The People
Three people, three functions.
Pierre Blanquett holds the European front of the firm: client trust, deal structure, communication. Phoebe Ye runs the Asian execution. Piotr Zalewski builds the system between them, so that by the time a brief reaches operations it has already been qualified.
Pierre Blanquett ~ Founder ~ European Front
I open doors that take years to find from the outside.
Pierre Blanquett
Founder ~ European Front ~ Intention, Attention, Retention
I build sourcing and cross-border ventures, working with founders and companies who are trying to move across market.
sentiention is the method: intention, attention, retention.
~ Intention. Before anything is sourced or built, the direction has to be stated clearly enough to act on. Most companies carry it implicitly and have never put it into a single sentence, and that sentence determines every decision that follows. Establishing it is where each engagement begins.
~ Attention. The work of finding what the venture actually needs: the products, the suppliers, the lines that supplement what is already being sold, and the partners who make the crossing possible. This part is not done at a distance. It depends on being present in both places and on the relationships that only form in person.
~ Retention. Bringing it to market and holding the position once it is there. A product that arrives once is a shipment; a product that keeps its place is a business, and the difference is in what is built around it.
Underneath all three is a way of working I care about: rigorous where the analysis needs to be rigorous, and human where the decisions are actually made. Ventures hold together because the people in them trust one another and understand what they are building, not only because the numbers work.
Based between Shanghai and Hamburg, and open to conversations with anyone who has something to find, something to make, or something to bring across.
Named roles
- Nordling Outdoor, Germany ~ Partner & Growth Lead
- WandWert Deutschland, Germany ~ Strategic Partnerships
- Reactor School, Singapore ~ Associate, EU
- Mabex and yvex, Germany ~ Co-Founder & Managing Partner
- Norwegian Business Association, Shanghai ~ Strategic Liaison
Before the firm
- Worldpanel by Kantar, Shanghai ~ Associate Account Director
- NetEase Games, Guangzhou ~ Senior UX Consultant
- Nielsen, Shanghai and Hamburg ~ Senior Manager & Business Consultant
- BMW of North America, New Jersey ~ Finance Controlling
Phoebe Ye ~ Operations Lead ~ Asian Execution
The sample you approve is the product you receive.
Phoebe Ye
Operations Lead ~ Asian Execution ~ Shanghai
Phoebe Ye runs the Asian execution side of sentiention. Across the firm’s material pillars she owns factory selection, RFQ deployment, sample audits, mid-production quality control, and logistics.
At sentiention
Phoebe authored the firm’s twelve-step Sourcing Protocol, the operating manual the firm uses to take an active sourcing ticket from intake to landed delivery. She also designed the technical categorisation of source materials that became the firm’s pillar architecture. Her work makes sure the firm goes deep where it has real factory relationships, and resists the temptation to source everything for everyone.
How she thinks about the work
The principle she repeats most often, internally and with clients, is that the sample a client approves should be the product the client receives. Most of the failure modes in cross-border manufacturing happen in the gap between those two things. Her work is to close that gap.
What you are squeezing is not cost. It is the factory’s ability to maintain system stability.
A factory owner in Shanghai, who shaped how she now runs sourcing
From that came the sentiention principle she will write into any client conversation: if a price is below the system’s sustainability threshold, cost is not low. It is deferred risk. The cost reappears later, in defect rates, in QC moving from full-check to spot-check, in subcontracted batches. Phoebe will tell a client honestly when their price target is below threshold. Pure low-price is not the firm’s territory. The work is to find the right match, not the cheapest one.
Background
- Twelve years across marketing in China and Europe; the Alibaba and brand-owner years both sit inside that span
- Alibaba, seven years ~ IoT and robotics, operations and marketing on cross-border programmes with Japanese and French partners; relationships into most of the top IoT factories in China
- Cosmetics, five years at brand-owner level ~ design, printing, packaging, raw-material sourcing, manufacturing, quality inspection, transportation, on a single balance sheet
- Fashion, four years as a buyer, before Alibaba
- WandWert Deutschland ~ Head of APAC
Piotr Zalewski ~ Systems Architect
Architecture removes a category of decisions from a person’s day.
Piotr Zalewski
Systems Architect ~ Founder of Noo Studio, Shanghai
Piotr designs and builds the systems through which sentiention is found, understood and operated. He holds the firm’s entire external layer: brand position, name, visual system, language, content architecture and online infrastructure. He holds the internal systems that let a small firm run with the discipline of a larger one.
Trained as a painter and graphic designer in Poland, in Shanghai since 2006. A decade designing collections and production systems for apparel companies, then brand, packaging and print, then the architecture beneath the page that decides whether a company is discovered at all. Founder of Noo Studio, a Shanghai design and systems practice, and builder of programmatic reference properties that reach hundreds of thousands of readers a month through search and AI engines.
At sentiention his work is the framework the firm stands on: the position that names what the company is, the systems that carry it to market, and the infrastructure that lets it compound without adding headcount.
Function
The architecture of sentiention’s presence and operating system.
Method
Position first, then the system built outward from it. Every layer designed to run without its architect in the room.
Held
- Market and competitor research; audience and ICP definition
- Brand positioning, naming, messaging architecture, tone of voice
- Design system: visual identity, art direction, image direction, component structure
- Copywriting across every surface; long-form and article content production
- Information architecture, UX, conversion structure and intake
- Content and search architecture across a multi-property network
- Site build, hosting, deployment and automation pipelines
- Analytics and tracking
- Presentation, pitch and sales material; packaging and product design for portfolio ventures
Outcome
A firm that is findable, legible and operable: the position, the front and the machinery in place before the first client arrives.
Architecture removes a category of decisions from a person’s day.
Background
- Founder of Noo Studio, Shanghai
- Founder of Sustainability Directory
- Polish (native), English (professional)