The Software Report is pleased to announce The Top 50 Women Leaders in SaaS of 2023. The Software as a Service (SaaS) sector is undergoing an extraordinary boom, solidifying its role as a pivotal force for businesses worldwide. Operating on a subscription model and residing on a centralized cloud network, SaaS solutions stand out as one of the most rapidly expanding segments in the IT industry. This growth is attributed to their unmatched flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. Notably, the U.S. is positioned to lead the ongoing revolution in the SaaS industry, with a projected market value of $225 billion by 2025.
The distinguished women featured on this year's list hold diverse leadership roles such as CEOs, CFOs, CROs, CMOs, and Presidents, showcasing a broad spectrum of expertise. What unites these award recipients is their adept leadership within some of the most transformative and impactful SaaS companies in the industry. Through their demonstrated excellence, they highlight that robust and innovative leadership is instrumental in fostering the success and rapid adoption of top-notch software solutions within the globalized digital economy.
This year's award recipients include Jennifer Murphy, who holds the position of VP of Channels and Alliances at StarTree, where she has significantly contributed to the startup's rapid expansion by forging strategic partnerships with major players in the data analytics industry, such as AWS, Databricks, and Confluent. Another honoree, Susan St. Ledger, the President of Worldwide Field Operations at HashiCorp, is recognized. With extensive industry experience, St. Ledger previously served as Splunk's President of Worldwide Field Operations, overseeing the growth of the SaaS business from nearly $700 million in revenue to an impressive $2.5 billion.
Lastly, Faiza Hughell is currently serving as the Chief Revenue Officer at Tebra. Hughell, who has garnered numerous prestigious awards over her lengthy career, previously held the role of SVP of SMB. In that capacity, she played a pivotal role in elevating the organization's SMB business from $23 million to an impressive annual recurring revenue exceeding $1 billion.
Please join us in celebrating The Top 50 Women Leaders in SaaS of 2023.
1. Therese Tucker
Company: BlackLine
Title: Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer
Therese Tucker, Founder and CEO of BlackLine, seamlessly merged technology and finance in 2001, establishing the digital finance transformation leader BlackLine is today. Tucker guided BlackLine by developing automated solutions for account reconciliations. In 2007, she transitioned the company to a cloud/SaaS business model.
In 2016, she made history as one of the first female tech founders to take a company public. Working alongside Co-CEO Owen Ryan, Tucker oversees software development and maintains a customer-centric focus. Prior to BlackLine, Tucker served as chief technology officer for SunGard Treasury Systems. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Illinois.
2. Kim Crawford Goodman
Company: Smarsh
Title: Chief Executive Officer
Kim Crawford Goodman is the Chief Executive Officer at Smarsh, where she is responsible for all strategic and operating elements of this dynamic, growing business. Smarsh has leading edge technologies (Cloud native, AI, and integrated platforms) to enable clients to reduce their risk and meet their compliance requirements across a growing employee base enabled with expanding communication tools. Notably, Goodman has extensive experience with global, complex businesses, requiring strategic customer relationships, a deep understanding of critical business drivers, and effective engagement of a large, distributed workforce.
With more than 25 years of experience, Goodman has held key leadership positions with many of the largest brands across financial services and technology, including American Express, Worldpay US, Dell, and Bain & Company. Before joining Smarsh, Goodman was the Head of Payments and Risk Solutions at Fiserv, Inc., a Fortune 500 company. There, she provided executive leadership for the company’s bill payment, prepaid, and financial and risk management solutions businesses, with additional accountability for digital payments. Goodman holds an Engineering and Political Science degree from Stanford University. Additionally, she is a Baker Scholar MBA graduate from the Harvard Business School.
3. Jana Hey
Company: WorkWave
Title: Chief Financial Officer
Jana Hey is the Chief Financial Officer at WorkWave, where she manages the company’s financial strategy and operations, including the company’s financial reporting. Hey provides leadership to the Accounting and Financial Planning & Analysis teams, bringing over 20 years of experience in financial services. WorkWave helps mobile workforce companies in the field service, transportation and logistics industries mitigate the key pain points they face every day. This allows them to save money, save time and improve customer service, all at the same time.
Hey's professional career began at the public accounting firms of Deloitte & Touche LLP and Marcum LLP focusing on audit, assurance, and advisory services for both private and public companies. She brings a wealth of expertise with particular strengths such as mergers and acquisitions, business valuations, financial reporting systems, tax compliance and long-term budgetary oversight. Hey has held several financial leadership positions at WorkWave since 2015 before becoming CFO in 2020. She graduated from Rutgers University with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Statistics.
4. Katherine Kostereva
Company: Creatio
Title: Chief Executive Officer
Katherine Kostereva is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Creatio, a global vendor of a no-code platform to automate workflows and CRM with the maximum degree of freedom. As a person who’s been in the tech industry her entire life, Kostereva has always envisioned creating a world where any business idea could be automated in minutes. With this in mind, together with a small team, she bootstrapped Creatio without any external capital in 2014.
To educate the world about no-code, in October of 2022, Kostereva released a vendor-agnostic 200-page book — the No-code Playbook — that empowers teams to deliver business applications of any complexity with no-code. The book covers the principles of no-code development and provides a detailed description of three core phases (Design, Go-Live, and Everyday Delivery) and twelve lifecycle stages. Prior to her founding Creotio, Kostereva was the CEO and Managing Partner of Terrasoft for 12 years. Earlier in her career, she worked with Softline and IBM. Now an alumna of Harvard Business School, Kostereva completed the Owner/President Management Executive Education program.
5. Renee Krug
Company: Transflo
Title: Chief Executive Officer
Renee Krug was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Transflo in 2022. She has a diverse background in the freight industry, having served as a leader at a Fortune 100 shipper, a top 10 broker, and the largest TL carrier in the US. Her company, Transflo, is a trusted industry leader in mobile, telematics, and business process automation solutions to the transportation industry in North America.
Prior to joining Transflo, Krug served as CFO and then CEO at GlobalTranz, where she led revenue growth from $300 million to $2 billion through organic expansion and 11 acquisitions. She has also held leadership roles at Clear Channel Outdoor, Knight-Swift, and Honeywell. Krug graduated from Arizona State University with an MBA and from Indiana University with an undergraduate degree in accounting and finance.
