Sales Leadership Summit

Biography

For most of the past 30 years, Chris Beall has participated in software start-ups as a founder or at a very early stage of development. His focus has consistently been on creating and taking to market simple products that can be used successfully the first time they are touched, without having to take a course or read a manual. His belief is that the most powerful part of any software system is the human being that we inappropriately call a “user,” and that the value key in software is to let the computer do what it does well — go fast without getting bored — in order to free up human potential. Toward that end, Chris has been involved with Requisite Technology, GXS, Epiance, Qlip Media, Aptara, Cadis, Sun Microsystems, and Unisyn. He is currently CEO of ConnectAndSell, Inc., based in Silicon Valley.

Biography

Founder of Carbon Design Co and the former head of the Washington, DC office of gyro. The largest B2B agency in the world and Ad Age’s 2016 B-to-B Agency of the Year.  My career follows the pipeline. I started at the bottom closing deals as a sales rep, then became a management consultant after grad school helping clients build sales and marketing channels. Along the way, I’ve had stints as the head of marketing of an Inc. 500 company, and as an interim CMO at a Fortune 500 company. Today, I help clients improve the effectiveness of the marketing efforts up and down the funnel. From transition to digital to finding ways to communicate and connect with audiences. That said, this is B2B marketing and that means what we do must payoff in sales results.The goal is to turn insights into ideas, and ideas into motivated buyers to convert.

Biography

David Hood, CEO of VanillaSoft, is a successful software entrepreneur with extensive international experience in finance, business development, sales, and marketing. Under his leadership VanillaSoft has grown over the past decade from a small start-up to a leader in the inside sales and CRM space focusing on lead management and cadence automation.

Prior to VanillaSoft, David was co-founder and CEO of Hemera Technologies, which grew from a basement start-up to a world-class player in the digital image content space in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

David holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Biochemistry, a Master’s Degree in International Affairs, and graduated from the Owner- President Management program (OPM) of Harvard Business School.

Biography

Alex currently leads the B2B Sales Development Program which is responsible for providing AT&T Business Solutions with the next generation of premier sales professionals and transforming AT&T’s inside sales strategy. He leads a team of over 350 sellers supporting all sales segments within AT&T (National Business, Industry Solutions, IoT, & Public Sector).

Alex graduated from The University of Arizona with a BA in Marketing in May of 2010. Shortly thereafter, Alex began his career with AT&T in June of 2010, joining the 44th class of the Business Sales Leadership Development Program (now known as the B2B Sales Development Program) in Atlanta, GA. Upon completing the rigorous 6-month BSLDP program in October 2010, Alex moved to Orange County, CA. where he held several sales positions across small and medium sized business segments.

In the fall of 2012, Alex accepted a position in Dallas, TX, as the Executive Communications Manager reporting directly to Charlie Bolton, Senior Vice President, Small Business Solutions. Alex later transitioned back into sales as a Regional Sales Manager responsible for leading a team of sellers in the North Texas market, a $60M portfolio, ultimately taking the team from last to first place across all sales teams.

In July of 2015, Alex accepted the role of Director – Product Marketing Management in the Business Marketing, IP Transformation Organization. Alex’s team was responsible for developing the strategy for migrating business customers from our TDM portfolio to our strategic IP services.

2 years later, Alex accepted the role of Director – B2B Sales Program where he led a large team of sales development professionals who produce the next generation of sales professionals for Business Solutions. During this time, the program grew by 3X and transformed into a revenue generating organization Alex and his team modernized AT&T’s inside sales strategy which expanded the programs reach to all major sales segments within AT&T Business.

Alex currently resides in Dallas, Texas with his husband Zack and spends the majority of his time outside of the office traveling and exploring new countries.

Biography

CSO Insights, the independent research arm of Miller Heiman Group, is dedicated to improving the performance and productivity of B2B sales organizations around the world.

As Chief Research Office, Seleste Lunsford defines CSO Insights’ research agenda, leads the industry-elite analyst team and oversees the creation of research output and client advisory services. Seleste works directly with the research team to develop original studies correlating sales trends and practices with operational results. She regularly shares CSO Insights findings with client executive teams, industry conference attendees and the market-at-large, working in over 20 countries. Her specialty areas are sales process, sales enablement and sales talent.

