Ever wondered what it’s like to work at Salesforce EMEA? We’re going to introduce you to some of our fantastic women in technology on the blog on a regular basis - check back to see more and bookmark our careers site to start your own #dreamjob!
Today we are delighted to introduce you to Lee-anne Knight, who regular readers of the blog will be familar with from her excellent (if we do say so ourselves!) Innovation Blog!
So this is what she gets up to when she's not writing thought provoking articles...
My Day
07:00: Good morning Monday! My day starts the same way every day; first check of emails, firing off of responses to overnight emails, a scan of linkedin and twitter and checking my meeting schedule and responses so I’m prepped for the day.
07:30: No external meetings today, so thankfully able to work from home.
07:45: My doorbell makes me move pronto. One of my focus industries is retail, so I love to test out retailers in store, online and multi-channel capabilities to feed into my arsenal of conversation points. A retailer that’s been on my radar’s delivery has arrived, so keen to test out their buy, try, return process…(That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!)
08:00: Log on and get started on my to do list. No two weeks are ever the same for me, so my list changes regularly. This week I’m coordinating the outputs of a customer workshop I ran last week, prioritizing and ensuring we’re all aligned for ‘what’s next’. To ensure everyone’s aligned before we speak I’ll prepare an action, timeline and assignment matrix, and provide necessary detail so everyone’s clear about expectations and deliverables before the call. I’m also rehearsing for a keynote delivery, structuring a panel, speaking with panel members around expectations and preparing for two workshops I’m assisting with.
09:30: Weekly team meeting - it’s a great opportunity to connect with my EMEA team members, hear what we’re all up to and understand and coordinate where we can help each other through hands-on help, or sharing experiences.
10:30: Quick pow-wow with a key team-member on the customer Ignite I’m currently working on. Ignite is an elite innovation programme designed for current customers who are industry leaders. We also work with potential customers with whom we are keen to innovate jointly. The Ignite program is one of the many reasons Salesforce continues to be named the “most innovative company in the world” by Forbes Magazine. I need to ensure that all of the deliverables are owned and progressing so that we can present back to the customer in a cohesive and coordinated manner in a month. Tomorrow I’m planning to go ‘door to door’ to each of the team members, ensuring they know what they need to be doing specifically so everyone is clear about their responsibilities.
11:15: Quick email and calendar check for the remainder of the week. I want to make sure that my to-do list is up to date and I review what’s in my calendar so I can plan accordingly. This week I really want to ensure I’ve got time scheduled with each of my panel speakers so we can discuss the topic, validate questions, and I can give each of them time to think and prepare. All good so far, so I’m going to also ensure I carve out some time for gym, writing and a massage. Yay!
11:45: I’m building a catalog of blogs on innovation, so time to really do some thinking and writing. I try to carve out 1hr to 1.5hrs every couple of days to read, process, digest and write about innovation. Phone on silent, email closed, ‘deep focus’ spotify playlist on! This month's topic is about age and gender and how this helps fuel innovation so my starting places for reading and research are HBR, Fast Company, and a trawl of articles I find through various search engines. Interesting reading!
13:30: Quick raid of the fridge for a bite before my next meeting
14:00: Weekly meeting with my manager. As his 2IC we spend the first part of the meeting having a quick catch up on team activity before diving into a review of my V2MOM. Q3 is almost over so I want to ensure I’ve completed everything and can talk to what’s been done as part of quarterly review.
15.00: Time to do some work and focus on my section of a workshop I’m presenting in Chicago. I’m presenting on how we do a customer workshop so I’m thinking through the kinds of exercises I’d use in a workshop to firstly get the content and then how we package and present back to a customer to give the idea real resonance. One of the things I really love about what I do at Salesforce is getting the time to think about what’s happening in the world, how that fuels innovation, what that means for our customers and how they harness that knowledge for their benefit. It’s exciting to find creative ways to make information relevant and digestible, so really love when I get time in my day to reflect on what’s happening in the world at large,
16:00: Rehearsal: I’ve carved out time every day over the next week to rehearse my keynote and start of the panel presentation. I’m keen to ensure I’m really comfortable with the content and can be the best I can on the day.
17:30: Time for a review of Twitter and Linkedin. Any great articles or posts I’ve read I’ll retweet, any thoughts or comments I’ll post.
18:30: One of my London “besties” is heading back to Australia tomorrow, and it’s our last supper tonight, so time to get ready!
22:00: Home for a cup of mint tea and a laze on the couch for a bit of ‘8 out of 10 cats make you LOL’ on the telly. I wonder what tomorrow will bring!
Thanks to Lee-anne for giving us a little insight in to what a Senior Director of Strategic Innovation gets up to. To find out about the possibility of working at Salesforce, and finding your dreamjob, please visit our careers site.
