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Bellevue, Wash.-based Auth0 (pronounced “auth-zero”), a leader in digital authorization and online identity management, is one of the Seattle area’s fastest-growing tech firms—experiencing a 500 percent surge in 2015. To fuel this growing demand, Dave Wilner, Auth0’s Chief Revenue Officer, needed to build out his sales team quickly. More than just asking a recruiter to put names in slots, he wanted trustworthy guidance on how new hires would fit the company’s strategic direction.
When Dave was an executive with the software company K2, he called upon Gina Peckman to help him fill several mission-critical positions. He knew Gina was a true strategic partner, one he could trust with the future of his company. Now with Auth0, Dave called upon Gina once again, engaging Peckman Search Partners’ Strategic Teams service on a monthly retainer basis to build the Auth0 sales team from scratch.
Gina helped Dave craft a team that fits Auth0’s vision and defines its culture. With her market knowledge and sharp instincts, Gina “understood the secret sauce that we would need for employees in certain roles,” says Dave. He cites Gina’s knack for finding nontraditional players, like a candidate who lacked relevant experience but had high energy and entrepreneurial drive. (“The guy’s been here a month and a half, and he’s a star,” says Dave.) He also hails Gina’s honesty and integrity. Dave says there were occasions when the specifications for a particular position didn’t line up with Auth0’s true needs. “Gina called us on that. She’s respectful of our time and our money.”
Bothell, Wash.-based Winshuttle is a fast-growing company that helps clients use software to manage their workflow. To help meet the rising demand for its services, Winshuttle sought to overhaul its North American sales team. Stacy Cheuvront, Winshuttle’s vice president of human resources, had 15 strategic sales-account representative roles to fill, and she knew exactly where to turn.
At her previous company, Stacy trusted in Gina Peckman to find a new head of international sales. Now, Stacy engaged PS Partners’ Strategic Teams service to revamp the Winshuttle sales team. Stacy brought in Gina to meet with Winshuttle’s head of sales to ensure the company had a comprehensive hiring process in place and that it was looking for the right attributes in its candidates. Taking the time to thoroughly learn about Winshuttle’s business and its competitors, Gina served as a true strategic partner, says Stacy, “not only screening candidates but describing our company and helping candidates get excited about where we’re going and what we’re doing.”
“She did a fantastic job,” Stacy says of Gina. “[Colleagues] have asked, ‘Who is Gina? Does she work here?’ and I tell them, ‘Nope, she’s a consultant.’ They say, ‘She really knows your business.’” The proof of Gina’s contribution has been in the quality of the candidates who have come through Winshuttle’s door: “strategic, tenured salespeople who are coming in very well prepared at a level we’ve not seen before,” says Stacy. Perhaps Gina’s greatest value is in “coaching the managers,” she adds. “She knows my expectations. She’s a fantastic partner.”
GLDN (pronounced “golden”) is a jewelry e-commerce startup based in La Conner, Wash. Chrissy Lavdovsky, a Princeton-educated artist who founded the company in 2013, had a strong vision of what would make GLDN unique – a deeply customer-centered, responsive approach to the creation and sale of high-quality jewelry. Within five years, GLDN was getting enough online business to make Chrissy wonder: What kind of employees was she going to need in order to take her venture to the next level?
The chair of a local CEO group recommended that Chrissy turn to Gina Peckman for solutions to GLDN’s increasingly urgent staffing needs. “I needed her to help me with what our org structure would even look like,” she said. “We had just grown organically, and all the roles that we had weren’t clearly defined. Really, it was about building my leadership team.” Beginning in the fall of 2018, Chrissy said, Gina was “helping guide me through what roles would actually look like, and how the pieces would fit together.”
Gina identified the functions that GLDN would need to fill first – including a Chief Operating Officer and a Head of Customer Service. Chrissy knew she’d need to find just the person for the COO role, someone who could understand both the unique value of GLDN’s craftwork and the day-to-day details of running an e-commerce business.
That’s exactly what PS Partners delivered. “Gina really found a group of excellent candidates,” Chrissy said. “She was able to do a fantastic job of just narrowing things down to what we really needed. Once I met the candidates, I was just so impressed by what a great fit they were, and how easy it would be for all three of the candidates we ended up with to just slide right in and hit the ground running”
For Chrissy, a major aspect of Gina’s contribution was an ability to quickly size up the needs of the business and address its needs with maximum efficiency and minimum hassle. “She was able to adapt really well to what would work for me, and to make the process easy and keep things moving,” Chrissy said. “I didn’t feel like there was a lot of work that I personally needed to do, which was really cool. She really took the whole thing off my plate.”
Yapta is a Pioneer Square tech startup that helps companies save money on flights, hotels, and other travel expenses. To date, it has landed more than 8,000 corporate customers, including dozens of Fortune 500 firms.
The company’s first years were thrilling – and a bit chaotic. “We were going through this crazy growth curve, and the company had never had a formal sales structure,” recalled Michael Smith, Yapta’s Chief Revenue Officer. “So we had some real gaps in performance, and we knew that. We couldn’t even produce a forecast.”
As soon as he arrived at the company, Michael resolved to change this. In the autumn of 2018, he set out to build an inside-sales team in time for Yapta’s first worldwide sales kickoff the following January.
This was a very aggressive timetable – but Michael knew who could help. At his prior company, Changepoint, he had used PS Partners to build a sales team on a tight deadline.
“I knew Gina had extensive contacts in the Puget Sound from prior searches and from other companies, so her ability to quickly match potential candidates with our roles was really high,” he said.
Soon Michael realized Yapta needed not only inside-sales professionals, but highly seasoned channel-sales pros as well. Then, as in-house vetting began, it became clear that he would need Peckman Search Partners not only to handle an expanded candidate search – but also to coach Yapta employees on how to conduct an effective job interview.
By now it was December – just a few weeks away from the January 15 sales kickoff.
Fortunately, PS Partners was already generating prospects that would fit Yapta’s needs. “The quality of candidates we got was really, really high,” Michael said.
“Gina takes the time to really understand what the company needs and is looking for in terms of human capital, and puts that into a sales pitch that’s super compelling,” he added. “In effectively a zero-percent-unemployment market, that’s what you need a recruiter to do.”
By the January 15 kickoff, all of Yapta’s sales positions were filled except one. “If it wasn’t for Gina,” Michael said, “there’s no chance it would have worked.”
