On this episode, Tara Seppa, Regional Director, New England, Google Cloud, joins to discuss how companies are shifting to better serve their customers amisdt the current environment. COVID-19 has caused an even bigger wave of digital transformation in the enterprise space and Tara shares the changes she's seen over the past several months. She also uncovers the investments Google is making in field coverage this year as well as leadership lessons learned from 2020. Host: Tony Safoian Guest: Tara...
Jun 23, 2020•34 min•Ep. 53
For this special episode that marks one year of Cloud n Clear, Kurt Donnell, President & CEO of Freestar joins us. As the leader of the #1 fastest growing private company in the 2019 Inc. 5000, he explains how he leads a dynamic team of industry experts that engineer cutting-edge monetization solutions and provide world-class customer service for website owners and app developers. He also does a deep dive on how and why Google Cloud is a part of Freestar's broader business strategy as well a...
Jun 16, 2020•37 min•Ep. 52
Embodied is doing incredible things with robotics - specifically, companion robots that feature software for supporting children's development of foundational life skills. Moxie, their companion robot, launched in April this year and Embodied CEO, Paolo Pirjanian, joins the show to discuss the technology used to create Moxie and how it differentiates from other technological learning tools for children. Tune in to hear Paolo's vision of building socially and emotionally intelligent robots to imp...
Jun 09, 2020•38 min•Ep. 51
Nirav Sheth, Director of Channel Sales & Partnerships at Google Cloud, joins episode 50 to discuss the implementation of Channel partners in key strategic roles. He gives some guidance and feedback on what customers are looking for from Google Cloud partners and explains some of the key differences in partnering with a company like Cisco versus Google. Sheth also dives into how Google's strategy has shifted since COVID-19 and his plans for the post-COVID era. Host: Tony Safoian Guest: Nirav ...
Jun 02, 2020•50 min•Ep. 50
Corey Quinn, Cloud Economist at the Duckbill Group specializes in helping companies improve their cloud bills by optimizing costs and adding value to their investments. Join this episode hosted by Miles Ward, CTO at SADA, to hear about Quinn’s recent review of GCP, some cost-optimization advice customers could take value from, and where Quinn thinks folks could use the most help with their cloud investments. Host: Miles Ward Guest: Corey Quinn Connect on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/cloudncl...
May 26, 2020•42 min•Ep. 49
Francisco Irao has been involved in selling IT solutions for over 20 years, with 17 of them being at Google. Newly minted as Head of Channel and Direct Sales of Americas for Google Geo Enterprise and Google Maps Platform, Irao joins CnC to discuss how Google differentiates itself from an engineering and product standpoint, within a growing sea of Maps providers in order to support the narrative of better serving customers. Irao dives into the ‘existential flexibility’ of Maps, the changes we’ve ...
May 19, 2020•47 min•Ep. 48
In the first episode hosted by SADA CMO, Narine Galstian, special guest Kayla Spiess, Head of Partner Marketing, Americas at Google Cloud, joins to discuss pivoting partner marketing during a time of crisis. Despite the disruption COVID-19 has caused, now is a great opportunity for organization’s to reevaluate their digital marketing strategy and fine their tune priorities. Spiess explains how Google Cloud and its partners are repositioning their stance during this time to adopt a “serve not sel...
May 12, 2020•37 min•Ep. 47
Eric Rosenkranz is an award-winning software industry leader with a record of sustained performance leading teams, closing complex commercial deals, and landing break-through opportunities. For the past three years, he’s been at Google Cloud focusing on building and managing high-performing partnerships across North America. In this episode, Eric discusses the development of the partner ecosystem that he has witnessed over the years and what makes teams and partnerships successful. Host: Tony Sa...
May 04, 2020•37 min•Ep. 46
When it comes to storing big data, the two most popular options are data warehouses or data lakes--but what’s the difference between the two? Ashish Thusoo, Co-Founder and CEO of Qubole, breaks down everything you need to know about data lakes and how they can create more value for customers by accelerating digital transformation. In this age where “data is the new oil”, how are companies like Qubole shortening the path for customers to easily leverage the power of their data so they don’t get l...
Apr 27, 2020•40 min•Ep. 45
Jeff Brown, Strategic Business Executive at G Suite, is one of the most experienced professionals helping government agencies transform and innovate with Google Cloud. He discusses how organizations that have already made the investment into cloud are more prepared to adapt amidst a global pandemic and how cloud technology helps the public sector to continue to function during a crisis. He also dives into ‘forced essentialism’, crisis management, and how digital transformation has become inevita...
