UPWARD CCO and VPoP Kenmochi Appointed as New Executive Officer

(Location: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Ryusuke Kaneki; URL : https://upward.jp ), whose mission is to "Innovate the Last Mile in the Field," announces that on February 7, 2022, Takuya Kenmochi, CCO (Chief Customer Officer) and VPoP (Chief Product Officer), General Manager of the Customer Success Division, will be appointed as Executive Officer. Takuya Kenmochi, CCO (Chief Customer Officer) and VPoP (Chief Product Officer), has been appointed to the position of Executive Officer.
Kenmochi's appointment as Executive Officer, who will be responsible for both Customer Success and Product, will accelerate the expansion of UPWARD's SaaS sales engagement service, "UPWARD," which has been developed and provided by UPWARD, to further increase its value. He will be responsible for continuous improvement of customer satisfaction, building good relationships with customers, and speedy innovation and provision of products that are user-friendly.

Background

The sales engagement service "UPWARD", as the first SaaS from Japan that seamlessly links location-based technology and CRM, has supported more than 300 sales DXs, mainly for major companies. However, because it is a service for field sales, the introduction and consideration of new projects has been halted by the Corona disaster after 2020, and the company has faced many issues such as "salespeople refraining from going out" and "repeated slips for large projects. "Salespeople refraining from going out," "repeated slips of large projects," and many other problems.
In July 2020, UPWARD renewed its sales structure. The majority of the sales team, which had been engaged in new sales, was reassigned to the customer success team, which was responsible for supporting customers and ensuring their success. The Customer Success Team, led by Kenmochi, structured and streamlined the relationship building process with customers and provided detailed support to the sales frontlines in the ever-changing market of the Corona disaster, and succeeded in maintaining an extremely high retention rate of 98.7% for SaaS. In addition, as VPoP, the company has established a system for speedy product innovation and provision based on the product vision " 6 UX Values " and based on the real voices of customers. Most recently, the company has released a native application that optimizes the user experience.
UPWARD, which is developing a SaaS business model, believes that it is essential to further enhance the value of its products as they are used by customers. Strengthening customer success and improving products that meet customer needs will continue to be of utmost importance in the future, and we have decided to appoint Kenmochi, who has a proven track record of success, as Executive Officer to accelerate business growth.

RYUSUKE KANEKI, PRESIDENT AND CEO, UPWARD CO.

We are very proud to announce the appointment of Takuya Kenmochi as a member of our Executive Board. Mr. Kenmochi joined UPWARD as a member of the Customer Success team and later became the Chief Customer Officer (CCO), where he continues to provide on-site support to customers and manage the team. He shares UPWARD's vision, mission, and values at a deep level, and is one of the leaders who embodies one of our values, "Commit To Customer Success". He is one of the leaders of the company.
In addition, as VPoP (Vice President of Product), he is also actively engaged in the mission of quickly incorporating requests for service improvement received from customers into the development roadmap by comparing them with the service vision. With the addition of Mr. Kenmochi as a new member of the executive management team, we are aiming to achieve further business growth.

Takuya Kenmochi, Executive Officer, CCO and VPoP, Customer Success Division, UPWARD Co.

I am very honored to be appointed to the position of Executive Officer. As I deal with our clients on a daily basis, I strongly feel that DX cannot be achieved overnight by introducing a specific system, but must be promoted through a steady process of improving the workflow based on the system introduction, making it take root in the departments that use the system, and changing the mindset of the frontline for this purpose.
In order to help our clients promote essential DX, we do not stop at supporting the introduction and utilization of UPWARD, but rather we understand our clients' medium- to long-term vision, the overall picture and characteristics of their business, and thoroughly understand their on-site situation and data, and we are committed to supporting them honestly and sincerely. We intend to continue to thoroughly pursue this approach in the future.
The essential customer success described above cannot be achieved by the Customer Success Department alone, but by the entire company in close cooperation with the Marketing, Sales, Development, and Corporate Departments. Our company's value is "Commit To Customer Success," and I see it as my important mission as CCO to foster this culture and to create a company-wide system to address customer success. As CCO, I see it as my important mission to foster this culture and create a company-wide system that focuses on customer success. I will do my utmost to carry out this mission and provide even greater value to our customers.  

Takuya Kenmochi, Executive Officer, CCO and VPoP, Customer Success Division, UPWARD Co.

BORN IN TOKYO, JAPAN IN 1987, MR. KUROKAWA JOINED NOMURA RESEARCH INSTITUTE, LTD. AFTER GRADUATING FROM CHUO UNIVERSITY IN 2011. HE JOINED UPWARD IN DECEMBER 2019.