Inside the Ohana
/ Episode
20

Inside the Ohana: The Value of Career-Defining Moments

Sara Varni, CMO of Attentive, reflects on her Salesforce experience and offers strategies to excel in a fast-paced work environment and build a high-performing team.

Attentive is the leader in conversational commerce, reinventing business-to-consumer communication. Our SMS-first software platform helps everyone from entrepreneurs to enterprises strengthen relationships with their consumers in a new way. Through two-way, real-time, personalized communications, we drive billions in e-commerce revenue, and over 8,000 leading brands like CB2, Pura Vida, Urban Outfitters, Jack in the Box, and Coach rely on Attentive to deliver powerful commerce experiences.

Industry
Advertising Services
Founded
2016
Sara Varni

Guest Bio

Sara Varni is the CMO of Attentive, where she drives the end to end marketing strategy across the full customer lifecycle. Prior to Attentive, Sara was the CMO of Twilio where she was responsible for growing Twilio’s community of developers while simultaneously bringing Twilio into the enterprise market. Sara also spent 10+ years at Salesforce as an SVP of Product Marketing where she was responsible for the positioning and go-to-market strategy for Sales Cloud, the world’s leading sales platform.  Prior to joining Salesforce, Sara worked in mobile strategy at E! Networks. She holds a BS in Business Administration from Bucknell University and an MBA from The Anderson School of Management at UCLA.

Guest Bio

Sara Varni is the CMO of Attentive, where she drives the end to end marketing strategy across the full customer lifecycle. Prior to Attentive, Sara was the CMO of Twilio where she was responsible for growing Twilio’s community of developers while simultaneously bringing Twilio into the enterprise market. Sara also spent 10+ years at Salesforce as an SVP of Product Marketing where she was responsible for the positioning and go-to-market strategy for Sales Cloud, the world’s leading sales platform.  Prior to joining Salesforce, Sara worked in mobile strategy at E! Networks. She holds a BS in Business Administration from Bucknell University and an MBA from The Anderson School of Management at UCLA.

Episode Summary

In this episode, Sara Varni, CMO of Attentive, reflects on her time at Salesforce and the role she played in achieving significant milestones like AppExchange and more. Drawing from her experiences, Sara shares strategies to excel in a fast-paced work environment and effectively build a high-performing team.

Key Takeaways

Quotes

“The AppExchange was well on its way but it was an inflection point where we began to see people gravitate towards our ecosystem… it was cool to be part of the early days of that.” -Sara Varni

Episode Highlights

*(00:00) - Ohana Origins: Sara’s introduction to Salesforce 

*(12:30) -  What does the Ohana mean to Sara?

*(18:00) - What’s Cooking: Sara’s career post-Salesforce

*(23:00) - Future Forecast: What’s in store for the Salesforce ecosystem?

*(15:00) - Advice for aspiring CMOs

*(27:00) - Lightning Round!

Episodes Transcript

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