When it comes to SaaS, revenue, and tech, one thing is clear: the future is female. Women In Sales Everywhere (WISE) and Salesloft have teamed up to build a list of remarkable women we think are poised to skyrocket to the top of the industry as the CROs of the future. Juggling family, work, and wellness, check out how these bright and ambitious women live their lives to the fullest and are ready to rock it in the C-Suite.
Lauren Miskelly
Lauren Miskelly joined Google in 2008 and currently serves as the Director of North American Business Development for Google Cloud. Lauren’s teams are responsible for the acquisition, retention, and growth of Google Cloud’s Workspace customers and the pipeline development for North America’s Google Cloud business. In addition to her core role, Lauren is a co-lead on the Google Cloud Customer Team’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) Council.
Lauren’s approach to work is akin to her approach to life.
“I always strive to lead with authenticity and show people I care,” she says.
In fact, one of her proudest professional moments doesn’t stem from a product launch or customer growth, but her impact on DE&I at Google.
“I am incredibly proud, humbled, and honored when someone I sponsored, mentored, or led tells me I had an impact on them seeing what’s possible in their career or their feeling of inclusion at work.”
Lauren’s attitude of care and compassion is echoed in her experience with customer pain points as well, and she’s proven even seasoned professionals can learn lessons when they prioritize the way a customer feels and experiences a product.
“A rep brought me into an unhappy customer situation. The rep was incredibly prepared, understood the customer’s pain, and was frustrated with the way we handled it as a company. I learned a lot in this situation about customer empathy and advocacy, and the power it has when your team sees you modeling it.”
Allye O’Brien
A self-described cheese snob and dog nerd, Allye is a revenue leader who is committed to fast growth companies, building best practices, and finding creative solutions. She has spent the last eight years helping to develop revenue teams within fintech, market research, e-comm, and advertising.
Currently, Allye is most passionate about the work she is doing at Chief, an organization created to drive more women into positions of power and keep them there.
As a Director-of-Sales-turned-Director-of-Revenue-Operations, Allye has developed a unique perspective when it comes to enabling and optimizing revenue orgs from lead to renewal.
Like many professionals that pivoted to working from home in 2020, Allye has found ways to stay productive while staying sane when work and home overlap.
“I try as best as I can to set boundaries. It’s really hard, even more so today now that my office is my home, but turning off Slack notifications and committing to vacation time are crucial to being the best teammate and leader I can be. Also, bubble baths.”
Working in revenue ops may not have the artistic flair of design or brand, but that doesn’t mean Allye doesn’t exercise her creative muscle regularly.
“I believe that you can overcome any challenge in your career, or personal life for that matter, by being creative. It’s the one thing I look for when hiring people for my team, and I strive to be a creative thinker at all times. It’s not always easy — allowing creativity to shine over other less desirable habits (stubbornness, fear, or exhaustion) is a learned practice that I work on every day.”
Sathi Roy
Sathi Roy is currently the Director of Real Estate Operations for Better Real Estate, a startup under the Better.com umbrella. She is most notably known for her success as the Director of Refinance at Better.com, one of the fastest-growing homeownership companies in America. She grew the company’s refinance team from 1 to 150+ employees bringing in $100+ million in revenue during her time. She grew sales production YoY by 521% in 2019 and led another impressive growth year in 2020.
Sathi’s workplace mentality can be summed up in three words: heart, hustle, and teamwork.
“Heart is about how much you genuinely want to be here, what you’re here to set out to do, and it’s about the ‘why’. If my heart is in this, I won’t have to worry about the next core value which is hustle.
“I’m not afraid of long hours. I’m not intimidated by working hard. And I want to make sure my team is the same way. If your team is dedicated, and has heart, they will hustle for you. They will put in the work it takes to reach our shared mission. There’s really nothing more beautiful than the synergy of a group of strong individuals working hard together, which brings me to my last core value: teamwork.
“I believe individuals are powerful. I believe people with a focused mindset can go far alone, but I also know you can go 10x further when you have the right people around supporting you.”
Catie Ivey
Catie Ivey is the RVP of Sales at Demandbase, which is a leading B2B marketing platform. Prior to joining Demandbase, Catie ran revenue teams at Marketo, Insightpool, Salesforce, and Meltwater, where she talks about getting her start as an “accidental salesperson.”
With deep expertise in martech, specifically, how to better leverage technology to scale revenue teams, Catie spends most of her time these days working with sales, marketing, and customer success leaders helping drive synergy across teams. Catie is a huge advocate for getting more women into sales and sales leadership, and she has a unique passion for mentoring and working with sellers in the early stages of their sales careers.
Not only an advocate for women in sales, Catie takes empowerment to the next level for all of her teams — and sees an empowered team as a key to higher revenue.
