and autonomously execute work on their behalf. After an extended search for a company building that vision, he found it in a conversation with Lio CEO Vladimir Keil last October. Shortly after, discussions about joining the team began.
“What Jared brings isn’t a rolodex. It’s credibility,”
said Vladimir Keil, CEO and Co Founder of Lio.
“He’s operated at the highest level of enterprise procurement, he’s seen what our agents do from the inside, and he thought about this problem long before he met us. That’s exactly the person you want opening doors in the US market.”
“I would not have made this move for any other company,”
said Petras.
“I began my career as a buyer, progressed to leading global categories, and ultimately led digital transformation across Walmart’s global procurement operations. I’ve spent years navigating the complexity of procurement at scale, with experience spanning organizations of varying size and maturity. I understand what this problem actually feels like because I’ve experienced it firsthand across every level of procurement. I am bringing that perspective to Lio to help enterprises transition to a more autonomous, AI-driven procurement model and to continue shaping the product through a practitioner lens.”
Lio’s multi agent system currently manages billions in enterprise spend across dozens of Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies, delivering an 85% reduction in manual procurement work, 10% incremental savings, and a 93% reduction in BPO costs while maintaining 100% customer retention.
Unlike copilot or SaaS layer solutions, Lio deploys on top of existing ERP infrastructure, enabling enterprises to transform procurement operations without rip and replace implementations.
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