People Behind Pulsaart by AGC: Yvain Cornet, CEO
To celebrate Pulsaart’s 5th anniversary, we wanted to look back not only at the technologies and projects that shaped the company, but also at the people behind them.
In this first conversation, we speak with Yvain Cornet, CEO of Pulsaart by AGC, about the journey from an internal idea to a profitable business active across Europe, and about the team that made it possible.
Hello, Yvain. Thank you for finding time for the interview. Five years of Pulsaart already. How does that feel?
I'm very happy to be here. It’s a great moment for Pulsaart to celebrate this five-year anniversary, especially now that we are profitable.
We started as an internal idea, an invention that came from a lab, and today we have operations in several European countries. Becoming profitable after less than five years is a great achievement, and I’m very happy to be part of this moment.
You built your career within AGC and knew Pulsaart from the inside before becoming CEO. What perspective or advantage did that give you that an external hire might not have had?
My career at AGC before Pulsaart gave me a strong knowledge of the company, of glass, and of the expertise we have internally. It also gave me a network of people who are still very useful for Pulsaart today, because I know where to find the right expertise when we need it.
Another important point is the trust of the management. AGC’s management has supported us a lot over the last years. They believed in the project and helped us build it. That trust is something I had built during my previous years at AGC.
Then, inside Pulsaart, I also gained a lot from the shop floor. I started as operations manager, so I had to lead deployments in different countries and spend a lot of time with the technicians, whether in Germany, Italy, Belgium, or elsewhere.
That gave me a complete understanding of the service we offer and of the technical challenges the team can face. It still helps me today when shaping the global strategy for the mid and long term of Pulsaart.
Speaking of your team, who are the people who really shaped Pulsaart over these five years?
Everybody.
For me, all the people of Pulsaart have shaped the company as it is today.
Some team members were there from the very beginning, and they played a very important role in the first steps. They were always moving forward, taking action, making decisions, and that was exactly what we needed at the time to launch the operation.
Some of these people are still with us today. Others have left, and new people have joined, especially on the operations side, helping us build stronger operations and stronger processes for the future.
So for me, all these people have shaped Pulsaart. And our customers also played an important role. We received many challenging requests from demanding customers, and this helped us become what we are today.
You have a very international team at Pulsaart, with people from different backgrounds and cultures living in different countries. How does that diversity enrich the team?
I'm really convinced that we need diversity in the team, because it brings different ways of approaching issues, different ways of seeing things, and different ways of managing.
Of course, it can sometimes be challenging. Even between the team in Germany and the team in Belgium, there can be misunderstandings. But this is also what makes us stronger. It pushes us to understand each other better and to move forward together.
For me, this diversity is one of Pulsaart’s biggest strengths, whether we speak about cultural diversity or other aspects of DEI.
And about you, how has leading Pulsaart changed you personally over the past several years?
I would say I have changed a lot over the years.
What changed the most is my knowledge of myself. I understand myself better now: how I can impact others, how I behave, and how I am perceived. This has been one of the biggest personal changes for me.
During my time at Pulsaart, I also completed my EMBA at Kellogg-WHU. It helped me think differently, gave me new tools, and helped me better understand the role of a CEO. This also contributed a lot to how I have evolved.
We all have our own idea of what being a CEO looks like. But what's something about the role that surprised you?
I didn’t expect such a wide variety of tasks and activities.
On the same day, I can move from a very technical discussion with people on the shop floor, for example about how to manage the cobot or solve a quality issue, to a strategic meeting with AGC’s top management about our five-year roadmap.
Every day, I shift between very practical, technical, shop floor-based questions and high-level discussions about budget, long-term strategy, and where we want to go in the next five years.
That variety is probably what surprised me the most in this role.
Looking back, what's one mistake you made as CEO of Pulsaart that you're actually glad you made?
One of the big mistakes I made was underestimating the time and energy needed to grow in a new country and launch operations there.
When we launched operations in Germany, we started almost from scratch, almost overnight. We were hoping to treat two or three coaches per day quite quickly, but we underestimated the amount of work it would require.
Today, I’m glad we went through that experience. It was intense and quite stressful, but I saw a team working together to build something.
It was during that period that we put in place the basic building blocks of what Pulsaart is today. The team members who were there took real ownership of the solution. They showed the entrepreneurial mindset that we needed then, and that we still have today. For me, that mindset is one of the keys to our success.
So yes, I’m glad we went through that intense period together, because it helped us build the foundations of Pulsaart.
I know you have a lot of plans for Pulsaart's future. What are you most impatient about right now?
What I’m most impatient about is growing further in some European countries.
Discussions with some customers can take a long time. With some of them, we have been speaking for five or six years already. So now I would really like us to grow more and grow faster, especially in countries like the UK and France.
Are there any plans to expand beyond Europe?
Yes, we are also looking outside Europe, especially in Asia and North America.
For me, this is the next step once we have a really solid base in Europe: to move into these regions and build teams there. This is one of my big priorities for 2027.
When we meet again in five years for Pulsaart's 10-year anniversary, where would you like the company to be?
For me, there are two main directions.
The first is to expand our WAVETHRU™ Retrofit service all over the world. Not only in Europe, but also in America, Asia, and maybe Australia. Who knows? But having a truly global reach for this activity is one of my main targets.
The second is to deploy new services for existing customers. We have built strong competencies and close relationships with our customers. Now I want to build the next services beyond WAVETHRU™ together with them.
We already have a few tracks ongoing. I will not disclose them today, but we are working on them, and I’m really confident we will succeed.
