Welcome to Cloudflare Women in Sales

Hi everybody, welcome to the Women in Sales event, thank you for tuning in. My name is Carly Wood, I work on the people team as a business partner at Cloudflare for the past couple of years.

I'm joined today by Nela Collins, who is the Director of Customer Success in EMEA and also Andy Lockhart who is the Revenue Leader for EMEA.

So later in the session today we're going to chat to Nela and Andy about the sales teams at Cloudflare.

But first of all I want to introduce the event that you've tuned into today to let you know what you can expect from the rest of the sessions.

So first of all how did this event come about? Well we've hosted career days throughout various regions and given their success we've decided to host dedicated days to different teams at Cloudflare to showcase the great work we do and the different teams that we have.

So today you can expect to learn a lot more about the industry of cyber security sales and what challenges the women on our team have faced and overcome.

You'll also hear about the success stories of building diverse teams from scratch.

So why is this so important to Cloudflare? Well we know that diverse companies are proven to be a better place to work for everyone.

We believe that diverse teams are more innovative, diverse teams make better decisions and diverse companies yield stronger financial results.

Not only do we want these outcomes for Cloudflare, we recognize that as a company we need the benefits that diversity offers in order to realize our potential.

Our Cloudflare team members come from many diverse backgrounds and we appreciate that and love to celebrate them.

So hence our event today and our continuing commitment to building an inclusive culture.

We care about this because we care about each other and as we continue to grow having a diverse team and an inclusive culture becomes more and more important.

In fact it's so important at Cloudflare that it's actually embedded into what we call the Cloudflare capabilities.

We have six capabilities and one of those is to embrace diversity to make Cloudflare better.

The Cloudflare capabilities were created so that we could be open and clear about the behaviors that get rewarded at Cloudflare.

They're the bedrock of our culture, we use them when making hiring decisions, evaluating performance or considering promotions.

So those who contribute to making Cloudflare a welcoming and inclusive place for everyone will be rewarded.

So back to the event today, Cloudflare is growing very rapidly and we have many open roles across the sales teams and we want to highlight those today.

So I'm going to just share the agenda with you and walk you all through that so you can know what to expect.

Hopefully you can see my screen now.

So after the welcome session we will have building careers in cyber security sales.

This will be a panel discussion with women who have developed a very successful career in cyber security sales.

You can learn more about the challenges that they've faced and also the opportunities in the industry.

After that at 3pm UK time we'll have a session on navigating the sales career path.

So if you've ever wondered how to get into a job in sales or how to further progress your career, a panel of women will discuss their own experiences navigating the sales industry and tackling the challenges that they faced.

After that at 3.30 we'll have community at Cloudflare.

So part of our efforts to make everyone feel as though they belong and enable everyone to do their best work, we have employee resource groups at Cloudflare.

But how do they actually support people? So tune into this session to learn more about the ERGs at Cloudflare and the influence that they've had on the company so far.

This session will focus on our ERGs called Womenflare and Cloudflarence.

Then at 4pm we'll have a session on how we've built diverse teams.

This will be included our head of people Janet Van Hise and also Nella who's joining the session right now and also Boris who's our head of France.

They'll talk about how they've successfully built diverse teams from scratch.

And then finally wrapping up the event today will be Michelle Zatlin, our co-founder and president.

She'll talk about her experience and perspective in that role and her advice to women who are looking to build a career in sales.

So we'd love for you all to get in touch with us today.

If you have any questions, please send them in to livestudio at Cloudflare.tv.

You can also engage with us via the LinkedIn events page that is called Cloudflare Women in Sales Day.

You should be able to find that on LinkedIn. So please send in any questions.

We'll try to get to them throughout the sessions today or just interact and tell us any feedback that you have on the day.

So over to the session that we're leading with today.

I have Nella and Andy with me as I introduced at the beginning.

So I'd like to just hand over to Nella first of all, if you wouldn't mind just introducing yourself and telling us a bit about what you do at Cloudflare.

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Carly. I manage the EMEA customer success organization.

And what customer success is, is we manage all of the customers who basically have contracts with Cloudflare.

We want to make sure that they're getting the most out of the Cloudflare product and they essentially are successful.

It's in the name.

So that means that they know how to use the product. They're aware of the things that Cloudflare do, which ultimately will lead to happy customers that use the product and most importantly, excited to try new things that we're coming up with all the time.

I've been at Cloudflare for five years and started out as an individual contributor.

The customer success team was only two people at the time.

And so throughout the years have grown the team, of course, with the help of a lot of people along the way to a team of about 25 now.

And we're located here in London, in Munich.

