With March dedicated to celebrating women’s history, International Women’s Day on March 8 is a special day to honor women’s achievements, raise awareness against bias, and take action for equality. That makes it a challenging day for the tech industry, which still only sees 5% of leadership positions held by women! At Totango, however, we have much to celebrate. We work daily to #BreakTheBias in the customer success (CS) field and create a diverse and inclusive culture, and our President and Chief Operations Officer Jamie Bertasi understands why that’s so important.
“When I graduated from college and through much of my career, I’ve been the only woman in the room,” shares Bertasi. “I have left companies because there were no women on top. But I had tenacity. I was able to just keep going, and I found Totango. Here, we have built an incredible team with many women on board.”
Other powerhouse women at Totango include Ravit Danino, SVP Product; Robyn Fernandez, Sr. Director of CS; Anne Ting, SVP Marketing; Monique Nguyen, Sr. Director of Strategic Sales; Kristin Lisson, Director of Customer Enablement; Erin Christopher, Director of Demand Generation; Katie Yagodnik, Director of CS Operations; Katie Rich, Sr. Director of Product Experts Group; Lorena Fikes Sr. Event and Program Manager; and Trish Whitney, VP of Growth Marketing.
“Yes, we are female-led, and there are a lot of women on our team!” boasts Bertasi, who has led Totango into a period of hyper-growth after having climbed the ranks to Chief Operations Officer at Homesuite Inc.; General Manager, SaaS Speech Solutions at Microsoft; Senior Vice President: Speech SaaS Platform Solutions at Tellme Networks; Vice President of Sales at Narrative; and Senior Manager, Strategic Alliance Sales & OEM Marketing at IBM.
“I’ve done almost every job that can be done in a company, and this is the third company I’ve built from the ground up that’s become very successful,” says Bertasi, who claims her secret to success has been her desire to step up to the plate and deliver more than expected. “Usually, I take a job, do a good job with that, then they give me more and keep adding responsibilities. Slowly I just end up running the place. I think it comes down to skills and building them along the way. It doesn’t have anything to do with gender, obviously.”
As we all know, however, it can take more than skill and sheer will to climb the ranks as a woman in any field, and especially in STEM. Women have learned that we can rise together, and there are plenty of supportive communities out there for women in CS. If you are looking to climb, Totango is here to help you get there. Follow the amazing Totango women listed above on social, then be sure to check out the Women of CS on LinkedIn and the Women in CS Podcast.
