Employee Spotlight: Alex Booker
Alex Booker, former professional softball player, on Tonkean’s team culture and what fires her up about the company’s future
Welcome back to our Employee Spotlight series, where we highlight members of the Tonkean team who exemplify the unique spirit of our company. This week, we’re spotlighting Alex Booker, who helps power Tonkean’s SDR team. Alex, a former professional softball player, brings to Tonkean the mindset of a consummate athlete. She’s the first to fire everybody up — with a well-timed GIF, a thoughtful shoutout — and, beyond that, she leads by example, inspiring her teammates daily with her energy, grit, and competitiveness.
She’s an integral member of the Tonkean squad. We’re so excited to tell her story.
What brought you to Tonkean? (What’s your story?)
When I found Tonkean, I was looking for an organization that was bound to grow. As I started to dive deeper into my research on Tonkean, I was extremely excited to take a bet on our leadership team — and to have a chance to make an impact so early in an organization’s journey. It was obvious we had a great product and an inspired team — solid ground to stand on. Lastly, having read The 4 Hour Work Week countless times, I couldn’t resist working for an organization whose mission was, in part, to give customers back hours of their time. That was something I could get behind!
Having read “The 4 Hour Work Week” countless times, I couldn’t resist working for an organization whose mission was, in part, to give customers back hours of their time. That was something I could get behind!
Describe the work you do at Tonkean in a few sentences.
At Tonkean I help customers identify and solve complex operational challenges by sharing our platform. As a member of the sales team, my role here is to raise brand awareness among organizations around the country and begin to define the new marketspace that we are creating.
What’s your favorite part of working at Tonkean?
My favorite part about working at Tonkean is my coworkers! Creating company culture in a fully virtual environment — as companies across the world have been forced recently to do — is a challenge, but we’re doing a great job here at Tonkean. And the people are just amazing. Our leadership team has done an excellent job hiring the best talent right off the bat.
I also love the autonomy that I’ve been given from day one. It’s rare to have amazing leadership that trusts their reps the way Tonkean’s does. The whole sales team, in fact, has been given this kind of trust — while of course continuing to collaborate as we drive toward our common goal.
I also love the autonomy that I’ve been given from day one. It’s rare to have amazing leadership that trusts their reps the way Tonkean’s does.
How would you describe the company culture at Tonkean?
Everyone here is willing and eager to help. Every individual understands their impact and that we are striving to reach great heights — and they’re willing to do even things outside their job description to make that happen. For me, it’s amazing to be able to be able to rely on my teammates so genuinely. I’m convinced that everyone is also the best in their segment of business. We’re like the ’96 Chicago Bulls: all stars all around! [EDITORS’ NOTE: What Alex really meant was we’re like the ’18 Warriors.]
What excites you most when you think about Tonkean’s future and the work we’re doing here?
I think the most exciting part about Tonkean’s future is that we’re not trying to fit ourselves into an already-crowded market-space, but are creating a new category entirely. And the technology we’re building is just so powerful. This I learned when I saw how we “eat our own cooking.” Internally, if something can be streamlined in any capacity, we do it — and we use our own platform. And I’m not just saying “We take 4–6 weeks to implement change.” I’m talking hours for our engineering team to spin up a working solution. Seeing how quickly we can help our customers go from a workflow mapped out on paper to a live and working solution is remarkable to me. Might be the no-code, might be that engineers aren’t involved, but our platform is something special — like the original iPhone of automation. There isn’t a single operational challenge out there that we can’t solve.
You used to be a professional softball player! Do you incorporate any elements of your athletic background into your work now?
Everyday. I’m an extremely agenda-based person and I LOVE to compete, so playing sports at the highest level in my industry was a perfect lead-in to being a kick ass saleswoman. While there are other driving factors in my urge to find success here, I think it’s the little things that really make the biggest impact. The ability to have a short-term memory and turn the page. The ability to iterate before your next at-bat / sales call. Balancing teamwork between several different personalities. It all contributes to success as a salesperson. It also doesn’t hurt that I love to see my name at the top of any leaderboard — so I’ll likely never ease up until I reach my ultimate goals.
What are your favorite things to do outside of work?
Hobbies are my middle name. I’ve got a ton going on outside of work and everything fuels me differently and is a part of my “Alex” puzzle. Outside of work, I’m a partner, dog mom, and softball coach. I spend most of my weeknights coaching kiddos around the Bay Area and helping them to reach their goals of becoming college softball players. I love to travel, meet new people, and will always order the house favorite at a new restaurant. COVID has been tough on me with quarantine, but luckily I’m finding lots of projects around the house with my passion for real estate investing!
