The Women Who Reinvented the AppExchange
When we launched the new AppExchange last year, I knew it was a pivotal moment for us as a company. We had taken a look at the world’s largest and longest-running enterprise app marketplace — home to solutions that have been installed over 5 million times — and envisioned it could be better. It needed to be smarter. It needed recommendations. It needed to be a proactive marketplace that helps customers get the job done.
While announcements and installs are a big part of my focus, my favorite part of my job is my team. And as we close out Women’s History Month, alongside celebrating Appy — our own fearless, female guide to the ecosystem — on her first birthday, I’m even more inspired by the women who reinvented the AppExchange.
Heather Conklin and Kim Mondelli are these women. Heather is VP of Product Management, Kim a Senior Director of Software Engineering. It was a truly remarkable experience that I got to work alongside these two leaders to create the foundation and future of the AppExchange for the next 10 years, bringing concept to reality in under a year, and sharing it all on the Dreamforce stage.
Both of their stories are interesting and unique. Kim, an amazing leader in a highly technical position, only recently returned to the tech world three years ago after nearly a decade building affordable housing. Heather was on maternity leave with her first child when this idea of the new AppExchange started to gain traction. When she returned, she wasted no time getting involved and bringing teams together. Within three months, she was promoted to VP.
I asked them to share their insights and experience on the journey to the new AppExchange.
Q: What were your first thoughts and actions when this project started?
Heather: Ben James, Director of Product Management lead the product changes with Leyla, and was doing an outstanding job during my leave. When I came back, I had to jump right back in and quickly get up to speed. I didn’t have to worry about the product delivery with Ben and Kim leading the way, so I took on a coordination role across the many teams involved to make sure we were delivering the experience that we envisioned. This was the biggest change to the AppExchange in my 5 years here, so there was a lot to do!
Kim: There’s greater risk associated with large projects: it is difficult to predict your challenges, roadblocks, and resource needs. There’s a lot of unknowns upfront. And this was a large, long project. So we spent time thinking about how we could change our approach and our processes to minimize that risk.
Q: Was there ever a moment where you felt “this is crazy and isn’t going to work”? Or handled a major challenge?
Kim: Because of the level of risk, we kept a close eye on our progress. Through the entire effort, we were thoughtful and creative about where to add infrastructure to reduce risk, and where we could de-scope so that we could deliver on what was the greatest value to Product. Also, to keep the dev team’s motivation up, we shared the big picture about why this matters to the business.
Heather: There were many times we had to discuss what could and couldn’t be done in the timeline we had, but that’s the life of a product manager. Some ideas we thought were crazy at the time have now turned out to be great. For example, requiring all apps to display their price. This has long been the top ask of our customers, and Leyla was ready to make this happen. We were concerned about how this would go, but she stood by the fact that this was something customers wanted. ‘How can you go to a store to buy something and not know the price of it?’ We made it happen and customers are super happy about it. We were pushed out of our comfort zones in ways like that.
Q: What does it mean for you as a woman in tech to be in the position you’re in and work on these types of initiatives for Salesforce?
Kim: I left tech around 2003, and I do think the culture played a role. Now I’m older, I’ve earned my grays, and I’m okay with being who I am. I’m blessed to work in an organization where people respect each other. I hope it is helpful for young women — and men — to see a woman who’s okay with being who she is — one who knows things and doesn’t know things, and is on a journey to learn and grow.
Heather: Coming back from maternity leave, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. It’s hard to leave work for six months. Salesforce is supportive of working moms and women in general, but to come back and then be promoted within three months was a real ‘putting your money where your mouth is’ moment. It was empowering. A female product lead, female engineering lead, and female EVP is extremely rare in tech. It is a testament to what Salesforce has been working toward the last several years, and now I’m trying to pay it forward. I’m proud to say that over 40% of my team is comprised of women, and I’m incredibly focused on continuing to grow the number of women in product.
It’s been proven that a diverse workforce is smart for business, and as the AppExchange continues to evolve, and I’m glad that women like Heather and Kim are leading the charge.