6. Elizabeth Harz
Company: Veriato
Title: Chief Executive Officer
Elizabeth Harz is Chief Executive Officer of Veriato, the leading provider of workforce behavior analytics, helping businesses monitor and analyze remote, hybrid or on-site workforce activity to boost productivity and to prevent insider risk. Prior to Veriato, Harz was CEO of Sittercity, a digital marketplace that connects families with caregivers which she sold to Bright Horizons in 2020. Prior to Sittercity, she was President and CMO of ADARA, driving marketing strategy, accelerated revenue growth and operational excellence globally for the travel data DSP/DMP. Before joining ADARA, she built the marketing services businesses at Chegg. Prior to that, she was the SVP at Electronic Arts.
Earlier in her career, Harz held executive sales and marketing roles at Yahoo!, CNET, ZDNet and PC Magazine. Harz graduated from Ramapo College of New Jersey with a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies. Harz is passionate about helping others on their journeys. Harz enjoys helping entrepreneurs whenever she can. To this end, she acts as a Network Leader, or advisor, with Village Global, an early-stage venture capital firm backed by some of the world's most successful entrepreneurs.
7. Paula Hansen
Company: Alteryx
Title: President and Chief Revenue Officer
As President and CRO at Alteryx, Paula Hansen leads the global go-to-market (GTM) team that supports the entire customer journey encompassing worldwide sales, systems engineering, partners/alliances, marketing, customer success, services, and customer support functions. When she joined Alteryx, Hansen immediately hit the ground running by calling a plan of action for the company’s sales and market growth, including leveraging a successful partnership with Snowflake, high-tier recruiting of senior vice presidents abroad and increased hiring cadences across all levels of the enterprise.
Her growth strategy, notably, has led to company expansion, increased customer success levels, and surge of overall sales. On top of that, not only has Hansen made record-breaking contributions to Alteryx as President and CRO, she is also an outstanding leader, passionate storyteller, mentor, fearless women’s advocate, and a trailblazer for many throughout her career. Prior to her work with Alteryx, Hansen held senior level positions at Cisco as the VP of Sales and the CRO for SAP Customer Experience, her position just before joining Alteryx. She graduated from Virginia Tech, with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering.
8. Hope Krutz
Company: EAB
Title: President, Enroll360
As President of Enroll360, Hope Krutz leads the team responsible for delivering consulting and marketing services to realize campus-based undergraduate enrollment targets. She has spent 20+ years serving non-profit leaders in healthcare and higher education and is passionate about creating long-term partnerships that support institutional achievement of strategic goals. Krutz’s drive and market acumen have played a significant role in driving 80% revenue growth from 2018-2023, helping her division top $200 million in revenue generation in the midst of COVID market disruption.
That impressive growth includes the acquisition of two student-facing technologies: YouVisit, a best-in-class virtual tour solution, and Concourse, a cutting-edge student-college matching platform. In addition to business growth, Krutz’s leadership supports an important mission: enabling student access to higher education. Prior to her work with EAB, Krutz served as the Executive Director in New Business Development at The Advisory Board Company. She holds a bachelor’s in Psychology from the University of Virginia.
9. Susan St. Ledger
Company: Hashicorp
Title: President, Worldwide Field Operations
Susan St. Ledger is President of Worldwide Field Operations at HashiCorp, where she oversees all aspects of the customer journey and maximizes the value they receive from their product suite — from initial deployment to customer and partner success, renewal, and expansion. HashiCorp is a leader in multi-cloud infrastructure automation software. The HashiCorp software suite enables organizations to adopt consistent workflows and create a system of record for automating the cloud: infrastructure provisioning, security, networking, and application deployment.
Before joining HashiCorp, St. Ledger was President of Worldwide Field Operations at Okta, where her team included worldwide sales, customer success and support, professional services, partner and channel ecosystems, marketing and brand, and business operations. Prior to Okta, St. Ledger served as Splunk’s President of Worldwide Field Operations, building a multi-product, go-to-market SaaS organization and growing the business from nearly $700 million in revenue to almost $2.5 billion. Earlier in her career, St. Ledger held multiple executive leadership positions at Salesforce, and Sun Microsystems, and she began her career as a software engineer at the National Security Agency. St. Ledger earned a BS in Computer Science from the University of Scranton.
10. Stephanie Buckner
Company: Altair
Title: Chief Operating Officer
As Chief Operating Officer, Stephanie Buckner is responsible for Altair's corporate development efforts and field operations, sales, and technical support globally. Altair is a global leader in computational science and artificial intelligence (AI) that provides software and cloud solutions in simulation, high-performance computing (HPC), data analytics, and AI. Previously she served as SVP of corporate development, where she was responsible for building strategic partnerships across Altair’s entire ecosystem including software, hardware, cloud, the Altair Partner Alliance, and with customers. Additionally, during her time at Altair, she was the co-founder and CEO of WEYV, a multi-content platform built on Altair’s patented digital content licensing model.
Earlier in her career, Buckner held senior management roles at Altair including director of strategic alliances, where she surpassed aggressive new partner enrollment goals and was responsible for scouting, selling, onboarding, and managing relationships with third-party B2B software providers. Prior to joining Altair, Buckner held analyst roles at Cisco Systems and American Express. Buckner earned a bachelor’s in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan.
11. Fay Sien Goon
Company: AppFolio
Title: Chief Financial Officer
Fay Sien Goon is the Chief Financial Officer at AppFolio, where she leads financial strategy and operations. She joined AppFolio in 2021, bringing to her role nearly two decades of financial and accounting expertise – and a proven track record of scaling and leading in high-growth SaaS environments. Since joining the company, Goon has been a fierce advocate of prioritizing diversity in backgrounds and perspectives in her teams, as well as mentorship of women in the workplace.
