The Top 50 Women Leaders in SaaS of 2019

The Software Report is pleased to announce The Top 50 Women Leaders in SaaS of 2019. These awardees are some of the most accomplished women across the software industry. This year, we would also like to recognize the companies which these leaders represent for they helped create an environment where a woman could thrive in her career. Moreover, these companies and the individuals that make up each organization believe in a culture that celebrates and supports the advancement of women.

The 2019 women leader awardees were selected based on close evaluation of the large volume of nomination submissions we received. We paid particular attention to substantive comments about each nominee’s character and accomplishments as well as the degree to which the nominee positively impacted her organization. While the titles of the awardees include a good number of CEOs, founders, and presidents, position was just one factor among many that went into our selection process. Our view is that effective leadership can take place at any level within an organization.

Each year as we produce this particular feature piece, we are reminded of the good that business can do – to help develop, support and recognize great women and shine a light on how we as an industry can become better.

Congratulations to The Top 50 Women Leaders in SaaS of 2019!

For weekly software business news, sign up for our free email newsletter.

1. Christy Wyatt
Absolute
Chief Executive Officer

Christy Wyatt is the Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors at Absolute, a leading provider of enterprise cybersecurity solutions focused on endpoint monitoring and management. The company enables more than 12,000 customers with self-healing endpoint security, always-connected visibility, and real-time intelligence and remediation. Prior to Absolute, Christy served as CEO of Dtex Systems, which provides user behavior intelligence and insider threat detection solutions.

She has also held executive leadership roles at leading global corporations including Good Technology (now Blackberry), Citigroup, Motorola, Apple, and Sun Microsystems. Christy currently serves as a member of the board of directors at Silicon Labs and Quotient Technologies. Drawing on her extensive background in security, mobility, and analytics, Christy is dedicated to solving Absolute customers’ greatest enterprise resiliency challenges. She has been named one of Inc. Magazine’s Top 50 Women Entrepreneurs of America, Information Security’s CEO of the Year, and one of the Fierce Wireless “Most Influential Women in Wireless.”

2. Raja Hammoud
Coupa Software
Executive Vice President of Products

Raja Hammoud is the Executive Vice President of Products at Coupa Software, a leading provider of spend management software. Since joining the company in 2012, Raja has led product development from a procurement solution to a Coupa spend management SaaS offering with over $1.3 trillion of spend flowing through it. In monumental ways this was done through co-innovation and strong collaboration with Coupa’s customers.

Her colleagues point out her impressive leadership capabilities, “Her products organization is fully engaged in Coupa’s customer community, highly inspired and is known to deliver the most rapid stream of innovation in the spend management industry. Coupa Products are recognized as leaders in over 15 industry analyst reports just this year alone.”

When she joined Coupa in 2012, Raja brought over 17 years of experience in enterprise software. Previously, while at Adobe Systems, she was responsible for directing product marketing for the firm’s business process management business. She also served as Senior Director of Product Management for webMethods. Raja received her bachelor’s degree in computer science and mathematics from the American University of Beirut.

3. Jen Grant
Looker
Chief Marketing Officer

Jen Grant is the Chief Marketing Officer of Looker, a rich data platform that enables organizations and its individual users to extract valuable insights from their data. Since 2015, Jen has helped lead the company through impressive growth by leveraging her deep expertise in brand building. She has spent two decades building noteworthy brands from the ground-up. As the first executive marketing hire at Box in 2008, she oversaw the company’s growth from a small “consumer back-up” start-up to an industry-leading enterprise content collaboration company used by the majority of Fortune 500 organizations.

Prior to Box, Jen spent four years at Google leading the Google Apps EDU, Gmail and Book Search marketing teams. While at Google, Jen received the Founders Award, which is Google’s most prestigious award, for her marketing leadership on Gmail in 2007. More recently, before joining Looker, she spent a few years advising Homebrew’s portfolio, on the board of directors of nonprofit K-12 Team, and led the rebranding of Elastic as CMO. Jen earned her bachelor’s degree english and theater from Princeton University and an MBA in entrepreneurial marketing from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

4. Kate FitzGerald
Leanplum
President

When leading multi-channel engagement platform Leanplum announced earlier this year that it would be appointing Kate FitzGerald as President, it was a key endorsement of the then-Chief Revenue Officer's wealth of experience. The company also appointed her a board member. Kate heads a talented executive team while leveraging her strong sales leadership background to drive success across the company’s sales, marketing, business development, customer service, human resources and finance operations.

As one colleague explained, “Kate is a phenomenal communicator and is able to articulate and tailor a vision that resonates with a diverse set of audiences both internally within a company as well as externally with customers, partners, press and analysts. Kate is a straight shooter who sets very clear standards and expectations and holds her teams and organizations responsible. She also is a terrific mentor and coach and grows people and teams.”

Kate came to Leanplum from marketing automation software company Marketo, where she served as President of Sales for the Americas. She also held the position of Group Vice President for North American Sales at Oracle Marketing Cloud as well as Vice President of Worldwide Sales for Salesforce Service Cloud. Kate received a bachelor’s degree in history from Stanford University.

5. Sarika Garg
Tradeshift
Chief Strategy Officer

Sarika Garg is the Chief Strategy Officer at Tradeshift where she leads corporate strategy, brand and marketing. Tradeshift is a leading provider of supply chain payment solutions connecting over 1.5 million companies across 190 countries. Sarika first joined the company in 2015 as Vice President of Product Marketing, becoming SVP and GM of Marketplaces before assuming the top strategy position. She came to Tradeshift with 13 years of experience in senior roles at software organizations, specializing in products that help connect supply chains over the cloud.

Most recently, Sarika was Senior Director of Product Management for Ariba Commerce Cloud; at the beginning of her career, she was with SAP for 11 years, finishing her tenure there as Senior Director of Product Management. She attributes her success to living across the world, growing up in Africa, and studying and working in India and Germany. She is an active angel investor and advisor to startups, and mentors young and upcoming leaders. Sarika received her master’s in management information systems from Creighton University.