“I believe that people are amazing, that connected and engaged teams are unstoppable, that most of us play way too small, and that our ability to make others better is what it’s all about. As a sales leader, my #1 priority is to empower my people to be the absolute best versions of themselves. I firmly believe that if I can help them harness that greatness or their own individual superpowers, then the revenue and growth will follow.”
Where will you find Catie once it’s safe to travel again? Our best guess: a plane.
“I’ve been to 52 countries and have quite the bucket list of places I want to visit. To say that 2020 has cramped my style in this area big time would be an understatement!”
Lauren Lynch
Lauren is currently a Director of Sales at Rapid7. She is passionate about creating a sales culture that exceeds revenue results by finding new and creative ways to go to market and creating lasting customer relationships.
Lauren leads with the knowledge that this type of successful and results-driven culture can only be achieved when you focus on greatness at the individual level. Maximizing your seller’s potential and also providing career growth opportunities creates future leaders within your organization.
In the last few years Lauren has also become more involved in speaking engagements alongside other revenue leaders. Most recently, she began working with organizations that focus on the value of women in sales having a seat at the table.
Encouraging others to fully step into their role is commonplace for Lauren, who once helped a team member find his own solution and trust his intuition when faced with a problem.
“We were working together on a deal and I asked him [what he would do in this situation] versus just telling him what he needed to do. He said that question gave him the confidence to know that not only did I value his opinion, but it also gave him the confidence to know what to do versus just needing to ask for help.”
Sandi Klose
Sandi Klose is the Managing Director of the Primary Business Segment for the Market Intelligence Group at S&P. In this pioneering role, she is responsible for designing, building, and managing the processes, infrastructure, and teams that support a high volume of S&P Global Market Intelligence’s customer relationships. To do this, Sandi is driving the organization towards a tech-enabled, self-serve customer journey supported by a global, cost-effective sales model.
Sandi joined S&P in March of 2020 after a long career at Thomson Reuters where she led the go-to-market transformation of the Financial & Risk business during the spinout to create Refinitiv. Sandi worked at Thomson for almost 30 years, holding leadership positions in research, client support, sales, product management, and strategy.
“I am a quiet leader,” Sandi says of her style as a sales leader. “I am quiet until I need to be loud, but I do not live at that volume. I used to worry that my leadership style would hold me back. Instead, it has become the key to my success.”
To drive this lesson home, Sandi had an experience where her quiet-yet-commanding presence made a difference in someone else’s career trajectory.
“At a moment when I was considering changing my [leadership] style, a young woman cornered me at a holiday party and shared how seeing me as a leader allowed her to see herself there, too. I have found that quiet, strong, consistent leadership is not only sustainable, but easier for people to follow.”
Preeya Voss
Preeya Voss is an innovative commercial leader with 15 years of experience across SaaS and advisory services organizations. She has a deep passion for developing high-performing teams and is especially committed to supporting and celebrating women in the sales profession.
Preeya is currently a Regional Vice President of Sales at BetterUp, an organization that combines world-class coaching with AI technology and behavioral science to deliver personalized behavior change at scale. In her role, she leads a team responsible for new customer acquisition across enterprise and midsize organizations, and she is currently leading the market expansion into Canada.
With her years of experience, Preeya has collected her fair share of lessons. The most poignant, however, has little to do with SaaS or business acumen. Rather, feeling comfortable with who she is in and out of the workplace and bringing her authentic self to work every day is perhaps her most valuable lesson.
“Early on in my career, there was definitely a ‘professional version’ and ‘personal version’ of myself. I think that had a lot to do with confidence and a belief that I had to put on a different face at work to be taken seriously. My husband used to poke fun of me because I had a ‘sales voice’ when I’d be on work-related calls. I felt that I always needed to have the right answer, and that asking for help was showing weakness.
“As I’ve gained more experience, I’ve learned that being authentic and genuine is who I want to be all the time. To me this means being vulnerable, not taking myself too seriously, not having all the answers, being comfortable saying no, being comfortable with constructive tension, and taking risks and owning it when it doesn’t go your way.”
Pia Heilmann
Pia is currently based in London, where she leads the EMEA sales team at Klaviyo, a Series C martech startup based in Boston. She is passionate about SaaS and sales and has a wide range of experience in software companies at various stages. Before Klaviyo, she was Director of Sales at Threat Stack, and Director of Sales at Attend (acquired by Event Farm), Mashery (acquired by Intel), and Meltwater.
Pia has a keen interest in the customer journey and has an exceptional ability to communicate a clear and concise sales vision while working collaboratively with marketing, customer success, and product to drive new business. Internally, she believes strongly in mentorship and prides herself in advocacy and career coaching.
Pia has a philosophy of keeping high standards for herself (and her team), which extends beyond the workplace. When she needs to unplug, you’re more likely to find her scaling a mountain than lounging by the pool.