In addition, she currently serves on the board of directors at Coveo, a cloud provider of AI-based search technologies, and MidPen Housing, a non-profit affordable housing organization. Prior to joining AppFolio, Goon served as Chief Accounting Officer at ServiceNow, where she led, scaled, and transformed the accounting and finance operations function. Prior to ServiceNow, Goon also spent 11 years at Ernst & Young, where she spearheaded external audits of large and pre-IPO technology companies. She is a certified public accountant and holds a Master in Accountancy from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.
12. Cathie Hall
Company: IFS
Title: Chief Customer Officer
Cathie Hall is the Chief Customer Officer at IFS, where she leads all aspects of our customer facing services organization, providing consulting, success, cloud and support services which enable customer transformations. The focus on customers has been one of the pillars to spur IFS’s growth, with 2023 H1 results showing another impressive pattern of growth, with annual recurring revenue up 55% year on year, and a trajectory to reach more than $1.25 billion in total revenues in 2023.
Prior to IFS, Hall spent 20 years in the ERP industry and worked on the transition to SaaS as CEO of Syspro Europe. Hall’s commercial and operational experience positions her perfectly to understand what customers need and create a culture where IFS teams empathize and innovate to exceed expectations. Outside work, Hall is a Trustee for youth charity West Lancashire Scouts, a Teaching Fellow at Lancaster University Management School and raises money for the IFS Foundation through her ultra-running exploits. She holds an MBA from Alliance Manchester Business School and a BBA from Lancaster University.
13. Audrey Gato
Company: Phreesia
Title: Vice President of Strategic Initiatives
Audrey Gato is Vice President of Client Solutions at Phreesia, which facilitates more than 1 in 10 healthcare visits across the U.S. with its patient-driven digital solutions for intake, outreach, education and more. Gato is an exemplary leader who has championed some of Phreesia’s most significant initiatives. She oversees client implementation and account management for Phreesia’s payer and managed service offerings, including pre-sales activities, implementation, workflow optimization and the launching of new products. She also leads client efforts around clinical programs such as the Kidney Care Choices (KCC) Model and Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).
Gato has worked at Phreesia for over 8 years across various roles and teams, including VP, Strategic Initiatives; VP, Market Development; VP, Customer Success; and Director, Business Development. Before working at Phreesia, she led IBM’s strategy projects and managed the go-to-market strategy for an optimized portfolio of products. She also worked at Cerner Corporation, where she managed a team of engineers to implement technology solutions in the United Kingdom. Gato graduated from Columbia Business School with an MBA in Strategy in Finance. She also graduated from Washington University in St. Louise with a BS in Systems Science and Engineering and a BA in Economics.
14. Divya Ghatak
Company: SentinelOne
Title: Chief People Officer
Divya Ghatak is the Chief People Officer of SentinelOne, the global leader in AI-powered security. SentinelOne’s Singularity™ Platform detects, prevents, and responds to cyber attacks at machine speed, empowering organizations to secure endpoints, cloud workloads, containers, identities, and mobile and network-connected devices with speed, accuracy and simplicity. Over 11,000 customers, including Fortune 10, Fortune 500, and Global 2000 companies, as well as prominent governments, trust SentinelOne to secure the future today. Notably, Ghatak leads the People, Talent, Foundation and Workplace functions across the firm’s global footprint. She has enabled the company’s hypergrowth and expansion plans along with further strengthening SentinelOne’s amazing company culture.
Prior to SentinelOne, Ghatak held the position of Global Vice President of People at Nevro. While there, Ghatak built out the global people function and helped drive hypergrowth as the company nearly doubled in both revenues and size after its IPO. Before that, Ghatak was Chief People Officer at GoodData and held global HR leadership roles in a variety of technology companies, including Cisco and Tavant. Ghatak received her Master’s in Human Resources Management/Personnel Administration from Tata Institute of Social Science and her Bachelor of Arts in Economics with Honors from Delhi University.
15. Nikki Brewer
Company: PROS
Title: Chief People Officer
Nikki Brewer is Chief People Officer of PROS, a leading provider of AI-powered SaaS pricing, CPQ, revenue management, and digital offer marketing solutions. In her role, Brewer drives the strategic vision and execution of PROS global people strategy, making PROS a destination technology company for top talent.
In January 2020, Brewer stepped into her current role and successfully led the organization through unprecedented events and shift in the future of work – building trust with employees through transparency, and smoothly transitioning employees into virtual work and now a hybrid workplace – all while increasing productivity and preserving PROS culture, further showing the important impact of the people function.
Brewer’s 20 plus years of progressive human capital management experience, coupled with her business and finance background, gives her a unique perspective that brings balance, diversity of thought and focus to the importance of human capital on an organization’s success. Her innovative strategies continue to set PROS apart and be recognized as a desirable place to work, attracting and retaining top diverse talent globally.
Prior to her current role, Brewer served as Vice President, Total Rewards at PROS. Previously, she held several management positions leading the rewards function across multiple industries, including energy, technology and healthcare, both in the US and abroad. Brewer earned both an M.B.A. and bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Houston-Clear Lake.
16. Charanya Kannan
Company: Talkdesk
Title: Chief Product Officer
Charanya Kannan is the Chief Product Officer of Talkdesk. Talkdesk Enterprise Cloud Contact Center empowers companies to make customer experience their competitive advantage. With enterprise-class performance and consumer-like ease of use, Talkdesk easily adapts to the evolving needs of sales and support teams and their end-customers, resulting in increased customer satisfaction, productivity and cost savings.
Kannan oversees product strategy, product management, product design, engineering, product partnerships and marketplace. Kannan joined Talkdesk in 2018, as Vice President of Product, followed by her promotion to Senior Vice President of Product and Product Marketing. Prior to Talkdesk, Kannan held product leadership and management positions in Model N, Oracle Corporation and AT&T. Kannan also holds a master’s in Innovation Management from Carnegie Mellon University.
17. Jennifer Griffin Smith
Company: Acquia
Title: Chief Market Officer
Jennifer Griffin Smith is the Chief Market Officer of Acquia, where she leads the global marketing organization, including product marketing, GTM programs for customers and new business, brand, and marketing communications. Smith has more than 20 years of experience managing go-to-market strategies and corporate communications for public and private technology companies. Today she focuses on the needs of customers and partners in the ever-changing digital world, ensuring that Acquia solutions deliver exceptional value today and in the future, and that all programs and communications are addressing the unique needs of customers.
