Tell us a bit about yourself and your journey with Verato.
I’ve been at Verato for ten years now — ten years and one month, but who’s counting? I started here in a marketing role. When I joined, we had some government business but no commercial customers. I came right after Series A funding, along with what was then our new CEO. I’d worked with him before, and we had this amazing technology we were trying to figure out how to use — where it could have the most impact and what the market opportunities were.
When I joined, there were only about twenty of us. It was a pretty small office. I came in wanting to get into sales, knowing it was something I wanted to explore. In traditional tech companies, the path to sales is usually cold calling for three or four years, and if you get along with your manager, maybe you become an AE. That didn’t sound appealing — doing soul-sucking cold calls for years and hoping someone liked me enough to promote me.
So, I wanted a different path into sales, and Mark LaRowe offered that. He said, “Come to this company. We don’t have a sales team yet because we’re just getting started, but if you put the work in and help us get settled, I’ll give you that opportunity to move into sales.”
And that’s exactly what happened. Now I’m VP of Sales. I’ve been in sales for about seven years — as an AE, in management, inside sales, sales operations — basically everything surrounding the go-to-market motion. Today, I lead sales for our commercial sector, which includes industries outside of traditional healthcare, like payers, government, tech, OEM, and beyond.
Verato’s message lit up Times Square — an exciting milestone for the company. After ten years with Verato, what does this moment mean to you personally and professionally?
Ten years — it’s wild to think about. Now, I’ve got three little girls and a dog. When I started, I didn’t have any of that, so those ten years just kind of flew by. Day by day, I don’t know if I had a big “aha” moment when I saw the Times Square ad, because frankly, I saw it on a computer screen — it wasn’t right in front of my face. But I’ve had a lot of smaller reflection moments over the years, just looking back at how far we’ve come — even in how we do our operations, the way we do our pricing, and the overall maturity of the organization. It’s really surprised me compared to where we started.
You’ve helped Verato grow from an emerging innovator to an established market leader. What has that journey taught you about building trust with customers, partners, and the market?
Building trust is hard, but it’s also really easy. It’s hard in the sense that it takes a long time, but it’s easy because if you just do the right thing by the other human on the other side of the screen, trust becomes a natural byproduct. Sometimes the right thing is also the hard thing — like telling a customer, “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” But when you do that, when you consistently act with integrity, trust just happens. It takes time, but it’s simple at its core.
As VP of Sales for Emerging Markets and Partner, you’re focused on helping new industries harness the power of identity intelligence. Where are you seeing the most exciting opportunities today?
I see a lot of opportunity in AI, especially in the sense that it still has a long way to go before we can really trust it. Verato and our trusted infrastructure are going to be key to making AI more reliable over time. There’s opportunity whenever there’s a lot of focus and momentum behind something, and right now that’s AI. When you have these big movements, that’s where opportunity lives.
You’ve been part of Verato through every major phase of growth. What do you think has stayed consistent, and what continues to set Verato apart as the market evolves?
The challenge of knowing who’s who is never going to go away. It’s going to evolve, but it will always be there in our daily interactions and operations — understanding who you are, what you do, the context of what you do, and your relationship to others. That’s constant.
Where Verato shines is our dedication to getting that right at the very core. We’ll continue to extend our platform, bring in more data, and do more interesting things with tools like Cohort Analyzer and our analytics suite, but we’re not going to forget what got us here. Our foundation is understanding who’s who, and that core strength will keep us valuable to customers while our vision on expanding the platform keeps us relevant in an ever-changing environment.
You’ve spent a decade building relationships and leading teams across marketing, business development, and partnerships at Verato. What advice would you give to others — inside or outside the company — about growing a career in a fast-moving, purpose-driven organization?
Be open to different paths your career could take. It’s good to have a vision, but also give yourself room to explore. When I joined Verato, I wanted to try sales — I had a feeling it might be something I’d be good at, but I didn’t know for sure. I didn’t think, “This is what I’ll do for the next 20 years.” It was just a skill I wanted to explore.
Framing it that way, as something to try, not as a make-or-break goal, allowed me to be honest with myself about whether I liked it. So, my advice is to stay open and find a mentor. Find someone you trust who’s been there before and ask yourself, “Do I want to do what they do?” Sometimes the answer is no, and that’s really informative too. Having a mentor has been a big part of why I’m still here.
Watch the conversation:
