Leaders in Tech and Ecommerce

Andrew Kirkwood is Chief Executive Officer at BluJay Solutions. With 25 years of experience in the supply chain and SaaS market, Andrew provides leadership to the BluJay organization through the creation of vision, strategic, tactical, and financial plans, along with organizational and goal development, performance measurement, and liaising with stakeholders. He joined BluJay in January 2019 after a successful 14-year career at RedPrairie and JDA Software (now BlueYonder) in a number of senior roles.

BluJay Solutions helps companies around the world achieve excellence in logistics and trade compliance - it’s in our DNA. Through a blend of Data, Networks, and Applications, delivered in the BluJay Way, our DNA platform powers the Frictionless Supply Chain for thousands of the world’s leading manufacturers, retailers, distributors, freight forwarders, customs brokers, carriers, and logistics service providers – 7,500+ customers. BluJay conducts business in 112 countries, has 1,200+ employees worldwide, and powers a global network of over 50,000 customers, carriers, freight forwarders, and service providers. With BluJay, 1.9 billion transportation transactions are processed, and 4.5 billion boxes shipped annually. Over 58 million electronic customs declarations are cleared annually using BluJay’s global customs solutions.

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Some of the highlights of the episode:

• [08:14] The collaboration between LLamasoft and BluJay
• [12:09] Creating a freight market index with spot capacity pricing and made it available to everyone – this lead to keeping prices down for the consumers.
• [13:11] 40% volume search spike in demand on their transportation solution – this made the Christmas period look insignificant.
• [14:20] BluJay has 1300 associates working remotely –  just finished their first quarter and they exceeded all of our targets
• [23:24] Releasing 5 new products during lockdown – the importance of innovation – hackathons and collaboration with partners
• [26:12] A culture based on transparency: “A problem shared is a problem solved”

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Pascal Bensoussan is the Chief Product Officer Ivalua. He leads the global R&D team at Ivalua, encompassing Product Management, Design, Data Science, and all Engineering activities, with responsibilities over the overall vision, strategy, roadmap, development, and go-to-market plans for Ivalua’s cloud-based Source-to-Pay platform.

Pascal brings 23 years of experience leading product strategy and development at Enterprise SaaS companies. Most recently, Pascal served as CPO at Reputation.com helping grow revenue 5x during his 4-year tenure.

Ivalua was founded in 2000 on a disruptive idea: that Procurement can unlock significant strategic value from a company’s spend and supply chain.  19  years later, we have helped over 300 leading companies achieve a competitive advantage by strategically managing over USD 500 Billion in spend.

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Some of the highlights of the episode:

• [07:15] Ivalua is a single code base platform. What are the advantages?
• [10:14] The city of New York using Ivalua to find suppliers for their 6 mil/week demand for masks
• [18:09] Using computer vision and machine learning in contract management
• [22:25] Creating the biggest directory of suppliers and connecting them with customers
• [29:35] The important skills for Ivalua when hiring
• [35:35] Leading by example and growth mindset vs fixed mindset

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Michael Farlekas joined E2open in 2015 as President & Chief Executive Officer. In this role, he is responsible for leading the company’s overall operations, with direct oversight of sales, marketing, professional services, research and development, and strategy. Michael brings to E2open more than 20 years of sales, marketing, and leadership experience in supply chain management and enterprise software. 

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, E2open employs more than 2,300 people in across the U.S., Europe and Asia having operations in more 170 countries worldwide.

E2open is bringing together data from customers, distribution channels, suppliers, contract manufacturers, and logistics partners. Their collaborative and agile supply chain platform enables companies to use data in real-time, with artificial intelligence and machine learning to drive smarter decisions.

Serving more than 250 of the largest 2000 enterprises globally across a broad range of industries, including high tech, CPG, industrial manufacturing, pharmaceutical, automotive, aerospace and defense, and oil and gas.

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Some of the highlights of the episode:

• Why does E2open have over 240k trading partners
• Connecting multiple applications to create one process across the end to end supply chain
• Manufacturers over the past 40 years have transformed themselves into brand owners
• Value add business vs data providing business.
• Building long term roadmaps for clients – from business release 1 to 40
• Growing the business 5x since 2015 from 75 mil USD to 380 mil USD in revenue
• E2open’s hiring and promotion principles 

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Tom Raftery is a Global VP for SAP, an Innovation Evangelist, Futurist, and an international Keynote speaker. Tom is responsible for demonstrating the vital importance the Innovation has for enterprises and SAP's strategy and vision to enable organizations to realise the benefits. 

Prior to joining SAP, Tom worked for a number of companies at Group IT Manager/CTO level, and as an Industry Analyst. Tom is also a regular Guest Lecturer at the International Instituto San Telmo Business School in Seville. Tom is also the creator and host of The Digital Supply Chain podcast discussing thought leadership, best practices, and the latest innovations in delivering a sustainable supply chain.

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Some of the highlights of the episode:

• Using solar energy and electric cars
• Substituting electricity for diesel in buses
• Prioritizing energy efficiency and zero-emission
• The cost of wind energy has fallen 50% since 2012, solar has fallen 87%  and lithium-ion batteries 90%.
• How the crisis shifts the organization’s agenda towards energy efficiency and sustainability

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Gabe Perez is one of the first 30 Coupa employees and has worn multiple hats in various roles which include Presales, Implementations, Sales Management, and Marketing to name a few. Has been a key player in Coupa’s IPO team that helped make Coupa be a hit through increasing their share value by almost 10X ongoing. 

As the Vice President of Asia Pacific, he has led the team in growing the Asia business by 300%.   

