Inspiring women in sales enablement 2023

By Elay Cohen

December 30, 2022

2023 Inspiring Women Leaders in Sales Enablement

We’re thrilled to celebrate the 2023 Inspiring Women Leaders in Sales Enablement. These 20 women are elevating the sales enablement profession with their vision, strategy, and leadership.

Their innovative world-class programs are helping their companies ramp reps faster, improve sales efficiency, and generate faster revenue growth. The success they help create lies in their ability to foster collaboration between departments, empower their teams, align with stakeholder priorities, communicate with confidence and measure the impact of their enablement programs.

In addition to the impressive results they create, these leaders are inspiring, guiding, and mentoring the next generation of female leaders in enablement. We asked them to share their answers to these questions. Their replies are truly inspirational and very informative.

What advice do you have for women in enablement?
What advice do you have for men supporting women in enablement?

Congratulations to this amazing list of leaders.

Your passion and commitment to doing great things for the enablement community inspires us. You are shaping the future of our profession with your creativity and innovation. We’re honored to know you and support you in achieving your goals. Follow these women, connect with them on LinkedIn, and seek their advice.

Alita Maggiani, Director, GTM Enablement Programs

Ashley Philipps, Vice President of Commercial Effectiveness

What advice do you have for women in enablement?

I cannot stress enough how important it is to use your voice. Whether you need to find it, or as Meghan Markle advises, simply use the one you have because there is no need to find what it already there, speaking up will make all the difference.

Enablement practitioners know the list of asks is long – so long that you can’t do it all. And we are smart enough to see that even if we do deliver on all the things, it’s probably not good enough because there is just never enough time and details can make all the difference. Yet intrinsically it is in our personalities to keep saying “yes”!

Be sure to align your programs, content, and communications to revenue strategy. What does not tightly align – be brave, use your voice, and say “no”.

I remember reading in Brave, Not Perfect by Reshma Saujani, how women (girls) are groomed to be “perfect” and needing to please and men (boys), “brave” and to speak up. Women more than men feel pressure to agree, to please, and be agreeable.

If you are starting off 2023 feeling overwhelmed by your to do list and how much you are being asked to deliver, then walk yourself through a thought exercise.

To identify where to say “no” do your own value calculation. Remove what does not align, prioritize what does. Priorities should be rooted in data as much as possible and its okay to consider both qualitative and quantitative, but performance data should take precedence. Once prioritized, do a bit of capacity planning, and then share this with your executive sponsors.

Share what can be done, be brave and say “no” where you should, and watch your revenue improve by focusing on what matters most.

What advice do you have for men supporting women in enablement?

Read Eva Helen’s book, Women in Tech: A Book For Guys and follow her recommended path to transform yourself into an “Advocate”. If you are supporting women – in enablement or anywhere in the company – speak up on their behalf, encourage them to find and use their voice, and practice with them.

Keep in mind, it is very common for women to be the only woman in the room. It takes guts for women to speak up at work, even if the environment is not hostile and the culture is inclusive. It can be intimidating.

At EverView, my direct manager and most of our sales leadership and the C-Suite is male. I am fortunate enough to work with Dennis Dube who I consider to be an Advocate. Here are some ways Dennis supports me:

Although Dennis is my manager, I don’t find myself saying I work “for” him. We are a team.

I am trusted and am seen and positioned as the enablement expert. My opinion has weight.

I am trusted to be his proxy in meetings with other executives when he has had conflicts.

Dennis is purposeful to create opportunity for me to share and speak at executive meetings.

Dennis coaches me where I am weak and empowers me to build upon my strengths.

Dennis does not hesitate to introduce me to people in the company and in his network.

And my favorite, which Eva would applaud, Dennis does not care what other people think when it comes to speaking up for diversity.

Ashley Youwakim, Sr. Enablement Manager – Global Solutions Engineering

Bobbi Jo Frazier, Head of Sales Enablement

What advice do you have for women in enablement?

My biggest piece of advice would be to never stop learning. As enablement leaders, we focus so much on other teams’ learning, we have to remember to continue growing and learning ourselves. Also, don’t be afraid to show off your accomplishments or talk about roadblocks you have overcome to succeed. For many women, the hardest part of being successful is taking credit for the work you’ve done. Be proud and celebrate yourself!

What advice do you have for men supporting women in enablement?

As an extension of my advice for women in enablement, my advice for the men that support them would be to amplify women‘s voices and celebrate their accomplishments. Then continue to provide support through mentorship and sponsorship.

Chelsea Polhemus, Director, Sales Enablement

Eve Kedar, Global Training & Development Program Manager

What advice do you have for women in enablement?

Advice: (and advice I still need to listen to) Stay Humble and Be of Service! The sales teams want to be successfully selling. Our role allows us to support their efforts.
Be ready to pivot! Don’t become locked in to a specific approach. Listen to, and align with sales leadership and your cross functional teams. Something is changing in the business? To maximize your impact and value, You will need to adapt and adjust and manage it gracefully.
Create great relationships. This gives meaning to our work.

Jean Burbank, Director, Sales Enablement

What advice do you have for women in enablement?