And also we have open roles out in Paris and in Lisbon. So if anybody is listening that's interested, please have a look at those as well.

But yeah, that's my role here.

Great. Thanks, Nella. Andy, over to you. Thanks, Carly. Hi, everybody.

I'm Andy Lockhart. I'm heading up the customer facing business in EMEA for Cloudflare.

I'm really delighted to be part of the team. I'm in my fourth year and what my role is to shepherd together and provide leadership to the various customer facing functions, including sales in particular.

And so we're busy with that.

As I said, I'm in my fourth year, not quite as long as Nella, but nonetheless in Cloudflare that's a relatively long time in that we're growing very quickly.

And looking forward to participating in this conversation with you all.

Great. Thank you. Okay. So for the first part of our conversation today, we really wanted to share with everybody listening a bit more about sales at Cloudflare and how we work, what we're busy working on.

So Andy, if you wouldn't mind kind of setting the scene a little bit and telling us about where Cloudflare has come from.

So the past and where we're at right now, the kind of the present and what is the future of the sales organization?

Right. Sure thing. So just to highlight to everybody on the call, Cloudflare has just passed our 10th birthday.

So we're growing and maturing as an organization in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

We've come from humble beginnings about five years ago, where we started off with a small team in the London office.

And from that, we've picked up the pace over the last five years or so, very significantly expanded the London office, added a location in Munich, another one in Paris, one in Lisbon along the way.

And most recently adding a presence in Dubai and in Amsterdam.

So certainly from a geographical perspective, we've been growing significantly.

The team itself has grown from sort of the tens of people now to the hundreds of people in terms of our presence in those sites.

And with it, we've really changed from being a sort of a small startup group only that was kind of oriented towards what I would say more insight sales to one that is a substantial growing organization.

And one that's both inside and very outbound as well, both with Nella's group and others very much with customers and out with prospects developing the business overall.

So it's been a significant growing up period.

The future looks bright. It's going to be about being closer and closer to customers, particularly larger enterprises, whom are now looking to adopt the Cloudflare technology, but never losing sight certainly of the customers that we've been working with all along, digital online types of companies who continue to thrive and grow as well.

So the future looks bright.

Great. Thank you, Andy. And Nella, maybe you could tell us a bit more about how the sales functions work, so which different sales functions we have within the sales organization overall.

If you could tell us a bit more about that, and I guess to highlight to everybody that we have, as you mentioned at the beginning, opportunities in all of the teams, all of the sales functions in the year at the moment as well.

Yeah. So there are a lot of different roles in the sales organization, and I'm pretty sure there's open roles for almost everything, if not everything.

And kind of starting, I guess we'll go in order of the sales process.

First, starting with the business development representatives. They're really helping source new business, looking at leads that come in and finding new leads.

They then qualify the leads and hand them over to the account executives, and there's different sorts of levels dealing with different size of customers for the account executives, but they're really developing the customers, getting to know them, getting to know their businesses and their solutions, and ultimately working with the solutions engineers who are technical expertise to help present solutions to customers and sell products to them or solutions to them.

After sales are completed is when the customer success organization steps in, and part of customer success is the CSMs, which is the team that I lead, and the customer solutions engineers, which is the post-sales technical side as well.

So what we're here to do, kind of as I said before, is just really support customers with the products that they purchase, make sure that they know how it works, they're getting the most out of it, and introducing them along with sales to everything new.

Also, really important parts of the customer facing and sales organization is marketing, so getting the word out there, especially in all of the markets in Europe that we're in.

It's very diverse in culture and language, so marketing is really, really important to our success.

And then, of course, there's a lot of back-office stuff going on in the sales team, so operations, we're really growing that side of it as well and making sure we have our teams enabled, all of the training is done.

Cloudflare is coming up with new products literally all the time, so we need to make sure that our sales force is enabled and informed so that we can present that to customers.

So lots going on in the organization. Hope I didn't miss any.

I think that was everyone. Great, so if we have anybody of you in the session today who might be considering joining the Cloudflare sales team or just want to know a bit more about what they could expect if they joined the company, the sales organization specifically, could you both share a little bit about how we work, what is the culture of the sales organization?

Sure, let me chime in on that one.

First of all, the key cultural values that I think really separate or distinguish Cloudflare are, first of all, it is a very collaborative environment and the teams work very closely together.

It was quite interesting with the lockdown, of course, we were concerned that the very heavy collaboration that we have live, how would that continue?

Because we really depend on it.

And indeed, what happened is we found our way, just like many companies have through mechanisms like Zoom and Chat and others to continue the close collaboration.

