An energizing personality, Thierry Soudee is the Founder and CEO at UpClear. Thierry grew up and studied in France. He pursued a Master’s degree in Engineering and Business in 1996. His first job brought him to the US, where he worked for a French Consumer Goods company. In 1999, during the Dot Com years, he worked at one of the high-flying Web agencies in NYC.
He experienced the world of tech start-ups in the East Coast’s “Silicon Alley” until 2001. Following a return to Europe, he became an independent consultant, then an entrepreneur. Giving wings to his dreams, he returned to New York to launch his business in 2007.
About UpClear
UpClear is a SaaS company servicing Consumer Goods brands. Its clients are mid-size companies in food and beverage and home and personal care. The software brings together data from retail, distribution, and operations to support collaboration across functions and provide insight into Revenue Management, Trade Promotion Management, and Integrated Business Planning.
The company has grown organically and steadily for the past fifteen years. They have been honored nine consecutive times by Inc 5000! Half of their business is in North America and half with multinational brands in 15 countries in Europe and Asia. They have a team of 70 people distributed across global regions in its offices in New York, London, Paris, and Asia.
Laying the Seed of Foundation
Thierry worked with a network of independent consultants for a few years. He liked the independence, and the ability to see the direct result of his work. Building a product and expanding it with colleagues was the natural next step for him.
With one client in Consumer Goods, UpClear co-developed a tool supporting the Sales Planning process. It was successful; he enjoyed the project, the partnership with the client, and the work with the team. The outcome of the project gave him a sense of accomplishment and the experience to lead his unique journey. He realized there was more opportunity. After researching the space, he recognized a gap in the market and decided to form the company to build the business system the market needed.
Cherishing the Many Phases of Entrepreneurship and Leadership
Every stage and every step of growth is different, bringing new opportunities, new challenges, and rewards. For UpClear, expanding its client base and increasing its global footprint is always exciting, but seeing the organization grow and become self-sustaining is the biggest reward. As the business grows, the company can do more, attract great talent, and put more funding into new projects, both product-related or employee-related. As many aspects of running the business are becoming easier, Thierry can focus more on its growth path.
The organization believes it has built something unique with its vertical, BluePlanner. It is already rolled out globally at nearly 100 clients in 15 countries, and it can further scale into something relatively new in the niche consumer goods software space. It can continue to bring strong value at an attractive cost, and leverage new technology like automation and artificial intelligence to bring even more capabilities to its clients and the consumer goods revenue management market.
As a leader, Thierry has also grown as a person, learned from his experiences, and hopes to be able to share more within and outside of the company. Through its membership in 1% for the Planet, Thierry and UpClear have demonstrated its commitment to environmental and humanitarian causes. Aiming high and working diligently towards its goals, the company believes it can and should do even more.
Upskilling the Game in Times of Difficulties
The pandemic has been an eye-opener for every entrepreneur and company. While facing such adversities and unknown challenges, Thierry believes it is crucial to recognize the need of the hour and act upon it. His philosophy is that in such times, skillset plays an integral role. When a leader focuses on improving skills, learning new ones, and most importantly integrating them, they will find solutions to their prevailing problems.
Thierry adds, “We’ve encouraged our team back in the office as much as possible to support collaboration and the company culture in a hybrid format. But we’ve also taken full advantage of productivity gains, such as limited travel times or online demos. Overall, we think we found a great balance with our hybrid model.”
The company’s hybrid office/remote work model (3 days in the office) gives employees the flexibility that they like. But they also have a structured way of working including strong communications guidelines that support remote collaboration. The organization also gives specific responsibilities to each new hire, including the junior ones, so there is a sense of ownership and accountability for everyone.
Boosting Productivity through Flexibility and a Focused Approach
UpClear runs a lean team by design to remain efficient and focused. There is always work to be done. Thierry drives his team to find more efficiency but also recognizes a different mix of resources is required to scale and adds them when the time is right.
UpClear runs a lean team by design to remain efficient and focused. There is always work to be done. Thierry drives his team to find more efficiency but also recognizes a different mix of resources is required to scale and adds them when the time is right.
A Competitive and Athletic Way of Coping with Challenges
With the team, Thierry values proximity and transparency. This helps build common understanding, trust, engagement, reliability, and loyalty. Outside of work, he finds balance. By separating personal objectives and goals. But he is also an elite competitive runner, routinely finishing in the top 1% of highprofile events like the New York City, Boston, and Paris marathons. This activity brings him perspective and helps prevent him from being consumed by business 24/7. It does not cannibalize time for work, it complements it. He is also a husband and father with the demanding aspects of raising kids in New York City.
A Bright and Mighty Future
As a company, UpClear is now in the growth stage and is well on its way to becoming an industry leader. It has a solid foundation, and now has the opportunity to scale, both in volume with more clients and in value with complementary products and offerings. Whether they do this alone or with strategic partners the company knows its place and potential as key player in CPG Business Planning and is acting upon it. Personally, Thierry’s goals are to free up time to coach/mentor, increase his commitment to worthy causes, and reach new highs in competitive running.
Words of Wisdom: Staying Who You Are while embracing What’s to Come
Thierry shares, “One core value and source of pride is to grow while remaining who you are: staying grounded, realistic, pragmatic, and self-aware. In anything that I do, I always trust that the best is yet to come. And with that mindset, it’s easy to get into motion.”