Have a seat at the table with the executive leadership team. Establish your internal brand as a data-driven leader in your industry and sales organization, presenting proactive solutions.

Focus on the metrics and the people: While aligning to the sales organization’s annual goals and gaining agreement on the metrics, you must balance that with coaching. People drive results and training your SE team to be sales coaches to reps and FLM is the fastest way to hit your metrics.

What advice do you have for men supporting women in enablement?

Drive for inclusivity and diversity when building out your organization. Treat everyone as equals, from assignments to compensation. Encourage the creativity and EQ of your team members. Understand what drives your employee (male or female). Ask what their 5PM-8AM life looks like. Be flexible and supportive of schedules. School drop-offs and attending soccer games may happen during working hours. Supporting their need to balance family and work will result in a happy, loyal, and hard-working employee.

Jen Ridgway, Sr. Manager, AE Enablement

Joanna Trager, Sr. Manager, Sales Enablement

Karen House, Director, Sales Enablement

Kasey Wilson, Manager, Customer Success Enablement

What advice do you have for women in enablement?

Always stay grounded in your “why.” Our personalities tend to lend themselves to wanting to solve every challenge and issue we encounter, which can be distracting and stressful. By staying grounded in why you do what you do, you will remain motivated and fulfilled amidst the noise.

Katie Covault, Director, Sales Enablement & Solutions Sales

Kristen Gleason, Senior Global Sales Training & Enablement Manager

Lillian Nguyen, Sr Manager, Commercial Performance and Training

Linda Smith, Sr. Director, Global Revenue Enablement

What advice do you have for women in enablement?

Don’t be afraid to raise your hand and ask, whether it’s for a seat at the table, for collaboration, feedback or support especially when the ask puts you outside of your comfort zone. At ServiceMax, when I’ve made an ask, my colleagues from Product, Product Marketing, Sales and every department in between have supported and delivered with enthusiasm and positivity. So when I’m feeling a bit out of comfort zone, I take my own medicine and raise my hand!

Nicole Griffith, Sales Operations Manager, Sales Platforms and Tools Management

Pamela Dake, Head of Global Revenue Enablement

Penny Springer, VP, Revenue Enablement

What advice do you have for women in enablement?

Be diligent to continuously learn and network. You are in control of your career and must take a very active role in keeping current on this dynamic industry. Read, attend webinars and conferences on enablement. The enablement community is very open, follow enablement professionals and request to be in their network on LinkedIn or within other enablement communities.

What advice do you have for men supporting women in enablement?

Listen to our ideas and coach us to develop. Different perspectives to solve challenges are critical.

Sheryl Buscheck, VP of Enablement

What advice do you have for women in enablement?

1) Know your value – it’s really important especially in today’s environment (e.g. so many great Enablers getting laid off) to tie your programs and initiatives to measurable goals. How does your Onboarding Program drive quick ramp to productivity? What programs do you have that address building more qualified pipeline or converting that pipeline to closed deals? Align with your revenue/sales leaders, figure out real success metrics that matter, measure your programs and continuously improve.

2) COMMUNICATE your value – most people in Enablement love giving to and supporting others, and we feel uncomfortable “tooting our own horn.” But you have to find a way to do this because if you don’t actively communicate the value you and your programs have at a CRO level then you put yourself at risk. If you have your value metrics but nobody hears about them then they matter a lot less. If you are a leader then you own this for your team. If you are an individual contributor then help and push your leader to communicate your value.

What advice do you have for men supporting women in enablement?

1) Please help with measuring and communicating the value of Enablement.

2) Recognize and address the lack of diversity in sales leadership – for some unknown reason there is a real dearth of women in front-line sales manager roles and even IC roles like PreSales. A highly diverse management layer will help the entire organization recruit a diverse workforce and strengthen the bonds between Enablement and field teams. For the record, I don’t generally see this issue in SDR, Customer Success, Ops and Enablement orgs – it’s the Sales/PreSales org where I see the least amount of diversity.

SalesHood’s Commitment to DEI

SalesHood and our board of directors are committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging through our company policies, values, and culture. We extend these values to our customer community and conferences by ensuring educational topics, conference speakers, and marketing themes reinforce diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

If you’re interested in learning more about ways to support women in tech, read Eva Helén’s recently published book Women In Tech, A Book For Guys. Eva’s book is meant to trigger easy conversation around a difficult topic. What should men be doing to facilitate gender equality in the technical fields? Based on interviews with sixty male leaders mostly from Silicon Valley, the book details actions men can take to support women in the workplace, and offers solutions to challenging gender-related problems.

Rising International

SalesHood supports Rising International, a global community where underrepresented individuals have the opportunity to improve their own lives and the lives of others through social entrepreneurship. Rising Worldwide provides pathways to social entrepreneurship to survivors of human trafficking, extreme poverty, homelessness, discrimination and gender-based violence. Their collective success is guided by economic equity, inclusiveness, and belief in the power of survivor leadership. SalesHood supports Rising International through fundraising and software to enable them to train their community and share their stories. Watch the SalesHood/Rising story here.