Strategies for Success: Overcoming Challenges Affecting SMB Companies Around Indirect Taxation

As the world continues to recover from the global pandemic, increased complexity around indirect taxation poses greater challenges than ever for small and medium-sized businesses.

Greater audit scrutiny from tax authorities, rapidly changing commerce regulations, and the growing need for digital transformation have combined to create a new landscape of compliance hurdles for busy tax professionals.

Join our interactive virtual chat with leading industry experts from Vertex and BDO where you will learn:

– Common tax challenges and pitfalls facing SMB/MM businesses
– Importance of tax having a prominent seat at the digital transformation table
– Best practices for success throughout the tax lifecycle from discovery to implementation

Speakers

Larry Mellon
Tax Director, Chief Tax Office
Vertex

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Larry Mellon

Tax Director, Chief Tax Office Vertex

Larry Mellon is a Tax Director in the Chief Tax Office, where he is responsible for providing insights, thought leadership and customer-centric direction to Vertex functional groups,supporting the continued expansion of Vertex indirect tax solutions and overall enterprise strategy. He has over 30 years of experience in sales and use tax compliance, risk assessment, jurisdictional audits, administration and management, as well as VAT compliance. Larry joined Vertex in 2005 as a Sales and Income Tax Supervisor and has served as Tax Manager since 2012, where he has played a pivotal role in elevating and advancing the company’s tax management offerings. Prior to joining Vertex, Larry served as a Senior Tax Accountant and Property Tax Manager at Foamex International, Inc., a polyurethane and advanced polymer foam product manufacturer and marketer. Mellon also held multiple roles at The Franklin Mint and is a member of the Institute of Professionals in Taxation (IPT).

Chandra Wing
SALT Senior Manager
BDO

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Chandra Wing

SALT Senior Manager BDO

Chandra joined BDO as a manager in the Central Region SALT Indirect Tax Automation practice. She has more than 15 years of experience in state and local sales and use tax and its relationship with information technology. Her experience includes time with the Michigan Department of Treasury as an auditor for sales, use and income tax, as well as several years of industry experience with a Fortune 500 company. Prior to joining BDO, Chandra managed Taxware and supporting software systems like WebTool Kit (exemption certificate manager), and TaxSolver (compliance reporting). She also managed the applicable integrations with ecommerce, SAP, and internally developed systems. She was responsible for sales and use tax audit defense, managed audits, overpayment reviews, tax return compliance management in the U.S., tax research, nexus analysis, and analyzing the processes related to sales and use tax within the U.S. and Canada. Through her experience as an auditor she has served a number of clients in various industries, with an emphasis in manufacturing. Chandra’s experience with the Department of Treasury has brought her specialized knowledge for analyzing sales and use tax processes for improvements that result in ultimate audit savings. This includes reviewing systems and processes as well as the implementation and configuration of sales tax systems.

Joe Malloy
SALT Managing Director
BDO

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Joe Malloy

SALT Managing Director BDO

Joe joined BDO in February 2020. He has more than 20 years of state and local tax experience in government, public accounting, and industry. He specializes in a variety of state and local taxes, including sales and use tax, income/franchise taxes, and property taxes. He has deep knowledge of tax compliance, tax controversy and audit defense, tax planning, and implementing tax incentives related to state and local taxes. Joe specializes in analyzing tax processes related to sales and use tax, designing new processes, and implementing automated solutions through the use of third-party software such as Vertex and One Source. He uses his extensive knowledge gained as a tax director to develop relationships across an enterprise necessary to design and implement tax processes that efficiently meet the goals of the organization. Part of Joe’s industry experience includes delivering value to the enterprise through the tax function. He has accomplished this value-added component through the management of tax reserves, successful audit defense, overseeing and completing reverse audits and tax refund projects, and continuous process improvement including through automation.