With her extensive experience as a B2B marketing practitioner, Smith is passionate about new ways to grow awareness, improve marketing ROI, and create high-performing, award-winning teams. Before joining Acquia, Smith held CMO positions at Brightcove, Alfresco Software (acquired by Hyland), Software AG, Workhuman (formerly Globoforce), Avid Technology, and Progress Software. She has also held senior European marketing roles at Microsoft, PeopleSoft, and Information Builders. Smith graduated from Buckinghamshire New University with an undergraduate degree in business administration.
18. Christina Augustine
Company: Bloomreach
Title: Chief Operating Officer
Christina Augustine serves as Chief Operating Officer at Bloomreach, an e-commerce personalization platform powered by AI. In her role at Bloomreach, she leads the company's efforts to arm customers with the tools and knowledge they need to successfully compete in demanding markets. She is a leading thinker in e-commerce, having served as a manager at Bain & Company focused on technology, retail, and strategy prior to joining Bloomreach in 2011.
Furthermore, Augustine is an experienced computer programmer who has concentrated on site search, merchandising, and payments. She helped found e-commerce teams at both Hewlett Packard and Walmart. Augustine holds a BA in Mathematics from Saint Mary’s College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
19. Tara Ataya
Company: Hootsuite
Title: Chief People and Diversity Officer
Tara Ataya joined Hootsuite in 2020 as VP People, and was announced as Hootsuite’s first Chief People and Diversity Officer later the same year. Tara leads Hootsuite’s employee experience and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives across the organization globally. As the global leader in social media management, Hootsuite powers social media for brands and organizations around the world, from the smallest businesses to the largest enterprises.
Tara has more than 15 years experience working in all aspects of Human resources in SaaS, technology and services companies. Prior to her role at Hootsuite, Tara was VP HR at Vision Critical, Canada’s leading CXM SaaS company based in Vancouver. There she oversaw their global people team along with the business technology team and the payroll team. Prior to that, she was in a leadership role at Sierra Systems, and spent time honing her craft at Deloitte.
20. Faiza Hughell
Company: Tebra
Title: Chief Revenue Officer
Faiza Hughell is Chief Revenue Officer at Tebra, a leading practice automation solution for independent practices. In 2021, Kareo and PatientPop merged to form Tebra. Faiza joined Tebra in 2022 to lead the sales, account management, and channel organizations, driving customer and revenue growth across all customer segments. Faiza brings over two decades of leadership experience empowering customers and teams. Most recently, she served as Chief Customer Officer at RingCentral. Before that, she was Senior Vice President of SMB, where her strategic oversight of sales and execution was a critical driver of the organization’s SMB business growth from $23 million to over $1 billion in annual recurring revenue.
While at RingCentra, Hughell also helped complete a successful IPO in 2013 – and scaled and optimized its sales team. Before that, Faiza spent almost 10 years at Cisco WebEx, building small business and sales development teams globally. Faiza has received notable awards, and among them was named to the 2021 Software Report Top 50 Women in SaaS and the 2021 Modern Sales Collective Top 100 Global Sales Leaders. She regularly supports various charities that provide resources to battered women by offering job training and interview skills training, using her business prowess to help others along their journey to success.
21. Michelle Engle
Company: UserTesting
Title: Chief Product Officer
Michelle Engle is the Chief Product Officer at UserTesting. UserTesting is fundamentally changing the way digital products and experiences are built and delivered by helping organizations get insights from customers–from creation through execution. Built on top of a world-class, on-demand sourcing engine, customers can receive fast, high quality, opt-in feedback from both their proprietary and partner-sourced audience networks around the world
Engle’s team at UserTesting spans product management, design, and UX research. She is a seasoned veteran of the startup and technology space with more than 20 years of experience building products and go-to-market strategy at JP Morgan, iContact, ChannelAdvisor and MaxPoint (acquired by Vericast). Engle holds a BA in Economics and International Relations with a minor in Japanese from Bucknell University and an MA in Economics from New York University.
22. Anneliese Schulz
Company: Syncron AB
Title: Chief Revenue Officer
Anneliese Schulz assumed her role as the Chief Revenue Officer at Syncron in 2021, taking charge of global sales, channel partner relationships, marketing initiatives, and customer success strategies. Prior to this, her decade-long tenure at Software AG was marked by various leadership roles in sales management. Most notably, from 2019, she served as the Regional President of Asia Pacific and Japan operations, contributing significantly to the Global Executive Leadership Team and the Senior Field Leadership Team. Schulz’s career has seen her working across diverse cultural landscapes, including Japan, Singapore, and Germany. Her professional journey also includes sales roles at renowned firms such as SAP and Siemens.
Schulz's leadership has been acknowledged through numerous accolades. She was awarded the "Business Leader of the Year" at the 2019 "Women in IT Asia" Awards and was a nominee for "Transformation Leader of the Year" in the 2020 iteration of the same awards. Additionally, her influence in the tech industry was solidified by her inclusion in Singapore's top 100 Women in Tech list in 2020. Her commitment extends beyond professional achievements to encompass customer success, gender equality, cultural diversity, and employee engagement. In recognition of her contributions and potential, Schulz was honored with the appointment as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2021.
23. Jeaneen Andrews-Feldman
Company: Simpli.fi
Title: Chief Marketing Officer
Jeaneen Andrews-Feldman is Chief Marketing Officer for Simpl.fi, the leading Advertising Success Platform providing programmatic advertising and workflow software to over 2,000 media teams, agencies, and brands. In this role, she is responsible for brand, demand generation, communications, content, media and analyst relations, product marketing and creative. Most recently, Andrews-Feldman led the brand transformation of Simpli.fi including the launch of #OneSimplifi, serving to unify the family of brands. Andrews-Feldman is a brand builder and revenue marketer recognized for developing customer-centric organizations.