“I try to integrate an extended, tech-free holiday on an annual basis. The funny thing is, I have to throw myself into very remote situations to ensure I am completely tech-free, so those have been everything from trekking the Annapurna Circuit or climbing Kilimanjaro to scuba-diving in the Red Sea. Highly recommend any of those adventures, but make sure you also find some down time to relax.”
Taking time for yourself is certainly one of the keys to being successful, especially when growing your family. One of Pia’s proudest career moments was taking a stand for new parents in ensuring they get adequate time off work for bonding with each other and their new baby.
“One of the things I’m most proud of is my part in driving change around the parental leave policy for our sales team. We now allow quota-holding reps to take 16 weeks at full OTE and a ramp-back into the business.
“As a woman with no dependents and a (formerly, at least!) mostly-male sales team, I’d never fully considered the negative impact of parental leave on earnings potential. Most fathers on the team took paternity leave paired with 75% quota relief for a single month. The women on the team questioned whether they could both stay on the team and start a family.
“This felt like a massive and immediate opportunity to improve retention and quality of life for those on the team considering growing their families. Fortunately, leadership and the broader organization were incredibly supportive and rolled out a policy that I hope to build on.”
Marissa Ash
Marissa is the Vice President of Marketplace Strategy and Operations for Transfix. Working closely with the CRO and operational departments, Marissa focuses on delivering excellent results for shipper and carrier partners through efficiency and innovation.
During her time at Transfix, Marissa has led the charge on a number of strategic initiatives. She developed the enterprise sales strategy, including sales operations and enablement, as well as building out the team. Notably, Marissa managed the team to land 40+ new enterprise customers for Transfix in 2019 alone.
Prior to Transfix she spent a number of years at Bridgewater (the largest hedge fund in the world) working as the Chief of Staff to the CEO/CIO. She is also a graduate of Harvard University and Stanford Graduate School of Business.
With a laundry list of accomplishments under her belt, Marissa credits her former managers for opening doors to reach her true, outstanding potential.
“Throughout my career, my managers have consistently taken bets on me. I am grateful that Lily Shen (Transfix’s CEO) trusted me to take over and develop the sales team early in my time at Transfix — that experience was transformational for me.”
Marissa has an innovator’s mind. The way she sees sales is more than analytics or face-value stats.
“Sales is part art and part science. In order to consistently hit and exceed goals, teams need to constantly iterate both sides of the process.”
And of her own iteration? Marissa knows old ideas or half-baked strategies have no place in her organization.
“Leaders need to have a big, audacious vision of where the company is growing and build a culture that enables each person to create the most impact as possible.”
Jeannie Sabaroff
Jeannie’s sales career began over a decade ago when travel sales led to her to SaaS. Her passion for sales comes from taking what others may think is impossible and, not only making it possible, but making it better than imagined.
Her two proudest achievements are taking a decade-long underperforming team and bolstering them to become the #1 team in the U.S., as well as creating a brand-new organization at Tipalti, where she currently serves as VP of Global Sales. It’s now the highest-performing and largest organization in the sales department globally.
“Integrity, grit, and pride in a job well done are the personal and professional values I live by every single day,” she says of the huge transformation of the team she took under her wing. “This has helped me develop others to reach their utmost potential.”
But this kind of achievement doesn’t happen by accident. Jeannie has a tried-and-true system of keeping her ducks (and life) in a row while she creates brilliant teams and grows organizations.
“I color-code my calendar and evaluate once a month where my time is spent to see if I can create efficiency and check against my major goals to ensure I’m spending my time in the right place. I also have extremely detailed email folders and templates for commonly sent emails.”
But being a leader is worth all the uber-organization — it’s a role Jeannie takes to heart as she helps lead and enhance the careers of her teams.
“Leadership is such an immense responsibility. What we say and how we act matters so much. Recently, in one of my skip-level forecasts, I had a rep quote me verbatim from their first-ever forecast and detail how much the comments impacted them. It brought to the forefront the fact that leadership needs to ensure we put our best foot forward, thinking of both the person as well as their role, when we give feedback.”
Jessica Green
Jessica leads the sales and the sales development team at Lever. She brings 10+ years of personalized software sales and leadership experience, by way of Bullhorn, ToutApp, and Marketo.
At Lever, she focuses on cultivating a sales culture that is both deeply empathetic and delivers results.
“It might sound cliché, but working for my team happens in the small moments every day,” Jessica says.
She goes on to explain how fostering a deep empathy for her team and their varied experiences has resulted in better ideas and stronger decision-making.
“One of the things it takes to execute both of those is to lead with empathy. I can certainly bring my experience, frameworks, and research when making decisions for the company or team, but what I also bring is an open mind and acknowledgment that other experiences bring different perspectives. The best decisions come from a combination of these perspectives.”