My own sense is that part of that was because it was already in place and we already had that culture and that way of working that it naturally and kind of seamlessly translated into more of a virtual environment.

So that would be the first thing I'd say.

We really encourage people and certainly as you've heard Nela speak to focus on our customers and our customer success and have empathy.

And that's a cultural value that we really promote and continue to try and develop.

So that's a second thing in terms of working in the environment is that people are very tuned in and listening and empathetic to what our customers and for that matter, our prospects are asking of us.

So those would be some of the key cultural aspects.

It is a environment that's growing very quickly. So it has some of the pace and intensity and energy of a startup.

And so that is also a characteristic of I think what people enjoy, but they also find challenging and energizing in their work as well.

So those would be a few of the things I'd underlined in terms of what it's like to work inside our company.

Yeah, I think those are really good.

And the collaborative piece I think particularly rings true to my experience.

And it's not just the sales team that's collaborative. Especially in the office in London, we had engineers and product managers and customer support all sitting in the same room.

And whenever we had a customer issue, we could just walk across and ask an engineer who built it, how it works.

Now, the company's a lot bigger than it used to be.

And a lot more difficult to navigate with not being in the office, but you still really have that sense of collaboration in it.

And it really extends much beyond the sales team. And it's made our lives as customer facing team so much easier that we have product managers who care so much about customers too, and engineers who care so much about customers where we can really count on them to help troubleshoot the really difficult things.

And also agreeing with Andy, it's a very fast paced, ambitious culture, I think.

And I mean that I guess in a good way.

I don't know, there might be other ways you can take it, but things are constantly changing.

Our products are changing, the market's changing, the needs of our customers are changing with Internet regulations and privacy and things like that.

And we need to stay on top of everything to ensure that the customers of Cloudflare are taken care of.

And we're thinking about the future and thinking about their needs.

And we need to be reading all kinds of things.

And it is a lot compared to other companies that I've worked at.

It's a lot to wrap your head around, but it also is for a really good purpose.

And I think the team believes in that purpose a lot. And so the work is fun.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. I don't think I knew what fast pace meant until I joined Cloudflare.

But it's an incredibly exciting place to be. But yeah, it's a lot of hard work, but it's very rewarding, I think.

So thank you both for your insight on that.

Nella touched on something that I think is worth building out, which is about the sort of the sense of purpose that people have.

Our mission is to help build a better Internet.

And I think as Nella was alluding to, people come and they subscribe to that.

And it helps drive and motivate and kind of align us around that.

And I think people also are attracted to some of the things that as a company we've done around helping build a better Internet.

We've had a project that's well-known called Galileo, which is about giving a voice to journalists and other political groups.

Another one called Athena, along the same lines around elections that are initiatives the company has supported to put the Internet to good use.

And I think many of all of us are proud of that and find that that helps give us, you know, kind of a purpose in the company.

So I think that I wanted to just, you know, build on what Nella really was referring to.

I think that really is something that people appreciate.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think more recently, over the past year as well, we have Project Fairshot as well, which was helping out websites who were working on rolling out the vaccine and the COVID vaccine as well.

So yeah, it's great to see the company continue to do such social good.

So you've both, Nella specifically, that you kind of touched on your, you know, how the experience at Cloudflare has kind of been different to other places.

But what do you think it is kind of that makes Cloudflare different to other organisations?

What is kind of special about it or any kind of current very interesting challenges in the industry that make Cloudflare a more, a kind of exciting place to work at at the moment?

Yeah, for sure. And this is a, yeah, Andy's sort of comment was a good segue as well into it with all of the projects we work on.

But I think what sets it apart for me, and everyone probably has a different experience, but the product itself, it's a product that impacts everyone who uses the Internet, which is a very significant proportion of the world.

And being a part of something of that scale, to me, is just really exciting.

You know, when we, you know, make new security protocols, the whole Internet is more secure, or the whole Internet can get faster, and things like this are really cool.

And we've built a team that is also uniquely engaged and passionate about a product.

You know, working in ad sales, it can't do the same thing for me, at least then that, you know, the Cloudflare products could, that are making the Internet more secure, better, faster, better for people in, you know, more remote locations.

You know, our 1.1.1.1 product that has significantly, you know, helped people that have, you know, poor Internet connections.

And the sales team, you know, aren't joining to be sales mercenaries, you know, at all.

They're joining because they really believe in what Cloudflare is doing.

And most importantly, I think that the future path that we're on, I'm genuinely excited about what the product strategy team is brewing up right now to release later, that we can, you know, get the opportunity to introduce to the market.

And I think, you know, sales people can get really excited about that.