Most recently, Andrews-Feldman served as Chief Marketing & Experience Officer for SHRM, where she was responsible for leading the brand transformation from product to customer centric, managed a P&L of over $110M in revenue and transformed the brand into the ‘voice of all things work’ serving business leaders, policy influencers, and HR executives. Earlier in her career, she drove performance marketing strategies at Merkle (Dentsu Aegis), Corporate Executive Board (now Gartner), AT&T, and Sprint. Andrews-Feldman holds a BS in Marketing from the University of Scranton and attended Cornell University’s Executive Management Program.
24. Christine Kaszubski Aldrich
Company: Pindrop
Title: Chief People Officer
As the Chief People Officer, Christine Kaszubski Aldrich is responsible for developing and executing on the people operations strategy of the overall organization in areas of talent management, performance management, organizational development, succession planning, and people operations. Aldrich's passion for employees exudes into every aspect of the organization and her life. Under Christine's leadership, Pindrop was named a #1 Top Place to Work in Atlanta. When she joined the team, Aldrich's commitment to Pindrop was to create an industry-leading workplace where employees can thrive. She has done exactly that with launching a remote-first culture, delivering leadership development initiatives, and enhancing Pindrop’s Total Rewards program.
Aldrich has an eclectic mix of experience which spans core functional areas including strategy, operations, and HR. Her background includes supporting business leaders in industries such as automotive, QSR, education, real estate, and most recently software as a service. Aldrich has led diverse teams in terms of backgrounds, experiences, and size. Recently named a Top 50 Human Resource Icon Award winner, Top 50 Women in SaaS, and a Top HR Leader in Atlanta, Aldrich has distinguished herself as a trusted advisor, a change champion, and a devoted employee advocate.
25. Brook McShane Bock
Company: Lightspeed Systems
Title: Chief Product & Marketing Officer
Brook McShane Bock is the Chief Product Officer of Lightspeed Systems, a company that is dedicated to providing K-12 districts time-saving solutions to create safe, secure, and equitable education, so they focus where it matters most—students and learning. Bock leads the Product Management, Product Owners, Product Design, and Product Marketing functions. With over two decades of EdTech experience, she uses her invaluable skill set to oversee all aspects of the vision, design, and development of Lightspeed Systems’ suite of innovative solutions.
Previously, Bock was a Chief Product Officer at Vanco and a Vice President of Product, Mobile & Analytics at Blackboard. Earlier in her career, Bock worked with CyberCash as a Product Manager, eCommerce Services. Bock graduated from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business with an MBA and from St. Olaf College with an undergraduate degree in Economics.
26. Katie Gross
Company: Suzy
Title: Chief Customer Officer
Katie Gross is the Chief Customer Officer at Suzy, an end-to-end consumer insights SaaS platform. Gross manages the Sales, CS, and Market Research Center of Excellence teams to provide best-in-class customer service for Suzy’s impressive roster of enterprise clients. As a long-time MRX veteran, Gross knows the importance of bringing your consumer into every business decision. Her deep understanding of the full market research value chain stems from 20 years of international experience across every facet of the industry.
Previously, Gross worked with insights agencies Mintel and Stylus, individual brands at Avilton Foods, and even within the world of programmatic survey sampling at Cint and Toluna. Outside of work, Gross tirelessly advocates for women in the workplace, with an added focus on fostering financial independence. She counts herself a member of Women In Research’s WIR exec program and all-female leadership network Chief. Recently, Gross was accepted to the Insights Association Board of Directors. She holds a BS in Psychology with Criminal Justice from the University of Plymouth.
27. Carey Lewis
Company: Island
Title: VP of Sales, Central
Carey Lewis is the Vice President of Sales for the Central Region at Island, the pioneer and market leader of the enterprise browser market. Island’s Enterprise Browser is the ideal enterprise workplace, where work flows freely while remaining fundamentally secure. Lewis is a relationship-driven sales leader with 20+ years experience leading SaaS and Security enterprise sales teams at McAfee, Symantec, Cybereason and Island. She delivers value by bringing a keen focus on understanding customers' business drivers, underlying concerns around security issues, as well as the intricacies of customers' decision making processes.
Notably, Lewis was one of Island's first sales leaders, and has been instrumental in landing many of Island's strategic and Fortune 500 customers. Before joining Island, she was a Regional Vice President of Sales at Cybereason and a Strategic Account Manager at Symantec. She started her career in 2004 as a Strategic Sales Specialist - Market Developer at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Lewis graduated from Aurora University with an undergraduate degree in Business Administration.
28. Steph Do
Company: Tropic
Title: Vice President of Business Operations
Steph Do is the Vice President of Business Operations at Tropic, a tech-enabled procurement service for startups. The average company is overspending on software by 25%, but it's usually impractical to build a SaaS procurement team. This drives disorganized contracts, high costs, and time lost negotiating with vendors. At Tropic, experts in SaaS manage contracts for their customers, working directly with vendors, which lowers prices. Do, notably, has held multiple positions at the company.
At Tropic, Do has served as: Senior Director - Business Operations, Director of Operations, and Senior Customer Success Manager. She has 9 years of experience, having begun her career in 2014. Before joining Tropic, Do was an associate director of operations at Knotel. Earlier in her career, she worked with Bain & Company as a senior associate consultant. Do graduated from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with an undergraduate degree in Economics.
29. Jennifer Murphy
Company: StarTree
Title: Vice President of Channels & Alliances
Jennifer Murphy is the Vice President of Channels and Alliances for StarTree, a cloud-based software company that enables business customers to derive advanced insights from real-time and historical data. Since joining the start-up in early 2023, Murphy has helped StarTree expedite its growth by creating strategic partnerships with some of the major players in the data analytics space, like AWS, Databricks, and Confluent. Murphy’s big impact on StarTree is the result of over 25 years of expertise and experience at some of the fastest-growing companies like Cockroach Labs, HashiCorp, and Hortonworks.
Prior to StarTree, Murphy defined and executed a global program strategy targeted at Cloud, technology, reseller, and SI partners at public and private organizations. Murphy built and optimized programs that included thousands of partners and drove tens of millions in bookings, all while hiring and scaling some of the best-in-class partner organizations. In addition to her executive work, Murphy is also an advisory board member of the RFK Community Alliance, where she helps promote meaningful and sustained well-being for children, youth, and adults facing educational, developmental, mental health, and other challenges. She studied at the University of Rochester.