6. Laure Fisher
CallTrackingMetrics
Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder

In 2012, Laure Fisher founded CallTrackingMetrics, which is today a leading provider of call tracking and automation software to over 30,000 businesses around the world. She founded the company with her husband Todd Fisher and together over the last several years have built it to a top-ranked call management platform serving over 100,000 users globally. Previously, Laure was a Senior Director with the Corporate Executive Board, where she worked closely with customers across a variety of industries helping them translate conversations into impact.

Her experience in telephony technology, process management, and marketing strategies has given Laure great perspective in enabling companies to increase conversions and customer engagement. Prior to CallTrackingMetrics, Laure was a founding partner and VP, Marketing and Client Services for Captico LLC, which provided online software solutions for small businesses looking to accelerate their marketing and online presence. Laure earned her bachelor’s degree in economics from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

7. Ellen Raim
Invoca
Vice President, People and Culture

Ellen Raim is the Vice President of People and Culture for Invoca, a leading provider of call tracking and analytics solutions enabling marketing professionals to generate and convert more revenue-generating calls. Ellen has deep experience and knowledge in the field of human capital management having held senior positions at a number of corporations and having earned advanced degrees in organizational design and behavioral sciences. The strategy and tools she employs at Invoca are a culmination of much of her life’s work and is leading the organization to perform at the next level.

One colleague pointed specifically to her unique capabilities, “Ellen brings a completely fresh, thoughtful and amazingly smart approach to thinking through how a company's people, and culture, drive the company's success and growth. Working with her I was blown away by how she leveraged her substantial education in behavioral science to present analysis and recommendations on how to make a real business impact and scale up teams. I've truly never met anyone like her.”

Prior to joining Invoca in early 2019, Ellen held a number of notable positions such as Vice President of Human Resources at Erickson, Vice President of Human Resources and Compliance at Cascade Microtech and was the Director for Worldwide Talent Acquisition for Intel. She was with Intel for ten years where she was sequentially promoted to increasingly senior positions. Ellen earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Brown University, a J.D. from University of Miami and a master’s degree in organizational design from Seattle University and in behavioral sciences from The London School of Economics.

8. Cate Lochead
DataStax
Chief Marketing Officer

Cate Lochead joined data management company DataStax last year to serve as Chief Marketing Officer. For the last two decades, she has built an impressive career in the software industry as a marketing specialist. Cate has a wide breadth of experience, ranging from large publicly-traded software firms like Intuit and Oracle to earlier stage companies like Qlik, Couchbase and Virsa. While at Couchbase as Vice President of Marketing, her team contributed to three consecutive years of 100% year over year growth through new marketing and field programs that built pipe, exponentially improved brand awareness, and clearly articulated product differentiation from key competitors.

Most recently prior to joining DataStax, Cate was Senior Vice President of Marketing at cybersecurity company Carbon Black. She also held the roles of CMO for system software company MariaDB Corporation and Vice President, Application Communications for Oracle. Cate received her bachelor’s degree in english language and literature from the University of Virginia.

9. Tzi-Kei Wong
NewsCred
Vice President of Product

Tzi-Kei (“TK”) Wong is the Vice President of Product at NewsCred, a leading provider of enterprise content marketing software solutions. She joined the company in 2018 bringing over two decades of deep technical and strategic expertise having held senior and key positions with top organizations including SAP, Satmetrix and Responsys. Within her first year at NewsCred, TK has had a profound impact across the company, on its products, culture and overall vision and trajectory.

As one colleague highlights, “When TK joined NewsCred, she joined with a grand vision for what our product could become. With her perseverance and mastery for executing on that vision, obsessiveness with customer delight and keen eye for best user experience, TK has built a winning SaaS company while inspiring and transforming our software organization into a high performing, mission-driven team.”

She helped conceptualize and launch NewsCred’s Integrated Marketing Edition, which has quickly become the leading work management solution for enterprise marketers. TK began her career as a staff engineer at IBM. She then went on to work for Oracle as a senior manager of product management. There she managed multiple software development cycles from concept through launch, primarily for Fortune 100 companies. TK earned her bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and operations research from University of California, Berkeley.

10. Katherine Kostereva
Creatio (formerly bpm’online)
Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner

Katherine Kostereva is the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner at Creatio. Katherine is well known for what she has accomplished with Creatio, now viewed in the industry as one of the leading CRM and business process automation software companies in the market. Her colleagues hold her in high regard for her vision and drive. She has tremendous corporate and industry insight, which has been instrumental in aligning the company’s strategy and roadmap to meet the growing needs of customers. Katherine is always there for partners and clients to support and guide whenever needed.

As one colleague put it, “Katherine is the most inspiring female leader I have ever met. Her story is an amazing example to all women who aim to create a global business. Our world needs such stories and such leaders!”

She co-founded the company in 2013 and since then has achieved the highest customer satisfaction scores in the CRM and BPM industries and landed some of the largest corporations as clients including Heinz, BDO, BNP Paribas, Ericsson, Pepsico, and numerous others. She has also attained top analyst ratings from Gartner, Forrester and other research firms. Katherine has grown the company to an employee base that numbers close to three hundred. She has won numerous awards including being named one of the top women entrepreneurs in cloud computing and being recognized as one of the most influential women in the BPM industry, among other awards.

11. Sandi Lin
Skilljar
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder

Sandi Lin is the CEO and Co-Founder of Skilljar, a leading customer training and enablement platform used by large enterprise organizations such as Cisco, Verizon, and Tableau to accelerate product adoption and increase customer retention. Previously, Sandi was a Senior Manager of Product Management for AmazonLocal. There she led a product management team for customer-facing features including initial product vision, requirements, go-to-market strategy and launch execution.

Skilljar is based in Seattle and is backed by Mayfield, Shasta Ventures and Trilogy Equity Partners. The company’s platform is based on data, and the ability to own and manage data has made the organization incredibly self-sufficient. The company has also invested in making it easy for its customers to take Skilljar data into their CRM (like Salesforce), analytics, and reporting platforms of choice. Sandi earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from MIT and an MBA from Stanford University. She began her professional career as Senior Transportation Analyst for Cambridge Systematics.