How Trailblazing CFOs Thrive When Uncertainty Reigns

It comes as no surprise—CFOs who take a creative, nimble approach to operating their businesses will continue to thrive ahead of their more traditional counterparts, regardless of the disruptions thrown their way. But how do these trailblazing leaders ensure that their plans, budgets, and forecasts reflect the reality of today’s unpredictable landscape? And when uncertainty reigns, how can they set their team and the business up for success in the year ahead? In this session, we’ll hear finance leaders share how they are planning for success in FY23 by:
● Embracing technology and AI to drive decision-making
● Keeping their teams challenged, engaged and productive
● Collaborating across departments to accelerate growth

Speakers

Dan Fletcher
CFO
Planful

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Dan Fletcher

CFO Planful

Dan Fletcher is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Planful, with experience in high-growth SaaS and PE-backed companies. Prior to joining Planful, Dan served as the CFO for MarkLogic where he helped guide the company through acquisition transformation and growth. Before this role, Dan served in a variety of management roles for high-growth companies, including at Planful as CFO, following the acquisition by Vector Capital in late 2018.Dan is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and holds a B.S. and Masters from the University of Missouri, where he graduated with honors.

Grant Brooks
Director of Corporate Finance
FIGS

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Grant Brooks

Director of Corporate Finance FIGS

Grant Brooks is a Finance Director at FIGS, a direct-to-consumer healthcare apparel and lifestyle brand that celebrates, empowers, and serves current and future generations of healthcare professionals. Since FIGS went public in 2021, Grant has been building the finance department to accommodate being a public company, which includes regular forecasting/budgeting, earnings calls, management bonus program, SOX compliance, and scaling the business both domestically / internationally. Before FIGS, Grant led the global consolidation for Disney's Media and Entertainment Distribution (DMED), a segment that includes Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, and STAR. While at Disney, he covered most business models (Studio, TV, Streaming, Consumer Products), and had worked on a variety of projects that include the acquisition of Fox, two company-wide restructures, and the launch of Disney+ globally. Before Disney, Grant held a variety of finance and international business development roles at Boeing for military aircraft. Grant is an avid mentor, both at FIGS and at UCLA Anderson as a GAP Fellow, and enjoys running, Olympic lifting, philanthropy, and data visualization.

Do We Really Need Another Tool in Our Techstack?

Another day, another new marketing or sales platform. It’s not always about the shiny new tool but what is actually needed for the team today and ensuring ROI on platform spend. Learn from a panel of seasoned Ops Experts on when and how they decided to add new tools to their stacks (and when to say no).

Speakers

Thomas Rosen
Co-Founder
Nomad

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Thomas Rosen

Co-Founder Nomad

Matt Mullin
Sr. Director of Strategy, Growth Marketing, Operations and Technology
Tenable

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Matt Mullin

Sr. Director of Strategy, Growth Marketing, Operations and Technology Tenable

Betsy Chen
Director, Marketing Operations
Fivetran

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Betsy Chen

Director, Marketing Operations Fivetran

Consolidation and M&A

Transactions in the SaaS industry are growing in volume by approx. 25% Year-on-year. The strong appetite for SaaS businesses is being driven by solid market fundamentals and the industry’s attractive business model case.

• How do you value a SaaS business?
• Understanding the market segment growth potential and the potential growth of the company’s market share

Speakers

Chris DeMayo
Partner
Withum

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Chris DeMayo

Partner Withum

Chris is a partner at Withum and serves as the firm’s Practice leader for the Technology and Emerging Growth Services Group. With over 15 years of experience, he has dedicated his time to servicing this industry and tech community and has had the privilege of working and building relationships with some of the most well-known and successful technology and emerging growth companies in the space. In addition to servicing his clients, his responsibilities include representing the firm in the marketplace, developing marketplace strategies, leading the growth and success of the firm’s technology and emerging growth practice. Beyond accounting, he has developed a deeply focused skill set within the sector as a strategic advisor and consultant. With an emphasis on M&A and auditing, he often consults with clients on accounting for complex capital structure, interpretation of revenue recognition standards, capitalized software, acquisition accounting, exit planning, and software selection/implementation among others.

Stacey McKibbin
CEO
Consilio

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Stacey McKibbin

CEO Consilio

Stacey McKibbin is the CEO of Consilio, a peak performance executioncompany that believes having a strong Middle Management Suite is the secret sauce of success. From their world class coaching, training and state of the art AI sales practice portal, Consilio has a proven system that works. Stacey leads her team of zealots by her example of passion and enthusiasm that guides leaders to accelerated success. As a Master Practitioner of NLP and student of The Art of Negotiation, Stacey can help blend your corporate objectives with the vision, strategy, and the execution you need for both short- and long-term success. Stacey is also a DISC certified assessment administrator. She believes that this particular assessment when utilized within an organization will open up the lines of communication across every level and will ultimately lead to a more productive and all around better performing team. She is even so bold to claim "communication changes lives. " That's how important this work is! Stacey lives in San Diego with her husband Chris and their two children Max and Jack and dog Roxy.