It's not just what we have today.

Like, we've got such an ambitious product and engineering team as well, that like, they're going to keep giving us cool things to show our customers.

What I'd add is, what is exciting that people find in Cloudflare is that we're often at the forefront of what's called the digital transformation or the cloud transformation of our customers.

And so, a good grouping of them are what you would call traditional legacy environments for their both their technology and in a way they're working.

And so, what we're able to do is, as a sales customer facing team, get involved in projects that are what we call in the industry, of course, digital transformation, but that are changing for the good organizations, be they large commercial organizations, in particular.

And so, that's an exciting thing to be involved in.

And I think our people appreciate that, and we're delivering and helping organizations make this transition to an online digital world, help them to be competitive, help them to maybe stave off competitors that otherwise might take a share from them.

And that's a good thing for people to be a part of. I think our group appreciates that.

Great. Thank you. And so, what do you think makes someone successful in the sales organization at Cloudflare?

What type of skills and capabilities make somebody or enable somebody to be successful in a role here at Cloudflare?

I think there's a few different things. The first thing that comes to mind is empathy.

Our customers, everyone's busy. And especially if you're responsible for keeping a high-traffic website online or an important website online, it can be huge financial implications if that's not taken care of.

Security breaches are obviously catastrophic for businesses and individuals.

And understanding what's on the line, I think, for some of these customers is really important.

Their jobs can be on the line, depending on how we take care of them sometimes.

So, empathy is really, really important. Another value that comes to mind or another thing that makes someone successful is that element of technical curiosity.

Cloudflare is not an intuitive product for somebody who's from outside of the network security or SASE or technology space.

It's kind of behind the scenes and something that you wouldn't know about.

And a lot of people who have the team didn't have a background in technology or cybersecurity, which is fine.

But if they're interested in it, it's something they can absolutely learn. And there's tons to read, tons of people to talk to.

But having that genuine interest in the product really comes across to customers as well and will help the individuals on the team really understand the product and able to communicate the benefits and really, really help our customers.

You know, I think I'd reiterate particular curiosity.

What I've kind of learned is that as we interview people, we've often looked at people who haven't had a lot of experience, but in the end, if they've got the ambition, the will, and ultimately the curiosity, that the curiosity trumps the experience with many of our people.

And they've come up and become very successful and great contributors within the business.

I think, Nellie, you make a really good point on that one. I see it and I'm surprised by it continuously, how people have come from different backgrounds and become successful.

The one other one I guess I would mention is that we look for people who contribute to our culture.

In fact, just yesterday, we did a regular meeting and we were recognizing not just our performance and our business progress, but individuals who are contributing to our culture with things like organizing lunch and learn meetings, with things like organizing social events to get the team together.

And so that's, I think, part of being healthy and happy in our company and we put a lot of value onto it.

So it goes alongside, of course, the business objectives, but fits importantly in that way.

Great. Thank you both. We just have about two and a half minutes left.

So just one kind of last quick question before, if you can answer it quickly, that is before we wrap up today.

So we're here today.

It's a women in sales event and kind of focusing on more kind of the diversity of our team currently and what we're doing to improve the diversity of our team.

Can you share a little bit about what the sales teams are doing specifically to increase the diversity of the teams?

I can go really, really quick and then I'll let Andy.

One of the, I mean, there's a lot of different moving pieces, but one of my favorite ones is also what Andy just mentioned, which is really taking experience with a grain of salt.

The lack of women in tech can be a self-perpetuating cycle if we just look at tech experience and tech sales experience.

And some of our most successful team members have been people without this experience.

And I personally review a lot of CVs for all kinds of roles. And I'm not looking for experience necessarily.

I'm looking for drive and ambition and the curiosity bits.

And the other stuff I know can come with some of these, I guess, personality traits more than experience.

Thank you.

I guess what I'd add is, you know, our team is fairly well-represented with women.

We've got women in all the key roles that we've been talking about, but that said, we can always do better.

And we're focused on continuing to try and do better and improve our diversity.

The kind of things that we've done is with women in key roles, making sure that they're identifiable as role models and are given the good opportunity and mentoring and the ability to have visibility and impact.

So we focus on it.

It's a high priority. And that's how we're building the company. And that's what we're committed to.

Great. Thank you both so much. And from a people team perspective as well, we have a lot of initiatives in terms of focusing on diversity and inclusion, such as educational programs around unconscious bias, hiring manager training and interviewer training as well.

Thank you both so much.

The next session is starting in just a second. So thank you, Nella and Andy, for joining today.

Thanks. Thanks. Thank you, Carly. Thank you, everybody.