12. Ann Torry
BirdDogHR
Vice President of Marketing

Since joining the talent management software provider as Marketing Director in 2013, Ann Torry has played an integral role in BirdDogHR's growing success. According to one colleague, “The impact of her work is felt in every aspect of our business. Ann is responsible for building the company vision from startup phase and transforming the image to the strategic multi-line business we have today. During the past five years, Ann's guidance has impacted company revenue growth in excess of 600%.”

Ann came to BirdDogHR with more than two decades of experience developing integrated business to business marketing strategies. Another colleague commented, “Ann Torry is our biggest reason for BirdDogHR's successful growth! Her expert talents at strengthening the company brand, driving sales with an extremely healthy pipeline, and being the voice for our company are top shelf in every way.”

Immediately prior to BirdDogHR, Ann served as Senior Marketing Director for HR management solutions provider SumTotal Systems. Her earlier career is marked by key marketing roles at major global organizations and startups alike. She received her bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communication from Iowa State University.

Servant Leadership In Software Organizations

13. Melissa Treier
Information Builders
Vice President, Product Sales and Strategy North America

Melissa Treier is the Vice President, Product Sales and Strategy North America for Information Builders, a leading provider of scalable software solutions for data management and analytics. She joined the company nearly twenty years ago in 1993 as an Account Support Representative and over the years worked her way up through increasingly more senior roles. Melissa became the company’s first female Vice President in sales. She has consistently exceeded her annual quotas and was twice recognized as Information Builders’ top salesperson.

Melissa is highly respected by those who have worked with her. She has a tireless work ethic, promotes value-add excellence and day in and day out exhibits authentic passion for technology, sales, and customer success. According to those who know her well, she epitomizes the best combination of integrity, dedication, and operational skill. Despite her demanding schedule, she is a mentor to many. Prior to joining Information Builders, Melissa was a systems engineer with IBM. She earned a bachelor’s degree in sales and marketing from Bowling Green State University.

14. Sandra Nguyen
Volusion
Vice President, People and Culture

Sandra Nguyen is the Vice President, People and Culture for Volusion, a leading provider of all-in-one ecommerce software for all business types, which has powered over 180,000 successful online businesses. As a member of Volusion’s executive management team, Sandra leads two important departments within the organization: People and Culture and Recruiting. She joined Volusion over twelve years ago, initially as a design manager and over the years has been promoted to positions of increasing responsibility.

She has had a tremendous impact on Volusion’s growth and evolution, helping to ensure that the company continues to hire the most talented professionals to meet the organization’s ambitious goals. She has worked across multiple functions within the company and has excelled in crafting high performing teams. Under her watch, Volusion’s employee engagement is rated Platinum level performance. Prior to Volusion, Sandra worked at Apple covering the higher education market and before that Avaya. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Oklahoma City University.

15. Cynthia Haynie
Campus Management
Chief Technology Officer

Cynthia Haynie is the Chief Technology Officer of Campus Management Corp, a leading provider of cloud-based SIS, CRM and ERP solutions and services to higher education institutions. As CTO, Cynthia oversees the development of the company’s technical infrastructure and software solutions, which includes a strong product partnership with Microsoft. With over 800 employees, Campus Management supports over 1,100 institutions in over 30 countries who use its advanced software solutions that are available in a device agnostic and secure platform.

Cynthia is highly regarded for her operating capabilities. As one peer comments, “[She] re-platformed a highly complex, enterprise client-server based solution to a pure SaaS architecture and business model, all while supporting a substantial increase in revenue and profit and completing and integrating two company acquisitions.”

Previously, Cynthia served as the CTO of SolArc, a global provider of commodity trading and risk management solutions. Before that, she held senior technology executive positions for ROME Corporation, Caminus Corp and Altra Energy Technologies. Cynthia also led engineering teams with Martin Marietta and IBM to support the Department of Defense and NASA initiatives. She earned a bachelor’s of science degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M and a master’s degree in information systems from Denver University as well as in technology management from Pepperdine University.

16. Jessica Venturini
BOARD International
Chief Revenue Officer

Jessica Venturini is the Chief Revenue Officer of BOARD International, a leading global provider of software solutions centered around business intelligence, analytics and CPM unification. Founded in 1994, the company has enabled over 3,000 companies worldwide to improve the effectiveness of their management decision making processes through its platform technology. Jessica joined BOARD over 11 years ago initially as a Business Development Director and through the years rose to positions of increasing responsibility including Head of Global Alliances and General Manager Central Europe.

In her current role, Jessica is responsible for the strategy, performance and alignment of the organization's revenue operations in EMENA region. BOARD International is backed by private equity firm Nordic Capital. Prior to BOARD, Jessica worked at Yahoo! and before that Siemens as a business development manager. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and a degree in management and marketing from University College Cork.

Board International’s Jessica Venturini, A Top 50 Woman Leader in SaaS

17. Anita McArter
Prophix Software
Vice President, Channels and Alliances

As Vice President of Channels and Alliances at Prophix Software, Anita McArter is tasked with managing and directing the go-to-market strategy for the Canadian CPM software company's Partner Network. For Anita, this key responsibility is the culmination of more than a decade of increasing authority with Prophix. She first joined the company in 2009 as a Regional Sales Manager; in the years since, Anita has held the positions of Director of Microsoft Alliances and Director of Channels and Alliances before assuming her current role.

As one colleague highlighted, “She leads and inspires with integrity. Like a Chess Master, Anita sees the next nine moves on the board way before the rest of us. Anita’s analytical brain allows her to balance judgment and compassion with ease. As a behind the scenes player, letting her results speak for itself, Anita is instrumental in driving our partner program forward.”

Anita came to Prophix Software with a strong track record of performance in sales, including stints as Applications Sales Solution Specialist at Oracle and Sales Director of Wholesale & Carrier Relations at Toronto Hydro Telecom. Over the course of her career, Anita has gained a well-earned reputation for business plan development, leadership, coaching and mentoring.

18. Kelly Krumreich
Coveo Software
Vice President, Commercial Operations

Coveo Software’s Kelly Krumreich has significant responsibility as the company’s Vice President of Commercial Operations: she heads up a team that is mandated with driving operational efficiencies across the business while helping Coveo scale by creating and putting into practice processes that foster growth. To accomplish this important goal, Kelly utilizes her unique expertise in process engineering, program management, go-to-market planning and change management to convert Coveo’s strategic goals into actionable plans.

