“I think it is vital to see diverse women represented in various leadership roles where they have been underrepresented. When younger women coming up in the tech industry can see someone who might look like them, maybe come from where they come from, or have a similar lived experience it says, if I can see her, I can be her.”
Last but not least in our Women in Leadership series in honor of Women’s History month, is our Chief Marketing Office April Crichlow.
April has 20+ years of global marketing experience in the high-tech industry with leadership experience across brand, demand generation, and customer adoption. Previously the Global Head of Marketing for SAP SuccessFactors, April was responsible for end-to-end marketing for SuccessFactors around the world.
April also served as a Diversity and Inclusion Lead at SAP and led global thought leadership and strategic partnerships inspiring an inclusive culture, women’s equality, supplier diversity, and sustainable supply chains. She has been honored by various organizations including CRN’s “Women of the Channel” and as a “Top 100 Ethnic Minority Executive” by EmPower.
Here’s what she had to say:
What does Women’s History Month mean to you?
It is a time to celebrate the incredible accomplishments and advancements women have made. It’s also a call to action that we all must continue to strive for equality and equity in all places and spaces where women are involved. I am especially inspired seeing men and women come together for this cause.
Why is it so important for more women in the tech industry to take on leadership roles in a historically male-dominated industry?
It is extremely powerful to have women in positions of leadership. I have personally been able to grow in my near 25 years of high tech because of female leaders, mentors, and sponsors who believed in me and nurtured me along the way. I think it is also vital to see diverse women represented in various leadership roles where they have been underrepresented. When younger women coming up in the tech industry can see someone who might look like them, maybe come from where they come from, or have a similar lived experience it says, if I can see her, I can be her.
What advice would you give to young women who dream of being business leaders in the future?
Believe in yourself every single time, every single day. When I was younger, I sometimes doubted my abilities and tended not to be bold and “go for it”. If I could turn back time, I would tell my younger self to have confidence in your ideas and speak up about them! It is ok if you aren’t fully ready or if things aren’t perfect. They never will be! And, when you believe in yourself you also pave the way for other women to believe in themselves too. Lastly, pay it forward to another woman in your life every chance you get.
We hope you enjoyed the series and continue to celebrate women in your businesses all year round.
Oren Shefler brings 25 years of experience in the technology industry, with over 15 years in enterprise sales and sales leadership. Specializing in SaaS technology, he excels in driving revenue growth and leading high-performing sales teams.
Oren is skilled in developing and implementing sales strategies to launch new products, enter emerging markets, and expand client portfolios, consistently exceeding targets. His expertise includes Digital Transformation, Cloud Migration, Conversational AI, Generative AI, Workflow Automation, RPA, CRM, and Managed Services.
Prior to Centrical, Oren served as Vice President of Sales at Uniphore, where he led the top-performing sales region in the US, expanding AI solutions within strategic accounts and winning strategic new accounts.
Additionally, he held sales leadership roles at Jacada, driving sales across major industries. Oren holds a law degree from the College of Management-Academic Studies and practiced law for nine years at Meitar, representing numerous technology companies.
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Prior to Centrical, Dalit worked at LivePerson and NICE creating digital transformation and customer engagement solutions. Her areas of expertise include complete product lifecycle management, translating market and customer requirements to draw a viable product roadmap, identifying champions, and then harnessing their enthusiasm to drive adoption of innovations.
Dalit Holds a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering and Computer Science from the Technion Technological institute in Haifa.
Previously the Global Head of Marketing for SAP SuccessFactors, April was responsible for end-to-end marketing for SuccessFactors around the world. In this role, April led strategic marketing plans to grow global brand recognition, revenue, customer success and category creation of human experience management (HXM), which is focused on solution innovations that put the employee at the center of work. April also served as a Diversity and Inclusion Lead at SAP and led global thought leadership and strategic partnerships inspiring an inclusive culture, women’s equality, supplier diversity, and sustainable supply chains.
April has been honored by various organizations including CRN’s “Women of the Channel” and as a “Top 100 Ethnic Minority Executive” by EmPower. She holds a B.A. in Communications and Marketing from Simon Fraser University, Canada’s leading comprehensive university.
Previously, she held the role of Head of Product Experience and Communications for LivePerson, a leading Conversational AI platform, where she played crucial part in delivering significant product innovation and customer growth. Prior to her time at LivePerson, she held multiple senior product roles at NICE, a leading enterprise customer experience (CX) software provider, including Director of Product Portfolio and Director of Product Management.
Linat holds an MBA from Tel Aviv University and a BA in Computer Science from Reichman University (IDC Herzliya). She graduated magna cum laude from both institutions.
Prior to that he was CEO of Gilon-Synergy Business Insight, a national leader in Business Intelligence. In 2010, Gilon-Synergy was acquired by Ness Technologies (NASDAQ:NSTC) and Gal went on to serve as Senior VP at Ness, and was member of its executive management.
Prior to that he was VP customer relations and operations at Deloitte Consulting. He also worked at EDS and Bashan. He holds a MBA degree in Marketing and Information Technologies from the Tel Aviv University.
Jayme Smithers brings 25 years of leadership experience in enterprise software. He has been building and scaling high performance revenue teams in the worlds leading technology companies including Oracle, NetSuite, SAP, BusinessObjects, Crystal Decisions and most recently ThoughtExchange.
As the CRO at ThoughtExchange (a leader in Enterprise Discussion Management) he helped significantly scale their growth, led them into new markets, brought in key investment and helped them become the leader in community engagement across the Education sector.
At NetSuite, Jayme helped innovate, grow and scale key verticals as NetSuite become the standard Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) thanks to the introduction of new channels and a value centric approach to the sales process.
Prior to NetSuite, Jayme worked at SAP where he led various roles including global revenue channels, large enterprise and mid market teams. It was here at SAP where he built a strong partnership with our CMO April Crichlow where they focused on building world class teams with clear expectations, coaching and career development!
Outside of work, Jayme can typically be found with his family in the mountains sharing his love, passion and knowledge of nature and sport.
Jayme is actively coaching the Nancy Greene Ski league and competitive youth soccer.
Jayme holds a business degree from University of Denver where he competed in two varsity sports (soccer and alpine skiing) and he helped led the Alpine Ski team to back to back NCAA National Titles in 00 and 01.
Daphne has over 15 years of experience in Customer Relations and Retention in both B2B and B2C environments. Her area of expertise is leading customer success, consulting and global professional services teams within public and private sector companies. She is focused on leading teams to grow the partnership with our clients.
Prior to Centrical, Daphne worked software and service companies in the online marketing and gaming industry.
Daphne holds MA in Statistics – Specialization in Operations Research and a MBA degree, both from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Ariel has over 16 years’ experience in a wide variety of R&D leadership roles. He is highly experienced at building R&D teams from the ground up, driving high levels of accountability and ownership and setting up automation infrastructures. For the past 10 years Ariel has managed both in-house and offshore development teams at companies ranging from startups to enterprise organizations.
Prior to joining Centrical, Ariel served as VP of R&D at Worthy.com where his team dramatically improved product stability, quality and execution. Before that, he was VP R&D at Applicaster where he led infrastructure changes from project to product. Ariel has also held various R&D positions at Retalix (later acquired by NCR).
Ariel holds B.sc in Computer science & Math, and MBA degree in Information Technologies, both from Bar Ilan University
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