The Next Generation of Giving Back: Spotlight on Kori O’Brien
Salesforce’s Kori O’Brien shares how she manages her career, home life, and giving back through her family’s annual coat drive for San Francisco’s homeless.
It’s typical to see non-profits, outreach groups, and churches host a drive or fundraiser. But it’s not often an individual family takes it upon themselves to contribute to the cause — year after year.
Kori O’Brien, SVP of Alliances and Partner Sales at Salesforce, has been collecting coats with her family for San Francisco’s rising homeless population for the past five years. Now with her daughter, 10, and son, 13, taking on collection efforts at their school, Kori does her part by getting Salesforce employees involved.
How does she have time for a demanding job, her family, and volunteer work? We recently sat down with her to find out.
How has your career path led you to where you are today?
My dad was in sales at Xerox, so I went there too after school at Santa Clara University. I did pretty well, but thought I would like to go into consulting, so I wound up working in the technology and telco practice at KPMG for a few years. From there, I was asked to run the alliances team for their supply chain practice. At that time, they hadn’t figured out what alliances really meant, so I got to help design what they were doing, and that’s how I got into partners. I eventually left and went to Ariba to manage the supply chain relationship with KPMG and then Deloitte. I’ve since been at a number of technology companies, including BEA Systems and Oracle, running their large SI relationship for driving ISV.
Then, I decided to go to law school. I was working full time, traveling, and in my third year, I got pregnant with my first child, which was difficult because I was very sick the whole time. I graduated, but I also loved my job and didn’t want to start over on the bottom rung of a law firm. A colleague recruited me to Salesforce, where I came in running the partner business on the West. I’ve had a number of opportunities to work with inside sales and get exposure to other parts of the business. Then, we pivoted to industry, so I started to work with our partners on industry solutions, and we launched Fullforce to give the company a good strong narrative with our partner community around industry. From there, I ran our partner marketing organization for a while and then our ISV organization. And now I’m running all of the North American alliances, channels, and sponsorships.
How do you balance your work responsibilities with family time?
Having kids was not an easy journey for me since I was sick with both of them while also going to work. But they’re both healthy and great kids who are athletic, smart, funny, kind, and really giving. We’ve had the same nanny since my son was born, and it’s important to have someone I trust at home. At the same time, my husband decided to stay in a flexible role at his job in order to let me have a career that would allow me to travel and tax our household with a crazy schedule. He’s home more than I am, makes lunches, takes the kids to school, and tracks homework and grades. He’s a true partner in our marriage and building our family.
What inspired you and your family to do the coat drive together? How long have you been collecting?
It was about five years ago, and someone asked us to donate to One Warm Coat. I realized how many coats we had in our house and how the homeless population in San Francisco was rising. My heart told me this would be a great opportunity for us to do something simple that will showcase to my kids how blessed they are. It’s easy for them to feel entitled, and I wanted them to have a designated moment in the year where they felt ownership over helping society and those less fortunate than them.
“As much as it gives me great joy to do it, it’s really all about teaching the next generation of kids to be giving and think beyond themselves.” — Kori O’Brien, SVP, Alliances and Partner Sales, Salesforce
So now, they put bins all over their school’s campus and go to each of the classrooms together and give a presentation about the coat drive, how many they collected the year before, how they’re trying to beat that, and what happens to the coats after they’re donated. My son just wrote his seventh-grade service paper on how community service has impacted his life. He and my daughter look forward to it every single year, and I really think it makes them stop and consider what they’re doing. We count them, bag them, drive them to St. Anthony’s [their elected beneficiary], and they’re so proud. Sometimes it takes us multiple trips to get all the coats there. The staff makes a big deal about it because I don’t think they see that type of donation from an individual family very often.
How many coats have you donated over the years, and how does Salesforce help out in your efforts?
I bring in bins to our offices and put it out over Chatter to try to get support from the Salesforce community. Chatter’s been a great way for us to communicate. When other departments have drives going on, they try to combine forces with us. Our company is very giving and kind-hearted, which always makes me proud to work here. Last year, we just did the drive among our alliances and channels organization on our floor. But this year, my admin helped push it out to other admins across the company for more visibility. My kids have traditionally just done it at their school, but this year, we pushed it out to all the parishioners of the church. We just keep trying to expand our scope.
Over the past five years, we’ve donated more than 4,000 coats. As much as it gives me great joy to do it, it’s really all about teaching the next generation of kids to be giving and think beyond themselves.
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