Julien Meyer
Managing Director
NorthStar Investment Banking

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Julien Meyer

Managing Director NorthStar Investment Banking

Julien Meyer, MBA is a career entrepreneur. Founder of collegeTKTS, CollegeStack and formerly CEO @ BlurtBox (Entrepreneur Magazine, 2016), Meyer has been running companies his whole career. With two successful exits under his belt as well as a failure, as he anticipated his next career move, Meyer realized that working to fix how founders interface with investors and ultimately exit companies was his passion. To get started down this path, Meyer published, “First Money In” (Barnes & Noble, Amazon, 2018), a guidebook for entrepreneurs looking to raise their first $50k in capital and founded the Startup Financial News Podcast (Apple, 2017). Meyer then went on to found and become a partner at NorthStar Venture Partners, a financial services firm that focuses exclusively on helping startups with early stage growth strategies and financing, all the way through to M&A activity and exits. Meyer was recently rated as one of the Top 10 Venture Capital consultants for 2018 and NorthStar Venture Partners is up for a of awards in the M&A ecosystem. Additionally, Julien holds an MBA from Rollins College in Winter Park, FL, a dual BSfrom the University of Central Florida and a Corporate Finance Certificate from Harvard Business School. He has been featured in Small Business Today, the Orlando Sentinel, Entrepreneur Magazine, multiple business journals and the Ambitious Academy. Meyer continues to speak at entrepreneurship programs across the globe educating entrepreneurs on the opportunities available to them as well as the pitfalls associated with financially over-leveraged startups.

How to Attract Top Talent in 2021

• Finding employees with the right stuff for SaaS
• Virtual recruiting
• Hiring the best team for your growth stage

Speakers

Doug Inamine
CHRO
Tipalti

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Doug Inamine

CHRO Tipalti

Doug has a tremendous amount of experience in leading the human resource function in both privately-held and publicly-traded, multinational technology companies. Most recently he was the CHRO for Coupang, an e-commerce startup based in South Korea where he was part of an aggressive growth phase as they expanded their global footprint. Prior to that, he was the Chief People Officer for Kabam, a mobile gaming startup, and Xyratex, a publicly-traded enterprise data storage company. Doug graduated from the University of California, Davis with a B.S in Economics.

Larry Dunivan
CEO
Namely

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Larry Dunivan

CEO Namely

Larry Dunivan is CEO of Namely, the leading HR platform for mid-sized companies and a 30-year veteran in HR and software spaces. Earlier in his career, Dunivan held leadership positions across sales, customer support and product at Ceridian, a cloud-based human capital management platform, before becoming Proposal Created: 03/30/21 Proposal Submitted: 04/09/21 Chief Revenue Officer of the company. There, he also served as Senior Vice President at Global HCM Products where he led the development, deployment and launch of an end-to-end talent management application. Prior to joining Namely, Dunivan was interim Chief Executive Officer at ThinkHR, a risk management software company.

Stacey McKibbin
CEO
Consilio

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Stacey McKibbin

CEO Consilio

Stacey McKibbin is the CEO of Consilio, a peak performance executioncompany that believes having a strong Middle Management Suite is the secret sauce of success. From their world class coaching, training and state of the art AI sales practice portal, Consilio has a proven system that works. Stacey leads her team of zealots by her example of passion and enthusiasm that guides leaders to accelerated success. As a Master Practitioner of NLP and student of The Art of Negotiation, Stacey can help blend your corporate objectives with the vision, strategy, and the execution you need for both short- and long-term success. Stacey is also a DISC certified assessment administrator. She believes that this particular assessment when utilized within an organization will open up the lines of communication across every level and will ultimately lead to a more productive and all around better performing team. She is even so bold to claim "communication changes lives. " That's how important this work is! Stacey lives in San Diego with her husband Chris and their two children Max and Jack and dog Roxy.