As a new mom, Jessica also works hard on her work-life balance. She created a system to make sure she fiercely protects her goals and what’s really important in her life.
“I recently returned from maternity leave. Before I returned, I wrote down a list of non-negotiables in my personal life. I wrote down WHY those things were important to me. I have that list in front of me every day at work. If I find myself slipping on my commitment to those items, I give myself a gut check and recommit.”
Laura Palmer
Laura serves as Unity Technologies (NYSE: U) Vice President of Sales. She is responsible for Unity’s global go-to-market strategy for games, running sales development, corporate sales, field sales, and sales engineering.
Laura is known for her authentic leadership style. She loves being able to share her experiences and passion for building inspiring team cultures at industry speaking engagements.
She is a startup advisor and investor, providing expertise and advice to companies like TerraTrue.
Prior to her role at Unity, Laura was one of the early employees of what is now Google Cloud Platform (GCP). She helped take GCP from upstart to a billion-dollar organization, running strategic sales teams focused on disrupting the status quo.
She loves travel, languages, and outdoor activities with her husband Todd and three teenage kids Max, Sam, and Ellie.
Lizzie Rouleau
Lizzie Rose Rouleau is a Bay Area native who’s had the opportunity to chase tech companies around the U.S.: San Francisco for Zillow, Scottsdale for Zenefits, and the Big Apple as a Director of Sales for TripActions.
Lizzie has had a hand in the success of big-name tech companies from coast to coast, but one feature of her leadership style remains the same.
“My mantra is that I work for my team. Work hard for them, and they’ll work hard for you!”
After sitting down with a rep who tended to be on the quieter side, Lizzie realized she needed to make sure her team — all of her team and not just the usual suspects — were heard.
“Ever since that conversation, I changed the way I lead my team meetings. Instead of letting people always openly speak (as it’s usually always the same people), I now make sure to go around the room calling out individuals directly to ensure everyone has a chance to speak their voice.”
When Lizzie isn’t working hard for her team, she takes the time to give much-needed attention to herself and another VIP — her dog.
“I love taking my dog on long walks and to the dog parks. I also love hot yoga and can’t wait to go back to studios for a good sweat. But mostly, I love being back in California near my family.”
Daniella Bellaire
Daniella Bellaire is an accomplished revenue executive, having spent over a decade focused on building and scaling revenue teams in both startup and large, high-growth companies.
Over the course of her career, Daniella has been responsible for global growth strategy, as well as leading teams that span sales, customer success, business operations, and business development.
Daniella cares deeply about people development, solving problems to unlock growth, creating repeatable revenue models, mentoring the next generation of revenue leaders, and being active in the revenue community around the world.
To say that Daniella operates under an “employees-first” mentality would be an understatement. She believes that investing in your people first is the key way to create revenue later — and create a happier, healthier workforce.
“I really believe in putting people first. If you invest in them, you will unlock revenue growth. There is a return on investment that comes with the continuous improvement of your team’s performance. It also builds trust, culture, and creates fierce loyalty to drive for results.”
Part of putting her team first includes protecting their creative time and even holding space for them to keep some of that creative energy for their own pursuits.
“At Shopify, we believe that you have five creative hours in your day. We ask people to channel four of those into the company.”
Daniella’s leadership methodology is unequivocally that of the servant leader.
“A servant leader puts the needs of the employees first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible. Servant leadership inverts the norm, which puts the team as a main priority. Instead of the people working to serve the leader, the leader exists to serve the people.”
Jess Klek
Jess Klek is the SVP of Financial Services at Salesloft, where she is tasked with building out the company’s first vertical.
Jess is passionate about being an advocate and voice for women in business and is the co-chair of Women’s Integrated Network at Salesloft.
Regarding her approach to helping teams flourish, Jess says, “I come from the servant leadership mentality with a sprinkle of growth mindset. I love to serve the people I lead and to help them grow and progress. I went to school to be a teacher so the element of seeing the ‘lightbulb’ go on for my team members drives me forward everyday.”
How does Jess build powerhouse teams, raise her four-year-old son, and still manage a few minutes for herself? Unsurprisingly, the key is in great planning.
“I prioritize the toughest-to-tackle items early in the morning, when I have the most energy and my mind is the clearest. Time management has been one of my major keys to success. Being a Mom to a small child, a wife to a great husband, caring for our two dogs, and working full-time doesn’t leave a ton of time for me — but you have to prioritize YOU!”
We’re excited to celebrate these women and their accomplishments and look forward to watching what they’ll achieve in the future. Be sure to keep an eye and ear out for future episodes of the Hey Salespeople podcast. We'll be spending one-on-one time talking to each of our Future Female CROs about everything from their philosophies on sales to how they keep their lives organized and how they unwind after a break-neck day.