Reporting directly to Coveo’s COO, Kelly brings her experience gathered over a two decade career driving growth strategies for Cloud/SaaS-based technology companies. She moved to Coveo from Stantive Technologies Group, where she was Vice President of Market and Customer Development. Earlier in her career, she did a stint as Oracle’s Director of North America Applications Sales Operations and before that spent nearly a decade at Taleo in a number of key roles culminating in her position as Senior Director of Operations for Taleo’s Enterprise Market. Kelly received her bachelor’s degree in english literature from Queen’s University in Canada.

19. Francesca Bossi
Docebo
Chief Human Resources Officer

As Chief Human Resources Officer at Docebo, Francesca Bossi brings her years of experience as a skilled human resources manager and her demonstrated background in the e-learning industry to the service learning management systems company. Francesca has risen from Knowledge Manager to HR Manager to CHRO in her almost seven year tenure with Docebo. She has built a human resources infrastructure from scratch, growing the organization’s global family from just 15 employees to over 300.

As one college pointed out, “I have observed Francesca’s willingness to understand and connect deeply with the wants and needs of Docebo’s employees. In doing so, she, along with her team, have created dozens of employee benefit initiatives that have impacted mothers, families, and those employees who are not just looking for a workplace, but a home.”

Francesca thrives on the challenges that come with high-growth, aggressive global expansion, and supporting her people around the world to rise to their full potential. She began her career as a training, development and e-learning specialist, holding key roles at Esselunga, AlmavivA and the Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca. She received her degree from the Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca.

20. Betsy Adelstein
Flashtalking
Senior Vice President, Sales

Betsy Adelstein is the Senior Vice President of Sales at Flashtalking, a data-driven ad management and analytics technology company. She joined the company nearly a decade ago as a founding member of the US Flashtalking team. Betsy currently leads the Midwest team with 40+ cross functional team members and focuses on leveraging innovative technology solutions and messaging approaches that uniquely deliver on digital communication objectives and performance metrics.

She has over 20 years digital experience. Prior to Flashtalking, Betsey was a Sales Vice President for Pointroll where she covered multiple verticals winning over major clients including Kellogg’s, Sears, Nintendo, Etrade and NBC Universal all while hiring, training and growing the Midwest sales team. She also spent six years at AOL, first as a strategic account manager leading large scale multi-million dollar integrated content/commerce partnerships and then as a top Midwest sales rep. Betsy earned her bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University.

Flashtalking’s Betsy Adelstein, A Top 50 Woman Leader in SaaS

21. Emily Goetz
CrowdStreet
Director, Marketing Communications

Emily Goetz is Director of Marketing Communications for CrowdStreet, a leading online platform for commercial real estate investing. Since joining CrowdStreet, Emily has had significant impact on the company’s visibility in the market. In addition to leveraging her expertise in digital marketing and social media, she has built a solid team of high-performing marketing professionals. Prior to CrowdStreet, Emily was the Vice President of Marketing for inDinero, a leading provider of accounting and tax software solutions.

She began her marketing career at Jama Software where she was instrumental during the company’s early days. She helped lead a wide variety of marketing efforts, which in turn played a material role in Jama’s ensuing spectacular growth and success. More than 600 product-centric organizations, including NASA, Thales, Boeing and Caterpillar have used Jama to modernize their process for bringing complex products to market. Emily earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Oregon.

22. Anu Muralidharan
Expensify
Director of Operations

Anu Muralidharan is the Director of Operations at Expensify, the most widely-used receipt tracking and expense management app. Anu joined the company in 2015 and since then has worked to increase productivity and optimize processes across the company. Prior to Expensify, she was the vice president of business development at Marqeta and before that held multiple senior positions with Citi including vice president, loyalty partnerships and vice president, Citi cards strategy. Anu began her career as an applications engineer for Oracle.

An engineer at heart, Anu has been an exceptional contributor to Expensify bringing her experience in banking operations. She quickly grew into a company leader and joined the executive team in 2019 overseeing engineering with particular focus on fraud and compliance. Anu earned her MBA from Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management and her bachelor’s degree from Birla Institute of Technology and Science.

Expensify’s Anu Muralidharan, A Top 50 Woman Leader in SaaS

23. Emily Robinson
PeopleStrategy
Principal Engineer

As the Principal Engineer at PeopleStrategy, an employee benefits broker that offers a full HR technology suite, Emily Robinson has a clear mission: helping development teams solve difficult problems while looking to revolutionize and implement projects and enhancements critical to the core product offering. She has helped meet this mission in a number of ways, from leading a company-wide initiative to implement agile scrum methodologies to creating technical documentation standards for all development teams company-wide. Additionally, Emily has had a significant impact on the company’s product suite, overseeing the development and implementation of numerous product enhancements.

Emily joined the company from Delphi Analytics, where she served as technology lead responsible for building and managing technology used to manage more than $8 billion in loan portfolios. She received her bachelor’s degree in computer science from Brigham Young University and is currently pursuing her MBA from the University of Central Florida.

Top Woman Leader in SaaS: Emily Robinson, Principal Engineer at PeopleStrategy

24. Parul Gala
SMARTe Inc.
Vice President of Products and HR

Parul Gala is the Vice President of Products and HR for SMARTe Inc., a leading provider of global business to business contact data. She brings together technical expertise, a process-oriented work style and people management skills to drive value for customers. As a leader at SMARTe, Parul has revolutionized Operations, HR, Software and Products departments; making them more sustainable and focused on growth and scalability. She has helped oversee and manage several key product launches, including the launch of real-time data visualization and enrichment platform DataGenie last year. Parul has been at the helm of every strategic direction and has been instrumental in building DATA QUALITY as a brand for SMARTe.

Parul brought to SMARTe her extensive background in user interface design and web development when she joined the company in 2009. Previously, she worked for PayPal in their User Interface Design division; Parul also did stints as a web engineer and web developer at a variety of software firms including startups such as Connexus and Chingari and corporations like Agile Software. Parul received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Mumbai and a Diploma in Computer Programming from De Anza College, Cupertino.

