Meet Vinita Srivalsan, the powerhouse leader of the Partner Marketing team.
Since this is Coffee with Cloudera, what’s your morning pick-me-up drink?
I am a Chai person through and through and make it the traditional Indian way with milk and sugar!
What makes your role at Cloudera unique?
Partner Marketing is uniquely positioned to be the voice of Cloudera within a partner organization, and to represent the partner within Cloudera. Taking on this double evangelist role for Cloudera and our partners’ technology is truly exciting! I get to work with partners across the globe and bring the benefits of our joint technology to customers across multiple industries. Building excitement for Cloudera’s technology within our channel ecosystem and expanding our footprint globally is very fulfilling.
Top initiatives for FY22?
With the completion of our vision of becoming the world’s first Enterprise Data Cloud, and the launch of three major products last year, we are now in a unique position to bring the hybrid, multi-cloud data analytics platform with multiple experiences from the edge to AI to our partners and customers. This is an exciting product portfolio and the Partner Marketing team is focused on building both share of mind and share of wallet this year.
Work is already underway in FY22 to plan and execute joint marketing campaigns with our partners, participate in our partners’ events and invite them to ours, enable the partner ecosystem with skills and resources to achieve their business objectives and finally, build Customer Success references based on our joint achievements. In addition, we are working on a couple of exciting projects with our partners, watch this space for more details…
How did you reach your level of success, given the sector’s gender gap, especially among leadership?
I have to admit that I did not have a mapped out career path that I was following. All along I have seen myself as an independent economic unit fulfilling a set of business objectives and deriving value from it. And like most people discover, if you love what you do and are passionate about your beliefs, the path ahead becomes clearer and opportunities come your way. In this respect, Cloudera has provided a great environment for women leaders to grow and prosper. Diversity and inclusion has the attention of our Executive leadership team and there are a number of initiatives within the company to foster talent development.
How has COVID changed your family dynamic?
I think COVID has woven work and life into one seamless fabric. Not only are we now working longer hours but also spending more time with the family. Everyone under the same roof and a laptop at arm’s length has made it all come together. Another interesting development has been getting to know the families of co-workers better. There has been a blurring of lines between work time and family time. The whole family being at home and not traveling also helped to fulfil the family’s desire to get a new pet and now Bisou wags his tail and roams the house, attending online classes in one room, meeting my Cloudera work family in another and learning fintech in yet another room!
How have you helped pivot the partner marketing team’s strategy to better align with the pandemic?
Marketing is a blend of art and science and nothing has tested this more than the pandemic. We have had our usual marketing tactics taken away such as large events and in-person customer meetings. We now compete with every other marketer for the same set of eyeballs – one that has severe video fatigue. We have had to get resourceful in being able to stand out and yet make an impact on a personal level, for even if there are thousands logged onto our event, we are still getting our message across one person at a time. Unlike physical events, there are no group dynamics that build excitement and collaboration. The team has slowly but surely gotten better at navigating this and we are back to driving results like before.
Our marketing has also developed a soul. While business results are still important, making a wider impact on society has become a constant theme for us. We try and see how we can do more, given the current scenario. For instance, we ran a Partner Appreciation Project and as a Thank You to our partners, we donated to United Way based on the clicks we received. We are planning to do more such activities and I am really proud of my team for how invested they are in their communities and are always exploring ways to give back.
If you are interested in learning more about our other partners or team members, check out some of our other interviews.
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