At Factored Quality, we hire people who share one commonality: they must be obsessed with building things.

The best example of this value in action is Jenson Tuomi, Manager of Enterprise Sales, Account Management, and Partnerships. A master at relationship management, Jenson brings a patient, strategic perspective to FQ’s clients and operations.

Jenson’s journey from private equity to enterprise sales

Jenson had a surprising start on his way to supply chain management — but his passion for building relationships was always a throughline. Beginning as a double major in economics and philosophy at Claremont McKenna College, Jenson’s post-graduation work ultimately led him to the music industry, where he learned about artistic expression, licensing, and the business of IP. But most importantly, he discovered the value in the emotional connection of an artist’s fans.

From there, Jenson worked his way into a senior position at a business accelerator group providing CPG companies with consulting and advisory services, private lending, and investment banking products. There, he managed private equity deals on M&A (advisory) for consumer goods and CPG.

When it was time to make a move, Jenson knew he wanted to use his expertise to continue helping CPG teams improve efficiencies and mitigate risk.

“I wanted to find a way to continue making a difference for consumer brands. I now knew how they speak, and I had many ways to address a founder and brand’s full lifecycle and journey. I really wanted to bring that to the table.”

Dedicated to forging relationships with customers and partners

As the most junior staffer on the team in M&A, Jenson quickly learned to stay nimble, listen carefully, and extract value where he could. As he grew into a dealmaker facilitating major transactions, he exercised and grew the skill of asserting and defending good ideas amongst C-suite executives.

Today, he uses those skills to understand CPG colleagues on a deeper level — from their various corporate assets to their operational strengths and financial positions.

Beyond the opportunity to continue working with CPG brands, Jenson was instantly drawn to the FQ team for its internal culture. On top of their talent and knowledge, the team still held a curiosity that showed they were hungry to grow.

Jenson joined FQ and immediately got to work growing enterprise relationships, creating new ones, and establishing strategic partnerships with a broader network. This requires managing several crossover mutual commercial- and enterprise-level referrals while building the team’s pipeline.

Jenson’s ability to address complexities involved in software procurement and its impact on the bottom line help his new external colleagues build cases to present to their own superiors, ultimately benefiting all parties involved.

How does he do it? Jenson says it’s all about connecting on a human level with both professional and off-work topics. Large, methodical transactions require time to mature and close, so Jenson uses that time to demonstrate a genuine interest in his colleague’s well-being.

“Whether you’re choosing an employer or a supply chain management team, a big factor for a lot of people in the decision-making process is like, ‘Well, who do I like the most?”

Jenson empowers FQ to advance CPG leaders’ operations

The longer transaction lifecycle of CPG enterprise sales resembles Jenson’s familiar work in private capital, with multiple stakeholders involved, change management, and complex barriers. In some ways, only the products differ.

For starters, CPG brands face mounting pressure to deliver high-quality products. Unlike other goods, consumables come with the inherent factor of consumption — which can greatly impact a consumer’s life.

“If something wasn’t tested appropriately, somebody could be harmed, disfigured, or grow very ill,” Jenson says. But on the other side of that sentiment is customer loyalty that lasts a lifetime. “As consumers, we form an inextricable, borderline emotional relationship with some brands. Once you’ve started using it, you’ll literally never want anything from another brand in that space. We find this especially true in food and beverage.”

Jenson says that the high risk-reward aspect of CPG combined with the complexities and fragmentation in the space creates pressure that (can and should) be relieved. Each category — from cosmetics to clothes, cleaning items, and more — has evolving manufacturing standards. They also see varied changes in materials sourcing, like the trends in lab-grown minerals and bioengineered materials versus natural ingredients. If that weren’t enough, CPG brands also juggle relationships with new, shuttered, or faltering factories and forwarders.

Jenson relishes the challenge of untangling and preventing future interdependencies like these. With FQ, he welcomes the pressure and complexities, approaching them with ever-improving solutions.

“The beauty of FQ is that it’s built to scale. There’s no limit to what we can do. And that is such a cool thing to be able to say.”

Jenson believes that he is making a true impact on people’s lives at Factored Quality with the size of the team’s product, operations, and capabilities. “When people go into either private equity or other consumer goods spaces, there’s a limit of ways to attract people and benefit them because the team is smaller,” he says. “But at Factored Quality, we’re able to service thousands and thousands of people all at the same time. That’s really cool to me.”

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