The majority of my over 10-year Salesforce career has been in Partner Marketing, which has been an incredible experience in many ways. Perhaps most significantly, being part of several Salesforce market disruptions such as building the AppExchange, to drive growth for our partners, customers and Salesforce. Nothing like this had even been done and it helped create new customers, amplify our messages, make Salesforce stickier and ultimately helped us ensure long-term growth and customer success.

I began my career as a financial analyst. After several years in the workplace I was lucky to have the opportunity to start a family and be a stay-at-home mom. While this was a very rich time for me personally, I looked forward to returning to the workforce. This happened seven years later with the unexpected twist of becoming a single mother. I knew two things: 1) I had to go back to work to take care of my children, 2) I wanted to work in marketing because it blended psychology, art, and statistics — three of my passions.

I took a Client Relations job at Oracle that evolved into a Sr. Manager marketing role in services product marketing. Five years later I was recruited to Siebel Systems and held roles that gave me incredible leadership opportunities in services marketing, field marketing, program marketing and integrated marketing strategy. Before I knew it, it was 2005, and I joined Salesforce’s newly formed Partner Marketing organization where I had the opportunity to build the team that grew our marketing and partner programs.

My time in Partner Marketing can be broken into four key phases:

1. Create

I created the first monetization program for partners on the AppExchange, which formed our initial sponsorship program for City Tours and Dreamforce, in addition to our first Partner Program.

2. Grow

I drove growth through the AppExchange, co-marketing programs, and sponsorship programs.

3. Enhance

I created a rock star team to enhance partner recruitment, co-marketing, and sponsorship programs by adding value to every aspect of our partner engagement, including app vendors, consulting partners and Marketing Cloud partners.

4. Scale & Impact

I focused on helping the team scale programs that provided the greatest impact and drove partner and customer success.

One of the things I learned during my career is that I have a very strong sense of self, am a natural leader who builds incredible teams and forges long-lasting relationships. I also discovered an innate courage to break rules and create disruptions that resulted in positive contributions to the business, and ultimately led to me becoming a vice president.  

My career advice is to strive to be the best version of you in all situations. Success in business comes with solving problems with passion and fearless execution. The most successful people I know focus on identifying gaps, solving problems through the things they can control, perfecting the details and embracing change — even if it’s scary.

My career would not have taken me this far without trusted mentors and colleagues who provided me with honest feedback and insights to opportunities for growth. I had the courage to ask for feedback, which led me to personal and professional growth, and bigger opportunities.

The Salesforce culture is what makes it the best place to work. This was true when I joined over 10 years ago, and is true today. Values like driving innovation, delivering customer success and giving back have always resonated with me and remain core Salesforce values. I’m grateful to have been at Salesforce for the past decade and be a part of our incredible growth and success. And I’m excited for all that will happen in the next ten years!

About the Author

Leslie Tom is a vice president of global partner marketing leading the marketing to, through, and with partners in the worldwide alliances organization at Salesforce. 

Leslie is responsible for driving awareness and creating demand for partner apps and solutions through high impact co-marketing programs across our global partner ecosystem including consulting, ISV, channel and reseller partners. She fosters the success of our ISV partners who build and sell their next-generation cloud apps on the AppExchange, the #1 app marketplace. In addition, Leslie owns the sales, marketing and operations of Salesforce’s corporate sponsorships including Dreamforce and Salesforce World Tours.

Prior to joining Salesforce in 2005, Leslie worked in several marketing leadership roles at Siebel Systems and Oracle. Leslie holds a double major in Business and Psychology from San Jose State University.

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