by Kaitlin Hart June 14, 2017
As I was reading the Girls in Tech newsletter, an interview with Wendy Pfeiffer, CIO of Nutanix popped out at me. She was talking about being a woman leader and described it beautifully as “Leading with an iron fist in a velvet glove”. I loved the description’s imagery and how it perfectly describes a female leader’s special blend of qualities. As a culture, we continue to struggle with diversity in leadership. Only 5.8% of S&P 500 CEOs are women. What I’ve learned over time is women inspire other women to become leaders.We as women need to start paying inspiration forward – just as we feel inspired by the women we see, we need to share inspiration with others. At SalesHood, I’m incredibly lucky to be connected to a community of Sales & Enablement leaders, with a huge proportion being amazing female leaders. In April, we brought everyone together for our Productivity conference and it was truly impressive to watch Elay Cohen, our CEO, welcome a number of them to the stage. Each shared an inspirational presence and story.
Sheevaun Thatcher Head of Sales Enablement & Training at RingCentral
Sheevaun is a long-time sales enablement leader with successful careers at Host Analytics, Actuate, Progress Software and now RingCentral. Sheevaun exemplifies leadership in every way, especially in how she talks about sales enablement. I was with her for one of our roundtable discussions around productivity metrics and drivers; instantly people were taking turns asking for Sheevaun’s insights on their own data points. It only takes a few moments for her to impress people with her knowledge. Sheevaun has a track record of delivering immediate value to her stake holders which is why her career continues to advance, most recently being promoted to Head of Enablement at RingCentral. She also spends a lot of time contributing to the Enablement community; sharing insights, collaborating and inspiring others, for which we are all thankful.
Amy Pence Director of Sales Productivity at Alteryx
Amy was on a leadership panel discussing metrics that matter for our event. She is passionate about driving results with better team collaboration and peer to peer learning with social feedback. She’s also a frequent contributor of sales enablement content, best practices and insight on building a winning culture. When we were at our Sales Kickoff event last year, Amy shared creative ideas to drive engagement pre, during and post SKO that others immediately jumped on. Amy has put lots of effort into making her programs unique and engaging and it’s paying off. Her CEO, Dean Stoecker, called her a “rock star, promoted her and welcomed her to join the floor for Alteryx’s opening bell as they IPO’d because of the important role she’s played in elevating Alteryx to the next level.
Deborah Scherba Director of Productivity at SalesHood
Deb has over a decade of sales enablement experience as a practitioner at Salesforce and Netsuite; Deb joined SalesHood to deliver sales enablement excellence at scale to many more companies. She was recognized for her amazing content and best practice contributions which help fuel an entire community towards success. But more than that, even the way that Deb speaks and connects with people is amazing. Don’t tell her, but I’d listen to just about anything she said.
Quyen Chang
Senior Director of Global Field Enablement
Quyen gave an electrifying keynote on the sales productivity multipliers executed at Financial Force that resulted in 112% increase in deal size, 32% reduction in time to close deals and 20% reduction in rep attrition. The results wowed the entire room. Quyen has had a great career with over a decade at Salesforce in enablement followed by a leadership role at Zenefits, which is where I had the amazing opportunity to first work with and experience her positive, energetic influence. Quyen’s drive to serve her customers (the sales reps and leaders) keeps her moving constantly. She also invests a lot of time engaging in leadership and mentorship in the community, inspiring other women to lead.
So many amazing women, so many different stories. These women are all killing it in sales productivity, driving their teams to bigger revenues, to going public, to becoming market leaders. What else? They’re each bringing their own unique flavor to their programs. “They’re leading with an iron fist in a velvet glove”. They’re sharing successes and failures with their community so that everyone can benefit. They’re exemplifying true leadership and they are absolutely inspiring other women to follow suit in doing so. Simply put, they’re she-roes. And these are just the women who joined us on stage for this event. There are so many other amazing women in our community who I cannot wait to see take the stage at our future events. Remember to recognize and celebrate each other because it is women who inspire other women to lead! #SpreadTheGoodness #TeamWorkMakesTheDreamWork
