Sudu, a technology-based logistics startup located in Atlanta, Ga. (formerly R2 Trucking Solutions) added critical company senior leadership to its team in Q1 of 2017. The company recently added a number of large customers and secured its first round of funding, necessitating team expansion that includes senior leadership and support staff - growing from two employees two months ago, to 12 today.
Sudu offers an end-to-end platform that matches shippers and carriers based upon route optimization, and harnesses diverse carriers under one umbrella, thus bringing them together on one proprietary tech platform. The company is also orchestrator of the National Minority Transportation Consortium.
Founded at Georgia Tech's Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) in 2015, the company made its first major staff addition with Chad Ruff as chief technology officer at the start of 2017. Chad is an accomplished entrepreneur, with more than 26 years of software development experience. Chad brings ten years of geographical information systems and logistics to the team, and another eleven years in software as a service. Previous high profile roles include Founder, CEO, CTO of Salesfusion and Founder, CEO, and CTO of Sage Software, Inc., among others. Chad will be leading a team to develop proprietary technology to power Sudu's global logistics management services. The technology will help optimize routes, eliminate empty miles, and reduce the carbon footprint. More importantly, it will help Sudu fulfill its mission of connecting minority, women, and veteran-owned trucking firms, whom are industry leaders but often overlooked when competing for large contracts because they are small, with Fortune 1000 companies to meet their supplier diversity incentives.
Michelangelo Ho, a co-founder of Sudu, became the chief operating officer in January. Also a successful entrepreneur with two exits, he led Sudu's fundraising process and has experience building Location Based Services (LBS) products for fleets and consumers, and will bring seasoned leadership to the company. Michelangelo transitioned to Sudu from his most recent position at the ATDC as the FinTech catalyst, where he provided mentorship and guidance to the program's startups in that sector.
"Chad is talented, experienced, and a respected commodity among the Atlanta and U.S. technology investor community, which brings the necessary vision, talent and credibility needed for such a critical role as our CTO," said Amari Ruff, CEO and a co-founder of Sudu. "As for Michelangelo, he was critical to our growth in the ATDC program, and we are very pleased he's chosen to lead our organization's day-to-day activities as COO, while we move through this next explosive growth phase."
Most recently, the team welcomed Taylor Olson as their new chief human resources officer. Her responsibilities will initially carry a heavier operations focus at the start, but quickly transition to an HR-specific position. Taylor joins Sudu from Coyote, another logistics firm with technology at its core, and will be tasked with fostering Sudu's company culture, and recruiting new team members that are committed to the highest ethical and work standards in the industry. Sudu currently employs 12 team members and is expected to continue growing, so culture takes on a paramount role for both the company and Sudu's customers.
Sudu is building a mobile-friendly enterprise platform enabling shippers to get their products from point A to point B with piece of mind, while reaching their supplier diversity incentives. Sudu combines traditional Shipper-Carrier Management with 21st century technology that allows truckers of all creeds and colors to participate. This growing company is modernizing the processes and technologies used for freight and empowering small and midsize carriers to compete effectually for contracts and freight from major shippers.
"We've experienced explosive customer growth and are actively competing for a number of additional contracts that requires the type of top-shelf leadership we achieved with these hires," said Lucius French, Sudu's vice president of sales, also a company co-founder. "Each new team member will be vital to this company at our early stage, but each also has a tremendous amount of credibility and experience in their respective field so we are confident that this will only take Sudu to new heights."