Steve Pockross
CEO
Verblio

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Steve Pockross

CEO Verblio

Fortune 500, and nonprofit experience to his role at Verblio. As CEO, he applies leading marketplace and SaaS principles to create an industry-leading content creation platform with 3,000 U.S.-based writers supporting the creation of premium content at scale in every niche. Verblio has been named an Inc 5000 winner 2x, a Mercury growth winner 5x, and was named a Colorado Company to watch in 2020. He also served in marketing, strategy, and operational leadership roles at LiveOps, Tendril, Western Union, Marketing Technologies Group and HSBC.

Choose Your Market Segments Based on Customer Profitability

• Is market segmentation the best way to target your most profitable customers?
• The importance of research
• Segmenting a marketplace
• Setting a criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of market segments

Speakers

Annie Scranton
President & Founder
Pace PR

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Annie Scranton

President & Founder Pace PR

Annie Scranton is President & Founder of Pace PR. She has 8+ years experience as a TV producer at major networks including CNN, Fox News, CNBC, MSNBC & ABC, where she booked guest appearances for popular shows like Good Morning America. For the past decade, Annie has been leveraging this experience and expertise to grow her own agency, Pace PR, a 2020 Inc. 5000 company, where she focuses on getting her clients like Hint Water, Fast Company, Albert, ConsenSys, and others regular TV and media coverage to build their brands.

Amar Goel
Chairman
PubMatic

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Amar Goel

Chairman PubMatic

A serial entrepreneur, Amar co-founded Safeter (http://safeter.work), a company bringing employees and employers back to work safely via vaccination tracking, employee scheduling, and collaboration. He previously founded PubMatic (NASDAQ: PUBM), serving as the company’s first CEO. PubMatic develops products for the digital advertising industry. Currently, as Chief Innovation Officer, Founder, and Chairman, Amar runs PubMatic’s marketplace group. In addition to PubMatic, Amar also founded several other companies, including Komli Media, the leading independent advertising technology platform in the APAC region. As a 19-year-old student at Harvard University, Amar co-founded Chipshot.com. Over five years he grew the business to approximately $30M in annual sales, making Chipshot.com the fastest-growing ecommerce website at that time. Amar has previously led sales for a digital advertising business for Microsoft in the US, and working at McKinsey & Co. and Netscape in a variety of consulting and engineering roles. He holds a master’s degree in Computer Science and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Harvard University.

How Your Customers Can Help Fund Your Business and Drive Growth

It’s hard to raise capital while driving your business. The good news is that the process of raising capital is changing. We’ll show you how innovative brands are leveraging updated regulations and fully-digital platforms to align the interests of their customers and shareholders to grow their businesses.

Speakers

Jamie Finn
President & Co-Founder
Securitize

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Jamie Finn

President & Co-Founder Securitize

Jamie Finn is a seasoned executive who has worked in 6 countries in both startups and corporations, and is currently the President and Co-Founder of Securitize, Inc. During his nearly 20 years of experience he has participated in over $500m worth of transactions, including Kontera, Sansa Security, Jajah, Tokbox, RingRing Media, and Zingy. Most recently, Jamie helped grow Aki Technologies from an 8 person, $1m company, to a profitable enterprise with over 60 people and tens of millions in revenue. His previous employers include Ericsson and Telefònica o2, and Jamie also held the position of AVP of Product Innovation at AT&T, as well as executive positions at numerous startups. He has been in San Francisco for the past 5 years, after spending 6 years in London. Jamie grew up in Puerto Rico and is a native English and Spanish speaker.

Cass Sanford
Associate General Counsel
OTC Markets Group

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Cass Sanford

Associate General Counsel OTC Markets Group

Cass supports regulatory and policy making initiatives at OTC Markets Group. She represents the company on public panels and before industry and regulatory groups, focusing on equity market structure, online capital raising and emerging FinTech and RegTech trends. Cass currently serves on the Board of Governors of the Securities Traders Association. Prior to joining OTC Markets Group, Cass represented issuers, broker-dealers and individuals in securities litigation and in regulatory matters. Cass received her J.D. from Hofstra University School of Law and her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College. She is a member of the New York Bar.