30. Lauren Thames
Company: Clearwave Corporation
Title: Vice President of Product Management
Lauren Thames is the Vice President of Product Management at Clearwave Corporation, the healthcare industry’s most comprehensive patient revenue platform. Clearwave's technology has empowered specialty practices and health systems to improve profitability, productivity and patient access since 2004. Thames has 17 years of experience. She started as Clearwave’s business analyst. From there she became Solution Manager and was promoted to Customer Experience Director prior to her current position.
As part of a rapidly growing healthcare software industry leader, Thames is responsible for serving as a trusted advisor to the rest of the executive team. By doing so, she makes sure the company is building, delivering and supporting the right products. Managing the product team, Thames ensures all are aligned and delivering quality products and services to their customers. She graduated from Georgia State University.
31. Kristie Invie
Company: Amplifire
Title: Senior Vice President, Client Solutions
Kristie Invie serves as the Senior Vice President of Client Solutions at Amplifire, the leading adaptive learning platform revolutionizing workforce training. Invie drives growth in Amplifire's Healthcare Alliance, a collaboration of over 25 world-renowned health systems committed to enhancing clinical quality, patient safety, and caregiver wellness. With over two decades of expertise in provider and technology environments and drawing from leadership roles at a leading Mid-West US health system, she brings a wealth of experience in project management, quality improvement, data analysis, and training to her role.
Invie played a crucial role in the company's growth, positioning Amplifire as an innovator in high-stakes workforce training. Beyond her professional achievements, Invie is a lobular breast cancer survivor, dedicating her time to advocacy and mentoring others facing similar challenges. She graduated from the University of Mary with an MBA and completed her bachelor’s in industrial engineering at North Dakota State University.
32. Praneet Gill
Company: Kore.ai
Title: Chief Strategy Officer
Praneet Gill is the Chief Strategy Officer at Kore.ai, a leading provider of advanced AI technology with a decade of experience in helping enterprises realize business value through the safe and responsible use of AI. In this role, she is focused on the development and execution of Kore.ai’s corporate strategy. The company’s innovative platform, no-code tools and solutions are used to deliver end-to-end customer and employee experiences from automated to human-assisted and to build generative AI-enabled applications.
With over 15 years of experience, Gill has deep expertise in finance, strategy and corporate development at companies including Sycamore Ventures, Genpact and Raymond James. Gill graduated from Columbia Business School with an MBA in General Management and from the University of Virginia with an undergraduate degree in commerce and economics.
33. Jane Moran
Company: Benevity
Title: Chief Technology Officer
Jane Moran is the Chief Technology Officer at Benevity, a leader in global corporate purpose software, providing the only integrated suite of community investment and employee, customer, and nonprofit engagement solutions. Moran originally joined Benevity in April 2021 as Chief Data Officer. She leads the charge in delivering Benevity’s bold and innovative ESG-tech solutions. Working with Scott Lee, Benevity’s Chief Product Officer, Moran helped propel Benevity’s growth and enable more companies, from mid-market to enterprise, to engage stakeholders in ESG, purpose, and social impact initiatives.
Moran completed her Ph.D. in astrophysics. However, she eventually landed in data science, where her work has spanned the full range of understanding customer behavior and applying that understanding to data-driven solutions in targeted marketing and optimized digital experiences. Prior to joining Benevity, Moran was Senior Vice President, Data and Technology at AIR MILES/Loyalty One, where she was responsible for leading a team of technologists who specialized in front-end mobile and web development, back-end systems and platform development, API development, architecture, UX research and design, DevOps, security, production systems, IT support, project management, and data science and analytics.
34. Debbie Lillitos
Company: Vena Solutions
Title: Chief Customer Officer
As Chief Customer Officer, Debbie Lillitos is responsible for the overall success of Vena’s hundreds of clients. Vena turns Excel into an enterprise-class business solution with a centralized database, workflow, detailed audit trail and more. With Vena, hundreds of leading global brands now get trusted numbers and insights – fast – without sacrificing their favorite spreadsheet software.
Notably, Lillitos is an energetic operator with many years of experience in professional services and program implementation working with private and public sector clients across North America, the UK, and Africa. Most recently, she was the VP of Professional Services at Achievers, a Toronto-based SaaS software company. Outside the office, Lillitos enjoys getting away to camp in the wilderness, cycling and traveling to new places. Lillitos graduated from the University College London with an undergraduate degree in geography.
35. Jacqueline Cook
Company: Vendasta
Chief Operating Officer
Jacqueline Cook is the Chief Operating Officer at Vendasta. She joined the company in 2014 and played an instrumental role in shaping the technology company’s business strategy. Currently, Cook is responsible for the development and execution of Vendasta’s revenue and go-to-market strategy. She also plays a key role in raising and allocating capital for Vendasta. Notably, one of her biggest successes was working with a core team to secure a historic and oversubscribed C$120 million private placement in May 2021.
Before joining Vendasta, Cook was a President at Saskatchewan Blue Cross Recess Guardians. Before that, she was a Founding Director at Recess Guardians. Earlier in her career, she worked with HCF Mercantile Inc. as an Associate. Cook graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with an undergraduate degree in commerce.
36. Shirley Grill-Rachman
Company: Skai
Title: Chief Operating Officer
Shirley Grill-Rachman is the Chief Operating Officer of Skai (formerly Kenshoo), a leading omnichannel marketing platform that uniquely connects data and performance media for informed decisions, high efficiencies, and optimal returns. Its partners include Google, Meta, Amazon Ads, TikTok, Snap, Walmart Connect, Instacart, Roundel, Criteo, CitrusAd, Pinterest, Microsoft, Apple Search Ads, and more.
Grill-Rachman has nearly 20 years of legal, financial and operational management experience. She served as Professional Assistant to the Attorney General of Israel and held executive positions at the not-for-profit Atidim where she was part of the founding team and later VP of Finance and Operations at Intercast Networks. Grill-Rachman holds a law degree (LLB) from Tel Aviv University, a Master in Law (LLM) from the Hebrew University, and an MBA from INSEAD. She has been a member of the Israeli Bar Association since 1997.