SMARTe’s Parul Gala, A Top 50 Woman Leader in SaaS

25. Christine Kaszubski
SalesLoft
Chief People Officer

When SalesLoft brought Christine Kaszubski on as the company’s first Chief People Officer at the end of 2017, half of the company’s team had less than a year of tenure—and a year later, an additional 180 employees were hired. Christine’s role in her new company was clear: be the guiding hand to develop and manage employee structures and processes in order to support continued rapid growth while sustaining employee satisfaction. As part of this mandate, Christine has more than doubled SalesLoft’s human resources team, adjusted its employee benefits programs to be best-in-class, developed a recruiting process to ensure top talent is hired and expanded its employee training programs.

Her impressive accomplishments were highlighted by a colleague, “Christine's commitment to SalesLoft, when she joined the team, was to create industry-leading programs that other companies would want to emulate. And she has done exactly that with the paid parental leave program, launching a women's integrated network, diversity and inclusion initiatives, as well as enhancing SalesLoft's total rewards program. Christine is always working to ensure that SalesLoft's core values are reflected in every area of the business.”

She brought to the company almost twenty years of HR experience. Previously, she was Chief People Officer at real estate software company Commissions Inc. Prior to that, she was Vice President of HR at C2 Education, Senior Human Resource Business Partner at Dunkin’ Brands and Human Resource Manager at Ford Motor Company. Christine received her bachelor’s degree from Western Michigan University and a master’s in organizational development from Colorado State University.

26. Julie Lacasse
TrackTik
Vice President of Operations

During her tenure with security workforce management software company TrackTik, Julie Lacasse has been instrumental in building the company’s foundation and driving the SaaS-focused business to grow 80% year in and year out. As Vice President of Operations, Julie focuses on people and is responsible for three departments—Client Experience, Client Success and Solutions—as well as spearheading instrumental change management projects outside her divisions.

As one colleague pointed out, “Julie has grown this company in 5 years from 3 employees to over 140 and she still personally gets to know every single person. She not only knows everyone's name but she remembers specific details about what you like to do and how you are motivated, it’s incredible and I've never felt so valued by the head of a company I've worked for before.”

Julie brought a track record of success and multi-faceted business experience to TrackTik. She held roles in software implementation, human resources and marketing operations at companies like Labatt Breweries and Mosaic Sales Solutions. It is this diverse background combined with her strong business acumen that have enabled Julie to help TrackTik scale internationally.

27. Taunia Kipp
Kaseya
Executive Vice President, Corporate Marketing and Communications Officer

Taunia Kipp is the Executive Vice President, Corporate Marketing and Communications Officer at Kaseya, a leading provider of complete IT infrastructure management solutions for managed service providers (MSPs) and internal IT organizations. Since joining the company in 2012, Taunia has risen through five key senior roles each time increasing in responsibility. In her current role, she oversees Kaseya’s family of brands including Unitrends, Spanning Cloud Apps, Rapidfire Tools, ID Agent and IT Glue.

Prior to joining Kaseya, Taunia held senior roles with other leading corporations. She was the Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Publicist for Competitive Velocity Business Solutions and before that was the COO and CISO at Mountain Media where she helped turn around the company from flat to successful growth. Taunia was also the Vice President of Global Marketing and Communications for Wurld Media, an international software development company specializing in e-commerce and digital entertainment media distribution.

28. Dagmar Sevcikova
Socialbakers
Vice President, People

Global AI-powered social media marketing company Socialbakers hired Dagmar Sevcikova in 2016 to spearhead the company’s human capital management function. With over 13 years of experience and a track record of success in people strategy and HR business partnerships, Dagmar’s background made her the perfect match for the Prague-based company. Prior to joining Socialbakers, Dagmar was HR Lead for Microsoft in the Czech Republic and before that spent several years with Avery Dennison in key HR leadership roles covering Eastern Europe.

In her current role, she ensures the Socialbakers organization has the talent necessary to deliver the best solutions possible to its thousands of clients including over 100 of the Fortune Global 500. The company offers a marketing platform that leverages machine learning to help brands make smarter investments on social media. Socialbakers was founded in 2008 and has additional offices in London, San Francisco, New York City, Plzeň, Split, Singapore, Sydney, Paris, Munich, São Paulo, Mexico City, Dubai and Istanbul. Dagmar received her master’s degree from Charles University in Prague.

Socialbakers’ Dagmar Sevcikova, A Top 50 Woman Leader in SaaS

29. Christina Woods
MSIGHTS
Vice President, Global Client Engagement

As Vice President of Global Client Engagement for MSIGHTS, a leading marketing data and analytics company, Christina Woods spearheads all client engagement and success teams across the company’s four offices in Charlotte, North Carolina; Geneva, Switzerland; Monterrey, Mexico; and Singapore. She brings nearly 20 years of experience in marketing, advertising, and media and has garnered great respect from client partners that include Nationwide Insurance, SAP, Sprint, White House Black Market, and BASF.

Christina has excelled in orchestrating all aspects of the customer experience ranging from user support, training, and onboarding to soliciting client feedback to help ensure continuous improvement of the user experience. Prior to MSIGHTS, she worked in agency media planning/buying and marketing data management at firms like Howard, Merrell & Partners as well as McKinney, a full-service creative and media agency. Christina obtained her bachelor’s degree in business and marketing from North Carolina State University.

MSIGHTS’ Christina Woods, A Top 50 Woman Leader in SaaS

30. Kharen Hauck
Phreesia
Vice President of Demand Generation

Kharen Hauck is the Vice President of Demand Generation at Phreesia, a leading healthcare software company specialized in patient intake management. Since assuming the role in 2017, she has become a key collaborative partner on Phreesia's marketing campaign execution, growth strategies and marketing technology tool implementation.

One colleague pointed to her strong leadership skills, “Kharen is excellent at motivating and managing employees. She can take complex problems or ideas and articulate them so concisely that everyone in the organization can understand.” While another colleague commented on her dedication, “Kharen is the most dedicated, goals oriented executive I have worked with. She will work tirelessly to make sure the job gets done on time and to her exacting standards.”

