Seasoned Leadership in Action™ – An Interview with Stephany Lapierre, CEO at tealbook!

tealbook

At Supply Chain Game Changer we believe in sharing experiences and expertise from people in every industry and from across the globe.  As such we have introduced our “Seasoned Leadership in Action™” Interview series at Supply Chain Game Changer. This interview is with Stephany Lapierre, Founder and CEO at tealbook.

Thank you Stephany for your support of Supply Chain Game Changer, and taking the time to share your experiences and expertise with us.

Here is our interview with a tremendous leader, Stephany Lapierre!

Stephany Lapierre, CEO at tealbook

Tell our readers a little about your background and experience? 

I am originally from Quebec and my first language is French. I left Quebec when I was 18 to learn English and never went back. I come from a family of entrepreneurs. I always knew this was going to be part of my life.

I started my first business at 18, doing corporate events and production. I launched my second business, a strategic sourcing and procurement consulting firm in 2007. That company grew organically and supported over 100 companies ranging from Fortune 100 companies to fast growing businesses building their first procurement function.

The focus for our customers was efficiency, speed and scale. As we introduced systems and tools, it created more data islands which inhibited leadership from having visibility and good quality data while putting a burden on teams who would spend too much time reconciling supplier information.

With cloud technologies being increasingly accepted, I knew there was an opportunity to build a platform that could improve data for everyone.

What are some of your greatest achievements in Business? 

tealbook started with an idea which I spent 8 years trying to kill. I was already running a successful consulting firm and I knew it was going to be a big undertaking. But the opportunity was too great to ignore. I knew that if we were successful, we could accelerate and simplify connections and partnerships between enterprise buyers and suppliers at a global level. We would replace processes with insights and elevate procurement to a completely new level. 

We now have an incredible team, a best in class Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform, over 1 million global suppliers, and a growing number of advocate customers who are exceeding their goals because of tealbook.

In 2018, we were listed as a Gartner’s Cool Vendor. I am incredibly proud!

How has the Business and Supply Chain changed over the course of your career? 

Traditionally, it has been very process driven.

Technology and the use of Big Data is allowing procurement and supply chain to increase transparency and automation. They are becoming some of the most critical functions in an organization for improving innovation, speed to market and trust from customers.

What are some of the lessons you learned in your career that you would like to share for others to learn from? 

No one really knows all of the answers. And you can’t do this alone. Surround yourself with people who have different experiences. And take the time to listen to nuggets that are applicable to the problem you are solving today.

What challenges facing the world are important to you?

The ones that impact my girls. I have 3 daughters (11, 8 and 5). I want them to feel like they can contribute to making the world a better place. 

What is the role of Business, Supply Chain and Change Leadership in addressing these challenges? 

Every company has the responsibility to make a positive impact on social, economic or environmental issues. There is a greater opportunity to be more transparent, which can directly help some of these challenges while improving the level of trust from partners, employees and customers. 

What are you working on these days? 

We are continuously improving value to our customers by delivering new functionalities, insights and quality of supplier data. 

There are a lot of exciting things happening at tealbook! We have launched our IMPACT module that allows customers to have instant visibility and accuracy off of their supplier diversity spend data.

We have consistently helped companies improve supplier diversity reporting by 20% to 150% overnight. These were big wins for those companies who were under target and managed to exceed their goals within days of reporting.

We are now helping them improve in 2019 by identifying likely diversity suppliers and reporting more accurate diversity spend from tier 1 suppliers.

And our customers are saving on data cleansing, data analytics, manual labor collecting and authenticating certifications and reporting. 

We are also preparing to launch ONBOARD (supplier on-boarding) to reduce efforts, costs and risks involved with supplier on-boarding.  

What advice would you give people who have a career in, or who are considering joining, Business and/or Supply Chain? 

Make sure you ask about the importance and vision of the company and function.

Ask questions about actions taken to drive change and tolerance for risk associated with innovation.

And look for a company and a team that will embrace your contributions and stay ahead of the transformation.

How can people contact you?

I am very active on LinkedIn. You can also email me [email protected]

Thank you for the opportunity to share my experience!

About tealbook

tealbook is a fast-growing enterprise software company headquartered in Toronto’s downtown tech hub. We connect buyers and suppliers for faster, better and more trusted business. tealbook’s innovations in buyer/supplier relations have earned recognition, including being named to the CIX Top 20 and a spot on the prestigious 2018 Gartner Cool Vendor list.

We are data-driven brainstormers with serious entrepreneurial spirit and a commitment to revolutionizing how companies work together. This dedication has enabled us to consistently wow clients and create dynamic B2B communities for Fortune 1000 brands and innovators.

Originally published on February 12, 2019.

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