Carolee Gearhart
Google Cloud
Carolee Gearhart is Google Cloud's Global Channel Chief and Vice President of Global SMB Sales. She is responsible for the tens of thousands of partners attached to Google Cloud’s business, ensuring that Google Cloud’s sales team has a selection of highly skilled partners around the world, that Google delivers a world class experience for partners, and that partners deliver a superlative experience to Google customers. Carolee is also responsible for the Google Cloud SMB business which helps millions of small and medium sized businesses globally in their journey to the cloud. Her team covers sales of both Google Workspace and Google Cloud Platform as well as our Google Cloud for Startups program.
Carolee has more than 20 years of industry, international sales and executive management experience with an accomplished track record of leading global channels and delivering extensive growth. Prior to joining Google Cloud, Carolee served as the Chief Ecosystem & Channels Officer for GE Digital. She’s also held senior leadership positions at SAP and Adaptive Insights, a cloud corporate performance management company (now a Workday company). Earlier in her career, she held a series of international executive sales, operational and consulting roles with PeopleSoft and Deloitte.
Satish Raman
Fractal
Satish serves as Chief Strategy Officer for Fractal, where he drives group-wide formulation, development and execution of Fractal’s corporate strategy, including leading the company’s efforts in corporate development and long term capital planning, origination, execution and deployment.
With over 20 years of experience, Satish has deep expertise in strategy, corporate development, corporate financings and investing. Over the course of his career, he has worked at start-ups, an investment bank, a Big 4 firm and in Fortune 500 environments to create, build, and drive strategies for revenue growth, global expansion, enhanced shareholder value, and market leadership. He also has tremendous multi-cultural experience, having worked across the US, Europe, Middle East and Asia.
Since joining Fractal in mid 2017, he has led the $200 million investment from Apax Partners; the acquisitions of 4i, Final Mile, Samya.ai, Zerogons (Streamflux); the strategic investments in Senseforth.ai and Analytics Vidhya; a minority investment in Rx.Health; and the external equity financings and spin outs of Qure.ai and Theremin.ai. Prior to Fractal, Satish held various roles at Sutherland Global, Spark Capital and KPMG.
Don Vadakan
Fractal
Don is the sales & business development leader and member of the executive leadership team at Fractal.
Don is a top-performing and competitive sales leader equipped with over 25 years of success and new business development experience. He possesses a track record of spearheading multimillion-dollar sales. He has proven leadership capability coupled with cross-continental expertise in business development, sales management, and execution.
Previously, Don has held a leadership position, leading sales teams at Capgemini, Infosys, and Standard Chartered Bank. His interests include transformation driven by AI and design thinking in customer-facing functions, especially in financial services and healthcare. Don has an MBA in marketing from the University of Mumbai.
Key takeaways:
- Enterprises across sectors are responding to change quicker than ever.
- Digital transformation is an investment for long-term gains, helping businesses to thrive.
- Business leaders, and not just technology leaders, are driving this transformation.
- Businesses are focusing on customer value using customer experience as a differentiator.
- Data & AI are here to stay. Cloud is no more an alternative but a reality and the way of doing business.
The unprecedented pandemic situation made customers reimagine how they interact with a brand, which, in turn, made businesses reimagine to create the perfect customer experience. Enterprises have realized that digital transformation is a vital investment for long-term gains. It is no more the domain of only technology leaders, but business leaders are largely driving this change.
This paradigm shift has massively increased the popularity of cloud services and AI. The demand for multi-cloud, multi-vendor, and hybrid environments has been a significant factor that pegs Google Cloud as a key supplier.
The need is for cloud and AI businesses to understand the customer, and enterprises that have managed to find this sweet spot have quickly realigned their businesses not just to survive but to thrive. Interesting examples include brands like Disney, Walmart, and smaller brands like BarkBox that have carved a niche for themselves by disrupting with digitization. It is safe to say that an accelerated digital transformation was their secret. This is not limited to just businesses but is being extended to government initiatives to create social impact across the globe.
Enterprises do face certain challenges in a digital journey, but the advantages far outweigh the hurdles. This is evident especially in quality control, identifying friction and addressing them much ahead of the output, automating supply chains, and ultimately making better decisions that are people-centric. It is no wonder that the cloud and AI are the future of enterprises.