Andrew Dix
Co-Founder & CEO
Crowded Media

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Andrew Dix

Co-Founder & CEO Crowded Media

Andrew Dix is CEO and founder of the Crowded Media Group, LLC, publisher of Crowdfund Insider, the leading news and information site covering disruptive finance including online capital formation, online lending, blockchain and other forms of Fintech. He is also the founder of DisclosureQuest, a searchable database of securities filings including Reg D, Reg A+ & Reg CF. Andrew is a vocal proponent for access to capital for small and emerging companies and the need for an innovation-driven economy. He is a member of the Cambridge Alternative Finance Leadership Advisory Board, part of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) at the University of Cambridge Judge School of Business. Crowded Media Group has partnered with CCAF as the media partner on their Alternative Finance Benchmarking Reports. A recognized authority in the Fintech world, Andrew is a participant in the bipartisan Securities Regulation Working Group organized by the Heritage Foundation. In 2016, Andrew received the New Capital Markets Leadership Award For leadership in the development of new capital markets under the JOBS Act. He is a founding special advisor to the Association of Online Investment Platforms. Andrew has a BA in Economics from Vanderbilt University and a Masters in Business from Boston University. He also attended Case Weatherhead School of Management where he continued his education in Finance.

JP Richardson
Co-Founder & CEO
Exodus

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JP Richardson

Co-Founder & CEO Exodus

JP's mission to help half the world exit the legacy financial system began from humble beginnings in America's heartland: Nebraska. In 2015, JP co-founded Exodus to build a beautiful and easy-to-use self-custodial wallet that allows customers to manage portfolios of cryptocurrency. Exodus was the first US company to conduct an SEC-qualified crypto-only public stock offering. Today, Exodus has over 200 employees and 1.9 million people trust Exodus to keep their cryptocurrency secure.

Unconventional Tactics to Generate New Revenue Streams in SaaS

New add-on offerings a SaaS company could consider adding to their core SaaS platform, how building block technologies can help you customize those offerings towards clients, how to put these add-on offerings in the market and how to monetize them.

Speakers

Terence Craig
Advisor
Toyota Ventures

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Terence Craig

Advisor Toyota Ventures

Terence Craig is the Chief Investment Officer for The Impact Seat, one of the leading independent investors in high growth technology companies led by women, especially women of color. At The Impact Seat, Terence leads investment activities and provides post-investment support for over 60 portfolio companies and monitors their LP investment in several venture funds. An experienced technologist, speaker and author, Terence has founded multiple companies and has served as the Chief Technology Officer at multiple venture-backed companies including the Mayfield funded Consensys Software and several pioneering enterprise and Big Data software companies. Terence was one of the earliest Black CEOs and founders to raise venture capital (way back in 1998), and he uses that experience and expertise to improve the startup ecosystem. His goal has been to support other “non-traditional” founders in navigating the startup landscape. His efforts to increase inclusion in the startup ecosystem led Terence to join the executive team at Astia Angels, an international angel group focused on investing in high-growth companies with women on the leadership team. During his time at Astia, Terence ran a pilot investment program to support Women of Color called the Representation Program, funded by strategic corporate funders. The program was such a success that Astia has now made it a permanent part of their investment platform. Terence’s book, Privacy & Big Data, has been translated into several languages and is currently available for purchase on numerous platforms such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Google Books.

Charlie Lynch
Embedded Analytics Specialist
Cumul.io

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Charlie Lynch

Embedded Analytics Specialist Cumul.io

Kris Rudeegraap
Co-Founder & CEO
Sendoso

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Kris Rudeegraap

Co-Founder & CEO Sendoso

Kris Rudeegraap is the co-founder and CEO of Sendoso, the leading Sending Platform. Kris has more than a decade of sales experience and has spent time at Talkdesk, Yapstone, and Piqora. During that time, he discovered that creating meaningful engagements through direct mail and gifting was an effective way to drive demand and increase sales—which helped inspire the idea for Sendoso. Kris is a California native and CSU-Chico alum currently residing in the Bay Area.

DEI – Going Beyond the Buzzword

The benefits of diversity & inclusion to SaaS companies can be seen internally with an increase in productivity. Diversity also correlates with better business results and increasing revenue.

