Women in Enterprise: Julie Maresca at Slack
This series features profiles of some of the top women leaders within our enterprise technology community here in NYC. We hope by highlighting their terrific work, stories, and career trajectories within some of the top venture-backed startups and operating functions will encourage more women to consider careers in enterprise software.
Join us on February 28th, 2018 at our first-ever Navigate 2018: Women in Enterprise Tech Summit here at Work-Bench with Salesforce Ventures in New York City to meet and connect with these impressive women and more.
Julie Maresca is the Head of Enterprise Sales (East) at Slack.
What were you doing before your current role in enterprise technology? How did you get to this role?
Before joining Slack in September 2016, I was leading Enterprise Sales at a cyber security technology start up. We used Slack there, and right away I could see what the hype was all about. I was happy in my role at the time, but when I noticed one of my former colleagues from LinkedIn had moved over to Slack to help build their New York Office, I wanted to learn more. Alex Wolin and I had coffee a few weeks later, and while I didn’t really know what to expect from the conversation, he opened the door for me: he needed a strategic sales executive to help grow Slack’s business with the largest potential customers on the East coast. While it was more narrowly scoped than my current role, I was so drawn to Slack’s mission and so impressed with Slack’s leadership that I checked my ego at the door. It started with Alex, a handful of engineers, and me in a WeWork office. 10 months later, I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to lead our Enterprise Sales team in the East. Now the New York Office employs over 55 people and growing!
What pain point is your company solving, and what gets you excited to go to work every day?
When you think about all of the modern technology that exists in the workplace today, it is amazing (yet painful!) that there hasn’t been meaningful improvement in one of the most fundamental aspects of everyone’s job — communication. Executives often talk about the organizational drag created when employees are bogged down trying to find that one certain email, or were never cc’d on a thread, or are left in the dark on a project they should be aware of, and now have to play catch up. Slack’s mission is to make people’s working lives simpler, more pleasant, and more productive and we are doing that by changing the way people communicate and collaborate at work. I get excited about how transformative we can be for every single employee at every company, large and small. We are only scratching the surface on how we will help companies achieve better productivity (and happiness), and I am sitting on the edge of my seat anxiously awaiting what’s next! However, we would not have all of this opportunity without our culture and the people building it. We have a team of people that work hard, have fun, get sh*t done, but most importantly really care about each other.
What do you wish you had known earlier in your enterprise career?
Early on in my career, I worked incredibly hard, but I was laser focused on my role. I didn’t understand that I could have a significant impact beyond my day-to-day job; that by sharing and scaling my knowledge, best practices, and success I could influence the trajectory of the company and subsequently my own career path. I steadily grew through the ranks from a more junior to more senior IC and then to management, but if I could go back in time, I would tell myself to take more risks and get uncomfortable. Think beyond yourself. If you can impact not just your performance, but the performance of an entire department, imagine how that can empower you in the future. When I look at my experiences where I’ve grown the most, it was not at CareerBuilder or LinkedIn where I spent 6 and 4 years respectively, it’s been in the 1.5 years I’ve been at Slack, rolling up my sleeves, doing a bit of everything, and learning how to fail and iterate quickly!
Give us one piece of tactical advice (small or large), as a page from your enterprise tech playbook — that you would give to another woman considering a career in enterprise tech?
I love this space, and from my personal experience there has never been a better time for bad ass women in enterprise tech (thank you to Work-Bench for fostering and celebrating this)! When you make the move, be prepared for a fast paced, ever changing, and ever growing environment that will force you to be deliberate in finding your voice. By no means do you have to be the loudest, but double down on building relationships and growing your network within your organization. Find a mentor in leadership, in a different office and in a different department, male or female, who can help you diversify your skill set, be more in tune with perspectives in other areas business, and ultimately build your professional brand.
What do you love about enterprise tech?
Enterprise tech is changing the way people work together. When I actually let that sink in — that I’m part of building the future — it’s so invigorating and inspiring. Seeing the very real and (often) very immediate impact of our technology on our customers’ business is also incredibly rewarding. They will often say things like “I don’t know how I could get work done without Slack” and it puts a smile on my face knowing how much we’ve helped them.
I love that enterprise tech challenges me. No day is ever the same and the pace at which we move has forced me to build muscle in areas I didn’t pay much attention to before. Slack in NYC is unrecognizable from 1.5 years ago, and that constant growth and change keeps me on my toes.
What do you wish would change?
I can’t wait until New York rivals Silicon Valley in enterprise tech, and it will happen! More and more tech companies are putting down their roots in New York, but the demand for top enterprise tech talent is greater than the supply. Communities like Work-Bench are doing a great job bringing us together to leverage each other’s knowledge and expertise, with hiring often a hot topic of discussion!
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Find a company and a technology that you are truly passionate about it. And when you find that, be ready to be humble and be flexible — your contribution and your impact to the business will define you more than your title. There will be changes that you can’t anticipate, embrace it as that is part of the fun and will help you grow.
This is hard! Especially in an earlier stage company, there will be a lot of ups and downs. If you find what you love, and you are inspired by the broader mission of the company, it makes enduring the growing pains that much more gratifying.
Connect with Julie on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Our inspiration for this series comes from Digital Currency Group’s terrific profiles of Women in Blockchain — thank you!
Join us on February 28th at Work-Bench for our Navigate 2018: Women in Enterprise Tech Summit in NYC and get your ticket here. #navigate18
Know a woman leader in enterprise technology whose story we should feature?We’d love to hear from you.