She transitioned to her current position from her previous role as Phreesia's Director of Client Experience for the company’s life sciences business. Prior to joining Phreesia in 2011, she gained more than a decade of experience in marketing and advertising during stints at Clive David & Mann and CMI. She received her bachelor's degree from West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

Phreesia’s Kharen Hauck: A Top Woman Leader Who Rises To New Challenges

31. Joanie Wang
Expensify
Director of Marketing

Joanie Wang is the Director of Marketing at Expensify, the most widely-used receipt tracking and expense management app. Since joining the company in 2014, Joanie has helped grow Expensify into the most recognizable expense management platform in the space. She’s leveraged her keen marketing sense to create unique and memorable messaging such as Expensify’s first nationwide advertising campaign, You Weren’t Born to Do Expenses, for Super Bowl LIII. The campaign won 5 Cannes Lions awards.

Joanie has also spearheaded the launch of some of Expensify’s biggest initiatives including ExpensiCon and the ExpensifyApproved! Program. She wrote the industry’s go-to guide on preaccounting and continues to grow Expensify's brand globally with a world-class team. In 2018, Joanie was named a Top 50 Woman Leader in SaaS. She was also recently honored as a 2019 20 Under 40 Influencer by CPA Practice Advisor. Joanie earned her bachelor’s degree from Tufts University.

32. Elizabeth Brockey
Simpli.fi
Chief Customer Officer

Elizabeth Brockey is the Chief Customer Officer of Simpli.fi, the leading provider of localized programmatic advertising solutions. The company works with the largest buyers of localized advertising, including multi-location brands, agencies, local media groups, networks, and trading desks. Elizabeth has spent her career in online marketing capacities for internet and technology companies. Having worked on all sides of the digital marketing environment and with many start-ups, Brockey has a proven track record of creating, developing, and managing consistent and profitable growth within multiple organizations.

At Simpli.fi, Elizabeth leads the company’s client services team with a focus on driving client satisfaction and progress through campaign performance. She has spent her tenure with the organization executing strategic initiatives to foster innovation and drive company growth. As a true servant-leader, Elizabeth focuses first on the development and well-being of her employees enabling her team to perform at their highest potential. She holds a bachelor’s degree in government and pre-law from the University of Texas at Dallas and is currently pursuing her master’s degree in digital marketing from East Tennessee State University.

33. Elizabeth Loar
SnapLogic
Vice President, Finance and Administration

Elizabeth Loar is the Vice President, Finance Administration of SnapLogic, a leading intelligent integration platform that enables organizations to manage all their application and data integration on a single, scalable platform. Hundreds of Global 2000 customers — including Adobe, AstraZeneca, Box, Emirates, Schneider Electric, Sony, and Wendy’s — rely on SnapLogic to automate business processes, accelerate analytics, and drive digital transformation.

A member of SnapLogic’s executive team, Elizabeth oversees the accounting, finance, HR, and legal functions. She has been instrumental in the company's successive financings of nearly $150 million. Most recently, she oversaw SnapLogic’s $72 million growth financing led by Arrowroot Capital. Previously, she was the Director of Financial Planning and Analysis and later Corporate Controller at Merchant e-Solutions, a fintech company. Elizabeth holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a bachelor’s degree from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

34. Janine Pelosi
Zoom
Chief Marketing Officer

Janine Pelosi is the Chief Marketing Officer of Zoom, a leading enterprise video communication company, which was founded in 2011 and went public in April of 2019. Janine has been instrumental to the company’s rapid growth and incredible success. Her responsibilities are wide ranging and cover brand awareness, go-to-market strategies, product marketing, communications, lead generation and customer marketing among other activities. In 2018, she took on yet another key role - leading the company’s online business unit.

Janine has a long 15 year history in video communications. She came to Zoom as the former Senior Marketing Manager for Cisco’s WebEx Online. While there she led customer acquisition, public relations, social media, events marketing and other key marketing functions. Janine had actually been with WebEx since it was an independent company initially joining in 2004 as an advertising specialist. She received her bachelor’s degree in marketing from San Jose State University.

35. Amanda Bohne
AppNeta
Vice President of Marketing

Amanda Bohne is the Vice President of Marketing at AppNeta, the leader in actionable, 4-Dimensional network performance monitoring. Since joining the company in mid 2018, Amanda has completely rebuilt the marketing function and reshaped AppNeta’s place within the enterprise SaaS and IT solutions market, resulting in AppNeta being named as a “Visionary” in the 2019 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics.

Prior to AppNeta, Amanda held senior positions in marketing at several other Boston-area technology companies, including Carbonite (NASDAQ: CARB) and Care.com (NYSE: CRCM). Throughout all of her roles, Amanda’s blend of product marketing and general marketing experience has allowed her to tap into the products’ unique value propositions to create compelling messaging that resonates with target audiences. That, coupled with Amanda’s proven track record of steering meaningful transformations at technology startups, truly sets her apart.

Amanda earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from Stanford University and a master’s in advertising from Boston University.

36. Kelly Hall
Vision Critical
Chief Customer Officer

Kelly Hall is the Chief Customer Officer of Vision Critical, a leading software solution that enables the aggregation and analysis of global customer insights. Kelly leverages over two decades of deep technology experience in her current role where she presides over all customer enablement and engagement, including professional services, customer success, technical support, and education. She joined Vision Critical from BMC Software, where she led the worldwide cloud customer success organization.

Prior to BMC, Kelly spent over six years at CA Technologies rising through several positions eventually leading to senior roles within key business units. Before that, she was a consulting manager for Protiviti, where she led the northeast region for the development and management of new IT asset and service management business. Kelly is an avid reader citing Leadership and Self Deception, Crucial Conversations, Emotional Intelligence, and The Power of a Positive No as four books that have shaped who she is as a woman, an employee, and a leader.

37. Robin Ritenour
People.ai
Global Head of Business Development, Alliances and Channels

Robin Ritenour is the Global Head of Business Development, Alliances and Channels at People.ai, a leading provider of revenue intelligence solutions. The company is backed by ICONIQ Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Robin is a seasoned strategic marketing and sales professional with a breadth of experience at leading SaaS companies. Prior to People.ai, Robin was Senior Vice President of Business Development at Marketo and before that was Vice President of Alliances and Partner Strategy at Adobe.