• Growing beyond the traditional business model
• Simplifying your talent recruitment
• Leveraging a diverse workforce in company and product development

Speakers

Cheryl Contee
Chief Innovation Officer
The Impact Seat

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Cheryl Contee

Chief Innovation Officer The Impact Seat

Cheryl Contee is the award-winning CEO of the digital agency Do Big Things, a diverse team that is using new narrative and new tech for causes and campaigns to create global change in a new era. Cheryl is the author of Mechanical Bull: How You Can Achieve Startup Success, available on Amazon. Previously, Cheryl was CEO of Fission Strategy, which brought Silicon Valley startup culture to the world’s leading causes and campaigns. She’s the co-founder of Attentive.ly, the first tech startup with a black female founder to be acquired by a NASDAQ company, the National Board Chair for Netroots Nation, and a proud co-founder of #YesWeCode. Learn more: www.dobigthings.today

Lisa Edwards
President & COO
Diligent Corporation

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Lisa Edwards

President & COO Diligent Corporation

Lisa Edwards is President and COO of Diligent Corporation, the largest governance, risk and compliance (“GRC”) SaaS provider serving over 23,000 organizations around the globe. Lisa is responsible for commercial growth and performance. Prior to joining Diligent, she served as EVP of Strategic Business Operations at Salesforce. Lisa also held leadership positions at Visa, Inc. and KnowledgeX, and co-founded Valubond, prior to the company’s acquisition by Knight Capital. Lisa received a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She serves on the Board of Directors of Colgate-Palmolive Company, and is deeply involved in two non-profits where she previously served on the board, Playworks and the Presidio YMCA.

Gillian French
People Expert-in-Residence
Workvivo

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Gillian French

People Expert-in-Residence Workvivo

Gillian French is a veteran Chief People Officer and an expert at scaling teams and building strong company culture. She is currently employee communications platform Workvivo’s people expert-in-residence. Prior to this, Gillian served as Chief People Officer at Cubic Telecom, where she oversaw all aspects of people development, culture, employee engagement, policies and practices. Gillian was previously Chief People Officer at CarTrawler, where she was an integral member of the leadership team for 12 years and scaled the business from 25 to 600 people. Before turning her skills to the technology sector, Gillian spent eight years at a leading Irish hotel group – Jurys Doyle Hotel Group – where she held several senior leadership roles across a range of departments and properties. Workvivo is the employee communication platform designed to foster natural, meaningful connection in teams, allowing companies to reach and engage their employees in ways that traditional tools simply can’t.

Pricing Strategy – Taking a Value-Based Approach

Price is a signal — to customers, the market and your team. It needs to be right! This session will focus on how SaaS companies can benefit from value based pricing strategies.

• Know your SaaS business’s value metric – measuring the value your product offers customers
• Optimize your pricing strategy as a growth lever and monetize products
• There are riches in the niches – segment your market
• Determine what’s valuable to your target market & buyer
• Building flexibility into your SaaS tech stack
• Turbo-charging your NDR – the importance of a revenue delivery strategy

Speakers

Omar Nawaz
CPO
Chargebee

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Omar Nawaz

CPO Chargebee

Omar is the Chief Product Officer at Chargebee. He is passionate about building incredible products and teams with demonstrated leadership success in delivering innovative solutions that significantly impact business outcomes. He has a significant track record of scaling products, businesses, and processes to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Omar is experienced in architecting high-performing distributed teams, bringing clarity, vision, and solutions to large and very complex problems and opportunities. Consistently delivering against mission-critical, strategic company goals through adopting and implementing disruptive and innovative technologies to scale.

Songe LaRon
CEO & Co-Founder
Squire

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Songe LaRon

CEO & Co-Founder Squire

Ed Lee
CEO
HelloAdvisr

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Ed Lee

CEO HelloAdvisr

Ed Lee is a pricing expert and CEO of HelloAdvisr, a growth consultancy working with startup leadership teams to design high-impact pricing strategies. HelloAdvisr works with startups on pricing across growth stages and draws on experience from industries including eCommerce/retail, software, and consumer goods. Previously, Ed held leadership roles with LG Electronics and Simon-Kucher & Partners, a global management consulting firm, where he advised leading global companies and brands on pricing strategy. Ed is regularly invited to teach and speak at leading academic institutions including UCLA and Oxford University. He serves as a mentor and advisor to startup accelerators including Techstars and Backstage Capital, and is a resident expert at the Oxford Foundry (the venture accelerator of Oxford University). Ed received his MBA from Oxford University, two Masters (MSc) from the London School of Economics, and BA from UCSD.