In this episode of The Tech Chef Podcast, Skip Kimpel welcomes Chris Herd, co-founder and CEO of Olive, the AI-powered platform that’s redefining how businesses approach vendor selection, RFPs, and strategic sourcing. Chris shares his journey from tech sales to entrepreneurship, the pain points that inspired Olive’s creation, and why the traditional RFP process is fundamentally broken.

Together, they explore how Olive eliminates bias, accelerates decisions, and empowers consultants, operators, and vendors to collaborate more effectively. Whether you’re tired of bloated spreadsheets or questioning the future of your consulting model, this conversation offers a refreshing, forward-thinking take on how to evaluate and adopt technology in a smarter way.

Key Takeaways:

The RFP Is Broken: Traditional RFPs are slow, manual, and often biased. Olive offers a collaborative, agile alternative powered by AI.

AI as an Assistant, Not a Replacement: Rather than replacing consultants, Olive empowers them to work more efficiently, scale faster, and deliver more value by automating tedious tasks.

Vendor Fairness & Objectivity: Olive doesn’t accept vendor payments, reducing bias and ensuring a level playing field in the selection process.

Smarter, Faster Decisions: From consolidating stakeholder input to auto-analyzing vendor responses, Olive dramatically shortens timelines and improves project outcomes.

Beyond Hospitality: While widely used in restaurants and hotels, Olive’s platform is industry-agnostic and scalable across enterprise sectors.

The Future of RFPs? According to Chris, the term “RFP” might be obsolete in five years. Instead, decision-making platforms will lead the way