Seleste has been a leader in the sales performance industry for over 20 years, holding executive roles in Professional Services, Product Development and Operations. Prior to leading CSO Insights, she ran the sales effectiveness consulting practice for AchieveGlobal Inc. In this capacity, she designed, productized and implemented strategic consulting interventions for: sales process mapping, customer experience journey mapping, organizational sales assessment, sales coaching practice development and sales competency modelling.

She has co-authored two books: Secrets of Top Performing Salespeople (McGraw Hill) and Strategies that Win Sales (Dearborn Publishing), published dozens of white papers and written articles on Sales Effectiveness for Forbes.com, SellingPower Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, CRM Magazine, Chief Learning Officer, HR.com, PharmaVoice and more.

She is proud to have supported clients such as: AAA, Alliance Bernstein, American Express, Arrow Electronics, Citibank, Convergys, Diners Club, The US Department of Defense, Office Depot, MasterCard, Traveler’s Insurance, Verizon Wireless and some of the world’s largest big box retailers.

Ms. Lunsford earned an MBA degree from Florida State University, where she also earned a B.S. degree in Physics.

Connect with Seleste at www.linkedin.com/in/seleste-lunsford and the CSO Insights blog www.csoinsights.com/blog/ where she is a regular contributor.

Biography

Usman Sheikh is Founder and CEO of xiQ, Inc. a next generation, AI powered, SaaS platform for B2B sales and marketing teams. Companies using xiQ include, Accenture, AWS, Nutanix, Symantec, Autodesk, Salesforce, and Genpact, to name a few. As a 30-year veteran of the B2B Sales and Marketing industry and a serial-entrepreneur, Usman has a very strong B2B pedigree.

Prior to founding xiQ, Usman served as Vice President with SAP, SE for 13 years, where he held positions in Product Management, Sales Enablement and Business Development. While at SAP, Usman learned the nuances of developing, selling and deploying large scale, enterprise class B2B systems. He also oversaw the development and rollout of multiple global enterprise class systems. He left SAP to pursue his passion for developing next generation technologies, using the principles of design thinking, on the intersection of B2B Sales and Marketing.

Currently Usman resides in the Silicon Valley, San Francisco Bay Area.

Biography

Warren is the founder and Managing Partner of Symmetrics Group. Symmetrics Group is a management consulting firm focused on increasing the effectiveness of the Sales and Marketing functions to grow revenues – helping sales organizations sell more. They focus on the areas of go-to-market strategy, sales and marketing integration, sales force capability, and sales leadership. He launched Symmetrics Group in 2010 after more than 15 years of experience in management consulting across several industries including technology, communications, financial services and manufacturing

Warren is the co-author of two books: 7 Steps to Sales Transformation, which outlines how to drive enduring change with a sales team and The Multigenerational Sales Team, which focuses on how generational differences impact buying-selling and team relationships, and how to leverage each generation’s unique strengths to drive improvements in both individual and organizational performance.

Before launching Symmetrics Group, Warren served in a leadership role with North Highland, an Atlanta-based management consulting firm where he established a sales effectiveness team and led the national Customer Relationship Management (CRM) service area. Before joining North Highland, Warren served in leadership roles with several sales methodology/training firms including Sales Performance International, Performance Methods and OnTarget.

Warren lives in Atlanta with his wife and two daughters. A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Warren earned his Bachelors of Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech and his MBA from Duke University. In addition to spending time with his family, he enjoys travel, food and wine, and driving sports cars on race tracks in the southeast.

Biography

Jen has spent the last 20 years of her career working across a variety of marketing, sales, channel and business strategy roles. For the last 10 years Jen has focused on growing Microsoft’s cloud business.

As the Director of Strategy and Programs for Demand Response and Customer Success, Jen focuses on driving close integration between Microsoft’s sales and marketing engines and also partners with compensation, readiness, engineering and sales excellence to drive for innovation and operational excellence.

Prior to her role in Digital Sales, Jen worked across a variety of channel-focused roles at Microsoft including leading the cloud partner programs, partner profitability strategy, channel development and ISV platform adoption.

Biography

Spencer Wixom is the Vice President of Marketing and Sales Enablement at Challenger. Over the last 12 years he has helped transform sales and marketing teams in some of the biggest and best companies in the world.