Management Profiles
Robert Clarke - Vice President and Founding Partner
Mr. Clarke has over 26 years of professional experience in the High-tech industry and is responsible for managing the Business Development process and Customer Experience at Trade Management Solutions.
Mr. Clarke previously served as Director of Sales Operations in Latin America for Dell Inc., and was responsible for managing the Direct Model sales process and Customer Experience for Dell’s business throughout Latin America. This involved delivering build to order systems to Dell customers in a similar manner to continental North America and required the measurement of supply chain cycle time in hours throughout the region.
Mr. Clarke was also responsible for development of the Software & Peripherals LOB, Executive Sponsor for Business Process Improvement (Six Sigma) and executive in charge of Customer Experience in Latin America and Mexico.
Prior to Dell, Mr. Clarke served as General Manager for Eicon Networks. During his tenure, Mr. Clarke held a number of International roles in Europe and the Americas, while developing and executing business in the High Tech, Telecommunications and Internet markets.
As a Control Systems Engineering graduate, Mr. Clarke began his career in computer systems manufacturing with Digital Equipment Corp and held management roles in Wang and Honeywell Bull.
Julio Escalante - President of Grupo Escalante and Founding Partner of TMS
Mr. Escalante is the President of Grupo Escalante SA de CV, as well as a founding partner of Trade Management Solutions. Mr. Escalante specializes in customs brokerage and supply chain related services in the Mexican market.
Grupo Escalante was established 40 years ago and has undergone significant expansion under the direction of Mr. Escalante. GE’s operations in Mexico now number 7 service centers strategically located across the nation and in addition the recently enhanced customs brokerage and warehousing facilities in Laredo, TX complement the service offering to US and Canadian based customers.
Mr. Escalante’s vision and investment in state of the art IT solutions, has created a 160+ team, dedicated to enabling customers to establish an up-stream - proactive customs clearance model deriving significant Supply Chain Cycle time benefits through the reduction of border crossing and import process at point of entry, to almost ‘zero’ time. This provides several key benefits, notably reducing cost and overall end to end cycle time by 20 to 40%.
Grupo Escalante serves more than 120 customers from midsize retailers to Fortune 500 companies and has been a strategic partner for more than 10 years with the largest “direct” PC vendor enabling build to order, direct ship to customer in cycle times that match the US market.
G.E. also serves as customs broker for two of the largest retail companies in Mexico who have, in less than 6 months, improved supply chain performance through record import clearance times for textile commodities coming from Europe, as a result of implementing the ‘up stream’ customs clearance model.