37. Renuka Nadkarni
Company: Aryaka
Title: Chief Product Officer
Renuka Nadkarni is thlutions. Aryaka meets customers where they are to help them overcome their network and security challenges with an absurdly great customer experience. She is a security veteran with 20 years of experience building new business’ startups or new businesses at large, publicly traded companies.
Before joining Aryaka, Nadkarni held the CTO, Security position at F5 Inc., where she was instrumental in driving F5’s foray into the security market. Previously, she has held various positions and built cutting-edge cloud and security products and launched new businesses at F5, VMware, Infoblox and launching startups. She holds an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Houston and a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Mumbai.
38. Kristina Agassi
Company: Sisense
Title: Chief Operating Officer and Chief Legal & Compliance Officer
Kristina Agassi is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Legal & Compliance Officer at Sisense, an AI-driven embedded analytics platform that accelerates product innovation by equipping product and development teams with a complete suite of no-, low-, and pro-code tools. She oversees all internal operations, finance, and legal.
Agassi brings more than 15 years of experience working in emerging industries and scaling companies, including at Zeta, Accenture, IEEE, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, and White & Case LLP. Agassi received her JD from NYU School of Law and BA from NYU.
39. Cheryl Michael
Company: CentralReach
Title: Chief Product Officer
Cheryl Michael is the Chief Product Officer for CentralReach, the leading provider of Autism and IDD Care Software. The company provides the only complete, end-to-end software and services platform that helps children and adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and related intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) - and those who serve them - unlock potential, achieve better outcomes, and live more independent lives. Michael brings over 20 years of healthcare technology experience to the table; and has a proven track record of advancing health tech platforms forward.
Michael’s experience optimizing product management practices and delivering innovative healthcare technology solutions plays a key role in advancing CentralReach's mission to provide the end-to-end software and services that help their customers produce superior outcomes for their clients and further solidify CentralReach's position as a leader in the ABA market. Prior to CentralReach, Michael was Executive Vice President of Product Management and Engineering at Envera Health. She also held strategic product roles at both Picis and GE/Agility HealthCare Solutions. Michael holds an MBA from Virginia Commonwealth University.
40. Rachel Simone
Company: CallMiner
Title: Chief Information Officer
As Chief Information Officer at CallMiner, Rachel Simone leads a global team responsible for CallMiner’s business systems and applications, creating business value, operational efficiencies, and competitive differentiation. Simone also works with organizational stakeholders to align and prioritize best-in-class IT initiatives in support of CallMiner’s continuous growth. CallMiner is the global leader in conversation intelligence to drive business performance improvement. The company delivers the industry’s most comprehensive platform to analyze omnichannel customer interactions at scale – combining deep domain expertise with cutting edge AI technology and machine learning.
Simone was previously CallMiner's Vice President of Enterprise Applications and Technology. With 25+ years of experience in simplifying and automating business operations, Simone has held senior level management roles in companies ranging from private start-ups to corporations with $700+ million in revenue. Prior to CallMiner, Simone held VP roles at Ipswitch, Dassault Systemes, and DS SolidWorks, among others. Simone holds a Bachelor of Science from Boston University and an MBA from the Suffolk University Sawyer Business School.
41. Nicole Sundin
Company: Axio
Title: Chief Product Officer
As a Chief Product Officer at Axio, Nicole Sundin is extremely passionate about inserting UX philosophies at all stages of the customer lifecycle. She has a proven track record of developing and implementing UX strategies at security product organizations, leading initiatives to enable more efficient onboarding of customers to product, user testing, and guiding a message of usable security to increase company revenue.
Axio is for cybersecurity and business leaders who want to make evidence-based decisions about investments, partnerships, products and more, so they can budget wisely, improve cyber resilience, and demonstrate duty of care. Before joining Axio, Sundin was a director of UX and product management at Thycotic. Earlier in her career, she worked with Net eSolutions Corporation as a principal consultant.
42. Jessica Reeves
Company: Anaconda
Title: Chief Operating Officer
Jessica Reeves is the Chief Operating Officer of Anaconda. With more than 40 million users, Anaconda is the world’s most popular data science platform and the foundation of modern AI development. They pioneered the use of Python for data science, currently champion its vibrant community, and continue to steward open-source projects that make tomorrow’s innovations possible. Reeves has 15 years of operations experience – with a focus on HR in her earlier career. Prior to joining Anaconda, she led the HR and administrative functions for ClearDATA, a Healthcare cloud computing company, where she built the HR framework from the ground up while leading recruiting efforts in opening their Austin HQ office.
Prior to ClearDATA, Reeves was the HR Director for JMJ Associates, a global company in the oil and gas industry specializing in professional services. She led a team responsible for core HR operational functions in EMEA, APAC, Europe, and the Americas. For the last five years, Reeves has led operations for Anaconda helping scale the business in the HR, recruiting, procurement, legal, customer service, and administration functions. Reeves also serves as the executive leader for their learning subscription segment. Reeves graduated from Ohio State University with a bachelor’s in Public Relations and Strategic Communication. She also attended the University of Texas and holds a Professional Human Resources Certification (PHR).
43. Renan Gutman
Company: Kaltura
Title: Executive Vice President of Product
Renan Gutman is the Executive Vice President of Product at Kaltura, driving the next generation of video experiences. Kaltura’s mission is to power any video experience for any organization. Kaltura’s Video Experience Cloud offers live, real-time, and on-demand video products for enterprises of all industries, as well as specialized industry solutions, currently for educational institutions and for media and telecom companies.
Gutman has been leading product innovation, strategy, and vision for the past 15 years, first as a Product Design Engineer for NICE Systems, and later as a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft. Gutman holds an MBA from MIT Sloan and a BS in Computer Science and Business Administration from Tel Aviv University.