Coupa Sofware a leader in cloud-based spend management, recently announced that its customers have connected and done business with more than five million unique suppliers through Coupa’s Open Business Network™. Coupa continues to have one of the largest business networks in the world, which encompasses customers and suppliers doing business in more than 100 countries.

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Some of the highlights of the episode:

• How Coupa provides a real-time control tower of all of your spending, risks, contracts, invoicing, and more.
• Coupa’s motto: “We don’t really care about customer satisfaction. We only care about customer success.”
• Why some customers had their results mentioned by CFOs on earnings calls.
• PWC survey of 450 CFOs – the number one thing that was top of mind – implementing cost containment.
• How one of the clients – an airport – cut out a million dollars in funding that allowed them to keep the business stable.
• A German auto manufacturer ran $2 billion of the direct spend through Coupa sourcing optimization had $200 million savings in the first three months.
•  The best piece of advice: “Never be satisfied!”

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Monica Truelsch is Senior Director of Solutions Strategy for Transportation at Infor, the world’s third-largest ERP software company, where she works with the Infor Nexus supply chain network. She joined Infor from Trimble, a world leader in geo-spatial technologies and transportation applications. Her career includes roles in product management, marketing, and sales leadership for advanced technologies in telematics, domestic transportation management, chemical handling, engineered materials, artificial intelligence, and industrial laboratory management. 

Infor Nexus is the world’s leading network for multi-enterprise supply chain orchestration. The network connects businesses to their entire supply chain—from suppliers and manufacturers to brokers, 3PLs, and banks—paving the way for enhanced supply chain visibility, collaboration, and predictive intelligence.

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Some of the highlights of the episode:

• How global supply chain transactions are updated roughly 50 times a second on the  Nexus platform
• China as the primary sourcing market for global supply chains
• Why humans excel compared to AI in a crisis
• How Infor keeps the culture intact while working remotely
• Why diversity is a form of business immunity

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Alan Hellawell is the Venture Partner of Alpha JWC Ventures. Alpha is a successful Indonesia-focused venture capital firm that primarily invests in early-stage tech businesses such as Style Theory, Carro, Kopikenagan, Gudangada and has earned it the moniker of unicorn breeder in a Forbes article.

Prior to this, Alan is also the Chief Strategy Officer at SEA Limited, the parent company of Garena, Shopee, and Airpay, which he was responsible for the overall corporate strategy of the group. Alan was also the managing director of Deutsche Bank prior to SEA Limited and was Deutsche Bank Asia’s #1 ranked analyst for four years running.

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Some of the highlights of the episode:

• The future of E-commerce in Southeast Asia
• eCommerce in Indonesia – can the market accommodate four major marketplaces
• Will we see consolidation in marketplaces soon
• How long can investors continue to ignore losses in the industry and think equally about EBITDA instead of just top-line growth as a key metrics
• E-commerce platforms switching to in-house delivery
• How a coffee chain became one of the fastest-growing startups in Indonesia
• What do VC firms look for in a pitch deck

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Hari Vijayarajan is the Group Chief Commercial Officer at ONE Championship. ONE Championship is currently Asia’s largest global sports media property in history, with a broadcast to over 2.6 billion potential viewers across 140 countries.

Prior to this, Hari was also the Chief Business Officer of Lazada Singapore, and the Category Leader of Electronics Devices & Accessories at Lazada Group, handling the vertical’s P&L across the South-east Asia region. Throughout his career, Hari has extensive global experience across the United States and the Asia Pacific, in countries such as Singapore, Japan, and also China.

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Some of the highlights of the episode:

• How is the COVID-19 crisis affecting the e-commerce ecosystem
• Opportunities during a crisis
• Pivoting during a crisis and what it takes
• How the digital transformation process is accelerating
• The core values of ONE Championship
• How to get employees to be on-board with company mission

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Richard Lord is the Vice President, Asia-Pacific Japan Sales at Kinaxis and he is leading the expansion and growth of the company in APAC. Richard has more than 25 years of experience working in APAC in different capacities from setting up and growing business from scratch to expanding global business in the region. During our conversation we discuss how Kinaxis is planning to expand to different markets in the region and what is Richard’s perspective on each.

Founded and headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, the origins of Kinaxis date back to 1984. The product that’s evolved to today's RapidResponse platform was first introduced in 1995 and now represents, one of the fastest-growing and most innovative supply chain planning systems of record in the marketplace. Kinaxis works with global clients like Ford, Nissan, P&G, Unilever, Schnieder Electric, Nikon, and many others across industries like aerospace and defense, automotive, consumer products, high-tech and electronics, industrial and life sciences.

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Some of the highlights of the episode:

• Planners can make the best decisions for the company – as long as they have the data and visibility
• Planning using unlimited digital twins to determine future actions – it’s like looking into the crystal ball
• Working with P&G for contingency planning – reducing their planning time from 1 full day to an hour
• How supply chains are expanding and diversifying in South East Asia, LATAM, Eastern Europe
• Why is Kinaxis hiring more than 12 headcounts in crisis time? 

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John was the co-founder and President of GT Nexus, the leading cloud platform for global supply chain management, which was acquired by Infor in September 2015 for $675 million.

Prior to GT Nexus, John was an executive with American President Lines, one of the world’s largest ocean liner companies, where he held several executive positions in Asia, North and South America.

Since leaving GT Nexus in 2016, John has become a board member and advisor at several tech start-ups in the logistics and supply chain space including Mercado, Slync or ClearMetal.

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Some of the highlights of the episode:

• Lessons from 17 years of building GT Nexus to an exit of USD 675 million
• How did the COVID-19 crisis affect the digitization of supply chain
• Are 3PLs ever going to catch up in the digital game?
• Startup funding during uncertainty 
• Advice for entrepreneurs

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