Thomas Rideg is a seasoned executive and strategic advisor with over two decades of global experience in helping technology and professional services companies navigate complex markets, accelerate growth, and achieve transformative outcomes. As the founder of Local Origins Inc., Thomas provides fractional leadership and strategic market advisory services to organizations in need of executive-level support.
He has held leadership roles as CEO, Managing Director, and Chief Commercial Officer, supporting successful exits and scaling operations across seven countries and four continents. His expertise spans executive leadership, global expansion, competitive intelligence, M&A, and post-merger integration. With a particular focus on managing firms from startup through to $50 million ARR, Thomas has advised over 200 Fortune 500 clients worldwide.
Known for his practical insight and global mindset, Thomas also runs a conservation project in Brazil’s Atlantic Rainforest and brings a strong commitment to sustainability into his work. Based in Toronto, he holds citizenship in Canada, the UK, and Brazil.
To get to know him better, we asked him a few questions.
Tell us about your career journey so far…
My career journey feels short but has been long. I’ll skip my very early career (pre-MBA). Immediately after I got my MBA, I joined a company called InfoAmericas as a partner and director for Brazil. We were an MI firm that helped companies understand Latin American markets. While I worked here, I also formed a partnership with GIA to represent them in Latin America. We sold our company to Kroll, a large risk management firm. I did my time at Kroll (almost 2 years) and then started a journey with GIA by formally launching a subsidiary in Sao Paulo for Latin America. After almost 2 years, I moved to Hong Kong to help with an integration after GIA acquired a regional MI company for APAC (offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Shanghai). Two years later, I moved to Amsterdam to run our Western European business with offices in the UK, Germany, and Benelux, with a goal of achieving profitability to make GIA attractive for its next phases. That’s when GIA was acquired by M-Brain, and I moved to Toronto to lead our Americas business. After around 6 years, we were looking for a new strategic exit, and I supported the company as Chief Commercial Officer until we were acquired by a Swedish PE firm called Monterro. After Monterro acquired us, they hired a new leadership team, and we rebranded the company to Valona. We also restructured the company, and my role was shifted to focus entirely on new sales for North America, which is when I parted ways with the company. I then started working as Managing Director for a Tech company focused on boat sharing, which was acquired by Yamaha during my tenure.
What does your role as a partner of Comintelli involve?
Walking the talk and talking the walk. I think the most important thing about my role is transmitting credibility on the impact of our services to the market, and this can only thoroughly be done through thought leadership, exchange of best practices, networking events, and being close to the customer to understand their evolving needs. It is important to question everything. Why are we doing this? What’s the impact? How can we increase the impact? With this credibility in place, we spread the word with a lot of confidence. Confidence in ourselves and our brand is very important. Understand what prospects need and position Comintelli’s solutions accordingly. My style is more one-on-one. I very much admire sales professionals with a very systematic process, and I think they are very important to spread the word. I am not necessarily patient or good at that. My strength is going deep with the topic and the customer.
How did your partnership with Comintelli begin, and what attracted you to working with Intelligence2day®?
I have known Comintelli for a long time and have come to respect the company a lot. Some of the smartest and coolest people that I worked with along my journey are part of Comintelli, and I love the company’s positive, collaborative, and engaging energy. So… I called Jesper and we spoke about how we can cooperate.
From your perspective, what is the biggest challenge in Competitive Intelligence (CI) today?
CI is a red sea if we use it as a general concept. We need to really look at the different applications that CI serves and focus on maximizing the impact in those particular areas. Applications can be Strategy, Innovation, Sales, Risk, etc. There is a Blue Ocean if you address the applications. If you don’t look at the applications, you hit a wall and will see it as a declining industry. The applications, on the other hand, are always growing.
What do you think sets Intelligence2day® apart from other CI tools on the market?
Intelligence2day is an advanced tech tool made by CI experts, not a CI tool made by tech guys. This is important because Intelligence2day will always be enhanced to address the needs of the CI professionals and end users—again, addressing different application areas. The people behind Intelligence2Day are optimizing the tool to better impact the industry, rather than making the industry adapt to a tool.
How do you think the industry will change in the coming 5 years, and what are the greatest challenges ahead?
The industry needs to help people think critically in order to make better decisions out of insights. It is easy for people to lose critical thinking. AI is doing to brains today what the calculator did to brains many years ago. Instead of thinking thoroughly through solutions, people (including myself) are tempted to take the shortcut and go straight to an answer that seems very good but was generated by AI. Studies have shown that we are using a fraction of our brain when compared to times when we did research (instead of asking Chat GPT), read maps (instead of using GPS), and did math (instead of using calculators). This brings question marks and challenges.
- Question marks: How much longer will this “shortcut” behavior be tolerated? I think it will keep increasing.
- Challenge: how do we address this? I think a smart way to address it is through Intelligence2day’s “trend cluster,” as this actually triggers our brain with additional insights that make us think out of the box. AI needs to provoke the brain to think critically. Many AI applications make the brain lazy, but if we come up with more AI applications that actually help us think critically and promote that to the market, we will be ahead. Critical thinking brings insight, and insight helps with decision-making. And let’s make no mistake—AI is here for the long run… until something even more powerful takes over.
What’s something people might be surprised to learn about you?
That I compose music.
Tom, we are thrilled to have you join us and look forward to your contribution.
Reach out to Thomas at thomas.rideg@comintelli.com
Connect with Thomas on LinkedIn
For additional insights from Thomas Rideg on strategy and global growth, see his panel discussion in Episode 25 of SCIP’s I_STREAM series, “Rethinking Competitive Intelligence: From All-in-One Solutions to Global Strategy.”