Apr 21, 2020•34 min•Ep. 44
A fireside chat with Carolee Gearhart, VP of Worldwide Channel Sales and Global SMB Sales at Google Cloud, recorded at SADA’s 2020 All Hands Kickoff. In this special episode, hosted by Tony Safoian, Carolee shares with us her journey so far and her appointment to the new global role at Google Cloud focusing on Channel success. Carolee also describes Google’s mission to democratize data and how their strategy has shifted under Thomas Kurian’s leadership, as well as important discussion around div...
Apr 13, 2020•42 min•Ep. 43
Paul Friedman, CTO of Streetlight Data, discusses how Google Cloud’s infrastructure and power is critical to their ability to process and offer DAAS to government organizations of all sizes. Streetlight Data provides transportation data and insights for optimizing urban planning and management of transportation resources to improve efficiency. Paul discusses his satisfaction in going with GCP and how over the years they have processed about 5-6 petabytes of data, much of it being live-streamed l...
Apr 06, 2020•34 min•Ep. 42
Companies worldwide have recently issued Work From Home orders, and for newly remote employees, it can be difficult to adapt to. SADA’s Digital Transformation Manager, Heather Summers, has over eight years of experience as a G Suite consultant and has helped organizations shift towards a digital paradigm. In this episode, Summers puts her change management skills into action and uncovers some best practices to boost productivity and collaboration while working from home - turning this era of cha...
Mar 30, 2020•28 min•Ep. 41
Brandon Jung, VP of Alliances at GitLab (the world’s largest fully remote company,) delves into GitLab’s company culture and the necessity for hyper transparency provided through the GitLab handbook. Before joining GitLab, Brandon helped build the Google Cloud ecosystem that includes technology companies as diverse as Red Hat, Docker, Cloudera, Pivotal and Tableau. Tune in to hear him also discuss software development, why software is “eating the world,” and the evolution of the Kubernetes lands...
Mar 24, 2020•48 min•Ep. 40
Nathan Rader is currently the Chief Revenue Officer at Parsable, but has spent more than 20 years in technology, with 11 of those years being at Google Enterprise. In this episode, we discuss Nathan’s extensive background in the industry, how the enterprise software business model has evolved, and how to enable customers to become self-sufficient. Creating the best product is no longer enough; in order to gain market share, subscription-based business models need to focus on customer retention b...
Mar 17, 2020•42 min•Ep. 39
SADA’s Head of Product and PI, Patrick Skoglund, discusses his journey and role in building the practice at SADA. The practice has developed the applications ATOM and dotMaps that are enterprise asset management applications for large governmental and utility organizations. Patrick explains the features and benefits, and what lies ahead for the solutions. Host: Tony Safoian Guest: Patrick Skoglund Connect on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/cloudnclear https://www.twitter.com/SADA https://www.tw...
Mar 09, 2020•45 min•Ep. 38
Justin Slaten is an accomplished technology executive with over 20 years of experience taking cutting-edge approaches to building products, improving business processes, scaling businesses and teams, and increasing productivity. As a longtime client and friend of SADA, Justin discusses his experiences at Netflix and TrueCar and how he helped them embrace the cloud. He delves into what his time at both companies has taught him about leadership and team building, establishing principles around bui...
Mar 02, 2020•46 min•Ep. 37
SADA Alumni, Kyla Hunts, leads PSO Partner Programs at Google Cloud and is based out of the Spruce Goose office in Los Angeles. In this episode, we discuss the importance of expanding the talent pool in high tech, growing up in Silicon Valley, how to break into the industry, and Google Cloud PSO's partner strategy for 2020. With the new program launch of Partner Success Services, Google gears up for a partner-centric strategy in delivering services. We also discuss what to look forward to in 202...
Feb 24, 2020•33 min•Ep. 36
SADA's Director of Google Enterprise Search, Chad Johnson, is responsible for the growth of the Google Enterprise Search line of business, including the transition to Google's Cloud Search replacement for the Google Search Appliance. He joins this episode to discuss how he got into the world of Search, how Enterprise Search has transformed over the years, customizations that improve the customer experience, and more. We also discuss Contact Center AI and how Cloud Search helps agents quickly sea...
Feb 18, 2020•35 min•Ep. 35
Travis Hahler has an interesting background that paved his path toward his current role as Americas Change & Culture Lead at Google Cloud. After studying psychology and business, Travis worked for a wide variety of organizations ranging from small boutique firms to Deloitte before he started working at Google. In this episode, he discusses what PSO is all about, the importance of change management, and driving adoption through people rather than technology. Change management is all about inv...
