Over her years in procurement, Sandy Slinker has developed a reputation as an innovator. “I am most interested in forward looking strategy for what labor needs to look like in the future.” As the global sourcing manager, Slinker oversees the MSP program at Intel.

Facing the challenge of country expansion for Intel’s CW program, Slinker picked the country with the toughest requirements first. She recalls thinking, “If we could do it there, we could do it anywhere.” Through Slinker’s tenacity and innovative mindset, Intel’s program has expanded into 22 countries across four continents.

Under her leadership, the CW program has shifted from sourcing primarily administrative needs to around 80% of roles fulfilling engineering or R&D-related work, which was previously considered too specialized to utilize CW. Slinker drove this change by proof of concept, acquiring small wins and then expanding into more specialized skillsets.

As she thinks about the changing landscape of the workforce, Slinker sees opportunity to reduce documentation and lighten structure toward a more scalable freelance model where workers can be located anywhere. She mulls, “How do we get to a workforce that is more on demand, but on a large scale? Talent is talent is talent, no matter where they are located.” Slinker has seen this play out through the way Intel adapted to the Covid-19 pandemic. They learned that “people can do good work and communicate effectively even when not in person.” With Slinker paving the way, Intel will be ready for the CW of the future.