Robin also held a number of key strategic roles while at Salesforce, starting with Senior Director of Global Strategic Alliances and eventually rising to Vice President. She began her career in the software industry with SAP where she was for five years. Robin is a strategic advisor to Integrate, Inc., a SaaS platform for marketers that unifies demand marketing channels. She holds a B.S.E in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University.

38. Rae Shanahan
Businessolver
Chief Strategy Officer

As Chief Strategy Officer for SaaS-based benefits administration company Businessolver, Rae Shanahan is responsible for maintaining “The Businessolver Way”—the company’s playbook that outlines its core values and operating principles. As one colleague explains it, “For most of Businessolver’s 21-year history, Rae has helped lead the organization’s strategy and growth, bringing us from a small SaaS startup to a true market leader. She has been instrumental in guiding our market vision and driving us where we need to be from a product, service and culture perspective.”

Prior to joining Businessolver almost two decades ago, Rae spent over a decade in HR on both the delivery and client sides. She was a major accounts district manager for human resources services company ADP and held a wide range of human resources positions, ranging from recruiting and employee training to organizational development and compensation, at Maytag Corporation. Rae earned her bachelor’s degree in business management from Simpson College.

39. Catherine Tabor
Sparkfly
Chief Executive Officer and Founder

Catherine Tabor leveraged her decades of point-of-sale (POS), retail, ecommerce and digital expertise to create the retail industry’s best-in-class Offer Management and POS Attribution Platform. Sparkfly enables retailers, such as Chipotle and Great Clips, to gain real-time insights into digital customer touchpoints; including offer management, digital wallet and POS attribution; across all media.

With Sparkfly’s digital wallet capabilities, retailers apply loyalty rewards and process discounts received through any form of media or distribution channel; all through single-scan technology at the POS. Sparkfly also enables the communication of transactional data to other marketing and analytics technologies, allowing retailers to track promotions in real-time through to the transaction.

An industry colleague said, “Catherine Tabor is a pioneer in retail tech and one of the foremost experts of in-store and commerce digital marketing technology. For the past ten years Sparkfly has been the ‘best-kept-secret’ in retail tech. Given the results her clients have seen, it’s safe to say, the secret is out.”

Catherine was named one of Atlanta’s top female CEOs by Atlanta Woman Magazine and one of Mobile Marketer’s Mobile Women to Watch. Catherine served on the Board of Visitors of her Alma Mater, The University of Georgia.

40. Kristine Steuart
Allocadia
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder

Since co-founding B2B-focused marketing operations platform Allocadia in 2010 with her twin sister Katherine Berry, Kristine Steuart has brought her vision of making every marketing dollar count to a growing global client base. The duo created Allocadia after seeing first-hand in their previous positions the difficulty of understanding marketing investments and measuring marketing performance. In the years since, she has led Allocadia from a cash-crunched startup to a global organization supporting over 12,250 marketers with billions of dollars in marketing spend under management and partnerships with marketing cloud leaders such as IBM, Oracle and Marketo.

She’s also raised $30 million in venture funding. Kristine brought a diverse background to her entrepreneurial venture, having worked in government and tourism before moving to tech marketing with positions at Business Objects (acquired by SAP) and Crystal Decisions. In addition to the success that Kristine has seen for her company, she has received numerous awards for her leadership. She was included in the Top Forty Under 40 by Business in Vancouver and was named one of the Top 10 Women in Tech to Watch in 2015 by Inc. magazine. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Simon Fraser University.

41. Jennifer Kaelin
Pendo
Chief Financial Officer

Jennifer Kaelin is the Chief Financial Officer of Pendo, a software development solution that provides product teams with user insight, user guidance and user communication tools. Jennifer joined the company two years ago during a spate of executive hirings aimed at rapidly expanding the management team to lead the organization through continued rapid growth. And so far, Jennifer has lived up to the high expectations when she came on board. During her tenure as CFO, she has overseen a successful $100 million funding round on a $1 billion valuation, making Pendo one of North Carolina’s few unicorns.

Jennifer joined Pendo from cloud-based business automation solutions provider SciQuest (now Jaegger), where she also served as CFO. In her eleven years with the company, it grew from $9 million to $110 million in revenue; she managed all financial operations, oversaw and integrated four key acquisitions and played a key role in the company’s IPO and eventual sale. Earlier in her career, Jennifer was Corporate Controller at Art.com, Controller at Modus Media International and a financial analyst at IBM. She received her bachelor’s degree in business administration and management as well as her master’s in accounting from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

42. Robynne Sisco
Workday
Co-President and Chief Financial Officer

Workday first hired Robynne Sisco as Chief Accounting Officer in 2012. She quickly saw success at the company, being promoted to Chief Financial Officer in 2016 and to Co-President in 2018. In her current roles, Robynne is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the company’s finance, investor relations, real estate and legal divisions.

Robynne brought over three decades of corporate finance and accounting experience to Workday. She had most recently served as Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller at VMware, placing her in charge of accounting operations, facilities and real estate. Robynne has also held senior finance roles at major corporations such as VeriSign, Oracle, Visa, General Electric and Ford. She received her MBA in Finance from Golden Gate University and her bachelor’s degree in economics and accounting from Claremont McKenna College. Robynne currently sits on the board of directors for Unity Technologies.

43. Katherine Calvert
Khoros
Chief Marketing Officer

Katherine Calvert is the Chief Marketing Officer at Khoros, a leading customer engagement platform that leverages consumer insights across organizations to help drive innovation and better customer service. Katherine brings over 20 years of experience to Khoros, having held leadership roles at several enterprise B2B companies including Advent Software, Outcome Health, LinkedIn, and Inovis (formerly QRS). She also served on the Board of Directors at Marstone, where she advised the fintech startup on strategic alliances, marketing, PR, and go-to-market strategies.

