Love Your Team Helen Fanucci

Traci Corazin talks about the power of fear and how embracing fear can set you free.  Traci is the General Manager of Strategic Account Sales, Northeast region at Microsoft.  In this episode Traci shares with us an experience that totally changed how she thinks about fear.  She unpacks her three-part framework that enables her to run towards fear and take on new challenges. What I love about Traci’s framework is it is very actionable and anybody can learn to use it.

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Traci Corazin leads the Northeast Region Strategic Account Operating Unit for Microsoft Corp. In this role she works closely with customers whose desire it is to transform and digitally innovate their organizations.
Prior to her position at Microsoft, Traci spent five years at Amazon (AWS) in a variety of Commercial and Public Sector Sales and Business development positions. Most recently she was the Managing Director of the Global Private Equity supporting PE firms with their portfolio digital transformation initiatives.
Prior to Amazon Traci was the General Manager of U.S. Education Mobility for Public Sector at Microsoft. She was responsible for the U.S. Education mobility strategy and sales to K–12 and Higher Education customers across the U.S. focused on institutions, faculty, students, and key curriculum stakeholders. In this role, she applied her passion for innovation and extensive experience in education technology to deliver effective learningenvironments on cutting-edge Windows devices. Here, Corazin was able to realize her passion for improving outcomes through technology in a global environment. Corazin made this philosophy real by working in tandem with the Xbox team to create, develop and deliver educational games and curriculum instruction supporting children on the autism spectrum.
Corazin is active in the autism community. Both as the Board of Directors President for the Academy of Precision Learning and supporting the efforts of several not-for-profit charities that seed technology into special education classrooms. She was the president and co-founder of the former Unicorn and Rainbows foundation, an organization that refurbished computers and gaming devices for donation to families with children on the autism spectrum.
Corazin holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Oregon and her MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She resides in Washington with her wife and three boys.

In this episode, John Majeski, CEO of Portola Valley Partners talks about how a strong culture is essential to breaking down silos in early-stage companies. This enables engineering, product management, and sales to work collaboratively, which in turn fast-tracks company growth.

John Majeski bio:
John has a history of being a founder and large IT company exec. He has been a partner in companies that have successfully exited to larger companies. He has worked as an executive with companies like HP, Dell, and Lenovo and helped scale business units organically and through M&A. He is now the CEO of Portola Valley Partners located in Silicon Valley.

Radhika Shukla is back, talking about leading by example and inspiring her team to really listen to customers and focus on solving their business challenges. Radhika highlights lessons learned, “When you appreciate your sellers so they feel valued and you lead with care and empathy, everything else just follows.  It is so important to know your team’s capabilities and invest in their growth. It is core to retaining and attracting talent.”

About Helen’s Guest:
Radhika Shukla is a Director, Enterprise Sales at Microsoft and Michigan-Ross MBA with over 18 Years of experience in Strategic Tech Sales Leadership. She is a skilled leader with a proven track record of successfully driving up sales, substantial ROI and profitability, delivering remarkable results for Fortune 500 companies and creating growth strategies eliciting best from contributors.
Her passion lies in helping customers solve their business challenges through innovative digital transformation solutions and engaging experiences fostering strong partnerships in the tech industry along the way. Leading with care/empathy, my passion drives me to equip and empower my team so they can dream big, achieve the impossible and accomplish remarkable things. Her leadership mantra is- “Inspire, Empower, Appreciate”.
Dynamic, decisive strategic thinker driven to succeed through teamwork, creativity, innovation and execution in complex business environments. Keenly attuned to key business drivers, market/industry trends, she has a number of Cloud and AI certifications under her belt. Radhika is a true trailblazer and in 2021, she was recognized at the No 1 spot in TOP 10 Women in Manufacturing by Manufacturing Global Magazine.

In this episode Radhika Shukla unpacks the critical role sales managers play when leading a new team.  She outlines her 5 priority areas to motivate and energize her team and why people first, customers second, and profits third is a winning formula for her team’s success.

Janie Wall is back again, this time sharing her sales coaching secrets including what she learned from her mentor that informs her coaching today.  Janie shares specific actions that increase the skill, motivation, and success of her sellers. 

About Helen's Guest:
Janie Wall joined DefenseStorm in November 2020, bringing with her over 15 years of technology sales experience. Janie is a self-described ‘sales geek’ that is passionate about helping companies develop go-to-market strategies to drive revenue acceleration.  Janie believes that sales coaching is the most under-prioritized responsibility of a sales manager and loves to leverage data to improve performance and drive results – building a data-driven, connected, coaching culture.  It’s important to use key metrics to drive coaching.  But to make metrics and coaching meaningful, it’s paramount to lead with empathy and never forget that, regardless of title, we are all just humans trying to achieve the same goal.  

In this episode, guest Janie Wall joins Helen to explore the power of data in building strong sales team cultures.  It is so critical for sales managers to recognize and utilize the “hard” metrics we are all so familiar with such as pipeline coverage and revenue attainment as not only measures of success, but as guideposts to lead us to opportunities to improve the “soft” skills and culture of our teams. In the data, we can find the real answers to unlock even greater success and the clues to a winning culture. Enjoy!

About Helen's Guest:
Janie Wall joined DefenseStorm in November 2020, bringing with her over 15 years of technology sales experience. Janie is a self-described ‘sales geek’ that is passionate about helping companies develop go-to-market strategies to drive revenue acceleration.  Janie believes that sales coaching is the most under-prioritized responsibility of a sales manager and loves to leverage data to improve performance and drive results – building a data-driven, connected, coaching culture.  It’s important to use key metrics to drive coaching.  But to make metrics and coaching meaningful, it’s paramount to lead with empathy and never forget that, regardless of title, we are all just humans trying to achieve the same goal.  
 
DefenseStorm
DefenseStorm provides CyberSecurity, CyberCompliance, and CyberFraud solutions specifically built for banking. Financial institutions are subjected to more than 80+ million cyber events every day. To mitigate risk, DefenseStorm works as a partner in addressing the unique cyber threats and compliance demands facing banks and credit unions in today’s complex financial services landscape to build a community of trust.  The DefenseStorm GRID is the only co-managed, cloud-based, and compliance-automated solution of its kind, operating as both a technology system and a service. It watches everything on a financial institution’s network to provide real-time cyber exposure readiness while a Threat Ready Active Compliance (TRAC) Team ensures cost-effective coverage.