44. Kathryn Carlson
Company: Riskonnect
Title: Senior Vice President of Product Management
Kathryn Carlson joined Riskonnect in 2021 as Senior Vice President of Product Management. Riskonnect is the leading integrated risk management software solution provider. Their technology empowers organizations with the ability to anticipate, manage, and respond in real-time to strategic and operational risks across the extended enterprise. Carlson has more than 20 years of product management and product development leadership experience. She is known for blending pragmatism and innovation, leading to solutions that solve clients’ most pressing problems, decrease time to market, and deliver true value.
Before joining Riskonnect, Carlson was vice president of product management at KPA, an EHS software, online training, and consulting company. Prior to KPA, she has held positions in product management, product marketing, and product development – including leading the team at ADP that developed the patented Decision Matrix applicant selection software. Carlson studied at Sweet Briar College and the University of Florida.
45. Tara Asquith
Company: SoftPro
Title: Senior Vice President of Products
Tara Asquith is the Senior Vice President of Product for SoftPro, overseeing the product planning and execution for all of the SoftPro product lines of Select, Standard/Enterprise, SoftPro LIVE, and SoftPro 360. SoftPro is the nation’s leading provider of closing, title and escrow software. With more than 14,000 customer sites and over 60,000 users nationwide. Offering an award winning suite of products designed to increase volume and revenue, SoftPro delivers innovative technologies to streamline the closing process.
Asquith joined the SoftPro team in 2020. Prior to joining SoftPro, she worked for Fidelity as the SVP of Product for the agency technology applications for 20 years. Before that, Asquith worked for a full service agency operation in the Northeast, where she held positions in all aspects of title insurance. Asquith holds a BA in Business Management and Management Information Systems from the University of Delaware and is also a Certified Project Management Professional.
46. Jill Brown
Company: People.ai
Title: Senior Vice President of Sales
Jill Brown is the Senior Vice President of Sales of People.ai, an AI-powered data platform built for leaders who want to future proof their organization. People.ai provides go-to-market teams with enhanced pipeline visibility, more actionable insights, and a single source of truth for all sales activities. Their unique dataset, consisting of trillions of sales activities, millions of deals, 160 million business contacts, and 69 approved patents related to AI-based business insights, sets the company apart. Brown has 17 years of experience, having begun her career in 2006.
Brown is an experienced Vice President of Sales with a demonstrated history of working in B2B, digital transformation, ediscovery, cybersecurity, and investigations in the software industry. Before joining People.ai, Brown was a regional director at AppDynamics. Before that, she served as a global EVP at Reveal-Brainspace. Earlier in her career, she worked with Wolters Kluwer as a Territory Sales Manager. Brown graduated from The University of Kansas with an undergraduate degree in business administration and finance.
47. Danielle Cheah
Company: Improbable
Title: VP of Platform Engineering, Product and Operations
Danielle Cheah is the Vice President of Platform Engineering, Product and Operations covering all core platform product development and engineering operations at Improbable Worlds Ltd, a multi B$ unicorn technology company that leverages gaming knowledge, blockchain and AI to develop breakthrough metaverse technologies. Cheah is an accomplished professional with a diverse background in engineering, business, and operations. Her journey from R&D development to leading transformative initiatives in companies across various industries showcases her adaptability and leadership. Her pivotal role at Improbable, puts her at the helm of leveraging Improbable's proprietary technology. Steering the development of high-density, scalable, rich metaverse experiences, showcases her strategic vision and capability to lead large-scale engineering operations, and product development in cutting-edge technology .
Cheah has held several notable roles in the video games industry, including as Technical Director at Square Enix west, managing multiple external studios world wide, developing on several key IPs such as Just Cause, Lift is Strange, Hitman, Outriders and many other chart hitting games. With nearly two decades of experience, Cheah's journey reflects a remarkable trajectory, spanning different industries and roles. She possesses a unique blend of technical and business acumen, striking a balance between the strategic needs. Cheah's ability to apply transferable skills across diverse domains contributes significantly to her success in shaping groundbreaking pioneering technologies, driving organizational transformation and growth.
48. Ruchika Chopra
Company: Illumio
Title: Vice President of Sales Operations
Ruchika Chopra is the Vice President of Sales Operations of Illumio, an American business data center and cloud computing security company Notably, Illumio ZTS (Zero Trust Segmentation) is the first platform for breach containment. It visualizes all communication between workloads and devices, sets granular segmentation policies to control communications, and isolates high-value assets to stop breaches and ransomware from spreading.
Chopra has 22 years of experience, having begun her career in 2001. She is an experienced leader with a focus on driving operational efficiency and business process re-engineering. Before joining Illumio, Chopra was a VP of Growth Operations and GTM Strategy at Celona. Before that, she served as a Senior Director of Business Operations and SW Transformation at Juniper Networks. Earlier in her career, she worked with Siebel Systems as a Senior Technical Support Engineer. Chopra graduated from IMI with an MBA and from Hindu College, Delhi University with an undergraduate degree in economics.
49. Judie Endemann
Company: Docupace
Title: Vice President of Operations
Judie Endemann is the Vice President of Operations at Docupace, a leading digital operations technology provider that simplifies how wealth management firms process and digitize data, increasing efficiency, productivity, and profits. With headquarters in Los Angeles, California, Docupace serves a variety of firms, including some of the largest in the financial services industry, through a combination of proven technology and hands-on service.
Endemann joined Docupace in 2018 as a Program Manager. Before joining the company, she was a VP of Corporate Services at Lynx Technology and a VP of Admin & HR at PacketVideo. She also worked with SDL as HR Director. Endemman started her career in 2002 as an HR Director at Language Weaver. She graduated from the University of Southern California with an undergraduate degree in communications.
50. Verity Myers
Company: Thought Machine
Title: Commercial Strategy Director
Verity Myers is the Commercial Strategy Director of Thought Machine, a fintech company that builds cloud-native technology to revolutionize core banking. Its mission is to cure one of the banking industry's primary problems: the reliance on outdated IT infrastructure. As such, nearly every bank is stuck on a legacy IT platform, which cripples their ability to innovate and give their customers the type of service they deserve.
Myers began her professional career 9 years ago. She got her start in 2014 as an analyst at Elixirr, her most recent position prior to joining Thought Machine. Myers graduated from the University of Cambridge with an undergraduate degree in history.