Feb 10, 2020•45 min•Ep. 34
Just shy of his one year anniversary at SADA, Director of Inside & Channel Sales, Billy Franz, joins us to discuss his leadership style, the culture he has cultivated, and the importance of team diversity. He built the Inside Sales Team last year at SADA (almost from scratch) that ended up sourcing tens of millions of dollars of pipeline. How? He explains everything from empathy and gratitude in leadership to sales execution. He also describes what it’s like being the only provider in the Ch...
Feb 03, 2020•35 min•Ep. 33
Kelly Harlan now runs the Engineering team for SADA's Work Transformation (G Suite, Chrome) practice - but she didn't start there. Here with us over 6.5 years, Kelly started on the helpdesk as part of our Enterprise Support organization as her first role - taking 100% of the G Suite calls! That experience landed her in the delivery organization, and then Colgate, really put both her AND SADA on the map in a major way. She talks about the growth she's seen with customers, how projects have change...
Jan 28, 2020•34 min•Ep. 32
Relatively new to Google Cloud, Rob Harper leads Channel Sales for the organization in North Central. On this episode, we discuss what makes Google Cloud unique, why Rob moved across the country to take this role, what he's seen so far, and what he thinks the future holds. We also discuss what makes the alignment with partners so important in Google's go-to-market strategy, and what makes partners stand out. Host: Tony Safoian Guest: Robert Harper Connect on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/clou...
Jan 21, 2020•35 min•Ep. 31
Jen Chason heads Enterprise Sales for Google Cloud for all of west (outside of Northern California). Being relatively new to the role, she has some unique perspectives on making the transition to Google Cloud after so many years. She also covers a massive geographic territory. With that type of responsibility, how does she create the best customer experiences in how they engage with Google, and with partners? Why is Google Cloud so transformational for customers? And what does the future hold? H...
Jan 14, 2020•49 min•Ep. 30
Gary Danoff is one of those Googlers who comes from experience being in the partner's shoes! His perspective on what attributes the best partners have is a unique perspective. Public Sector is one of six verticals Google Cloud is really focused on, from a go-to-market standpoint. Why is that? And how has Public Sector now become one of the places that's experiencing some of the most innovation in the market? We also discuss what the appointment of Javier Soltery as the Vice President, G Suite (r...
Jan 07, 2020•32 min•Ep. 29
Lisa Gluckstern is the Partner Sales Manager (PSM) for Google Cloud's corporate segment in North and South Central Markets, and Bradley Fisher, is the PSM for South Central Enterprise. Learn about their roles, how they engage with both partners, as well as Google Cloud's field sales organization, to ensure that every customer has the right partner engaged. How do these co-selling motions produce the optimal customer experience, and what do they expect from partners, exactly? Tune in to find out....
Dec 31, 2019•41 min•Ep. 28
How do you build a company culture that has been rated the Best Place to Work year after year? Head of People Operations, Orkideh Shahidi, has dedicated the past seven years of her career to making SADA a diverse and inclusive culture that hundreds of employees have joined. Orkideh believes while there are lots of moving parts, this all starts with living SADA's core values: Be Data Driven, Do the Right Thing, Be a Change Agent, Make Them Rave, and Be One Step Ahead. Hear what she has to say abo...
Dec 23, 2019•22 min•Ep. 27
Kelsey Hightower has been leading a movement for customer, user, developer, and ops team empathy in Google Cloud's product and engineering organizations. Tune in to hear how he's navigating these complex waters and what it's like focusing on community versus technology. Kelsey is also an extraordinary leader in the exploding Kubernetes ecosystem and shares his thoughts on how the platform is maturing, especially as a platform for building platforms, and how Anthos plays into that. He also digs i...
Dec 17, 2019•29 min•Ep. 26
Ben Howard has been in the Google ecosystem in various capacities for 6 years, and has a 360-degree perspective few people do: first at BetterCloud as an ISV, then within a Google Cloud consultancy, and now with Google running partner sales strategies and go to market. What is the value proposition partners need to bring to customers, and to Google Cloud in Corporate, Enterprise, and Select customers? Tune in to hear what changes he's seen in the past 6 years, specifically in the Thomas Kurian e...
Dec 10, 2019•42 min•Ep. 25
Fun-Gi is an independent game maker - who's first game, House Flip, has hit over 12,000,000 downloads, with 4.6 starts in a matter of just two years! Tune in to hear from both Alfred Fung, CEO and Jimmy Xu, Head of Product discuss going to market in a very crowded space - as they define a completely new category for mobile gaming. Thanks to the power and flexibility of GCP, and specifically App Engine, allows them to scale globally while focusing on game development and player experience, rather...
Dec 03, 2019•37 min•Ep. 24