She was with Advent Software for over nine years eventually rising to the CMO role where she was responsible for much of the company’s success in driving global brand recognition and expanding the customer pipeline. At Khoros, Katherine is responsible for designing and delivering on the company’s global marketing strategy. Today, Khoros has 2,000+ customers, including 52 of the Interbrand 100, and operates out of ten offices globally. The company powers approximately 500 million digital interactions every day. Katherine earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

44. Aundreia Heisey
Seismic
Regional Vice President

Aundreia Heisey is Regional Vice President, Customer Success Segment Lead for Seismic, a leading provider of sales and marketing enablement solutions. Global enterprises such as IBM, American Express, PayPal, and Quest Diagnostics leverage Seismic’s software to increase win rates, larger deals and higher customer retention. Aundreia joined the company just over three years ago and since then has had tremendous and swift impact in driving new client growth. For example, she began leading a specialist team in early 2018 to focus on the mid-market asset management space and in a short period has seen a 115% increase of customers in that portfolio.

Recognizing her exceptional capabilities, Seismic has promoted Aundreia three times in three years to increasingly more senior positions. Prior to Seismic, she held senior roles at AB, Citi, and W.P. Stewart. Aundreia began her career in financial services focused marketing as a marketing associate with Robeco Investment Management. She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Pace University.

45. Susan St. Ledger
Splunk
President, Worldwide Field Operations

Susan St. Ledger has been with data-to-everything platform company Splunk since 2016. In that time, Susan has risen from Chief Revenue Officer to her current role as President of Worldwide Field Operations. In 2016, the company was generating $670 million in revenues and three years later it’s grown to over $1.8 billion. Her current position places her in charge of overseeing global sales, customer success and marketing for the 5,000+ employee publicly-traded company.

Susan brought to Splunk the diverse and deep experience she gained from 25 years in strategic sales. Prior to Splunk, she was with Salesforce for 8 years, most recently serving as their Chief Revenue Officer for Marketing Cloud. Susan also spent 13 years at Sun Microsystems as Vice President of Global Services Sales. She received her bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Scranton.

46. Andrea Pitts
Arena Solutions
Vice President, Strategic Alliances and Sales

Andrea Pitts holds a key role in Arena Solutions’ organizational structure: she is responsible for overseeing the company’s entire global sales organization, from business development and business partner alliances to sales and solution consulting. Arena Solutions provides an integrated software solution combining product lifecycle (PLM) and quality management (QMS) processes. Andrea has been able to leverage her more than two decades of experience managing and expanding successful sales teams to craft new sales processes and best practices that regularly exceed revenue targets.

Before joining Arena Solutions in 2011, Andrea acted as Sales Director for FirstRain. She also spent time at Agile Software and its acquirer Oracle, where she was involved with managing sales operations, creating new certification programs and spearheading strategic PLM campaigns. Andrea received her bachelor’s degree from Northwood University with a dual major in marketing and management.

47. Elena Nazzi
Templafy
Product Owner and Team Lead

As Product Owner and Team Lead at document productivity and content governance SaaS company, Templafy, Elena Nazzi always puts the end-user first to understand how changes to her product will impact the user and the Enterprise organization. She engages colleagues to step out of their comfort zones with design-based practices, fostering innovative ways to deliver more effective and enjoyable workflows for Templafy’s 1.5 million end-users.

In her five-year tenure with Templafy, Elena held previous positions as Frontend Developer and UXer and has helped grow Templafy’s engineering and product organization. Before Templafy, Elena worked towards a Ph.D. in Interaction Design at IT University of Copenhagen. As part of her research, she looked at the intersection between social computing, interaction design and the Internet of Things. Elena received both an undergraduate and post-graduate degree in computer science from University of Udine, during which time she also served as a Research Fellow.

48. Allie Kelly
JazzHR
Vice President of Marketing

Allie Kelly is the Vice President of Marketing at JazzHR, a leading provider of recruitment software. Since 2009, the company has helped thousands of businesses fill more than 100,000 positions. Allie joined JazzHR in 2016 and since then has led the company through a demand transformation initiative that aligns marketing, product, and sales to deliver an exceptional customer experience. Her leadership of the initiative has produce record revenue and customer growth.

Prior to joining JazzHR, Allie served as Vice President of Marketing at Attivio and held key marketing leadership positions at high-growth companies, including SnapApp and Lionbridge Technologies. As a customer-centric marketing leader with core strengths in transformational change and growth-stage leadership, Allie has spent the last 16 years driving scalable, sustainable growth for B2B and B2C companies. She earned her bachelor’s degree in marketing and communications from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

49. Leah Logan
Inmar Brand Solutions
Vice President, Product Strategy and Marketing

Leah Logan is the Vice President of Product Strategy and Marketing at Inmar Brand Solutions (formerly known as Collective Bias). Inmar provides influencer marketing and measurement solutions. Its analytic capabilities are driven by access to billions of consumer and business transactions in real time. Leah leads the company’s strategy and commercialization across influencer marketing, conversational commerce, personalized media and digital incentive products.

Previously, Leah led the marketing efforts for all brands at Walmart for Dr Pepper Snapple Group. In that role, she received several marketing awards inclusive of "Who's Who in Shopper Marketing" and The "Get it Done" award for outstanding collaboration with Walmart Marketing. Earlier in her career, Leah held senior positions with Triad Retail Media where her responsibilities included providing strategic guidance and execution capabilities for digital initiatives of Sam’s Club and Walmart. She is a sought after speaker and thought leader on social and digital media providing commentary for leading publications such as AdWeek, Digiday and AdAge.

50. Karen Flathers
BlackLine
Chief Customer Officer

As enterprise software company BlackLine’s Chief Customer Officer, Karen Flathers is responsible for directing and supervising all day-to-day functions across the company’s implementations, customer success, support and product training departments. When Karen was hired in 2016, BlackLine’s CEO Therese Tucker noted that she is a “’can do’ leader” who is always willing to go the extra mile for customers.

BlackLine is a provider of cloud-based solutions for Finance & Accounting (F&A) that centralize and streamline financial close operations and other key F&A processes for midsize and large organizations. Karen came to the company from SaaS-based billing, commerce and finance management company Zuora, where she served as Vice President of Professional Services and Global Field Operations. Previously, she was Senior Vice President of Services and Support at Aclara. Karen began her career at SAP America, where she reached the position of Senior Vice President of Consulting. She received her bachelor’s degree from Brown University.