On this episode of the Unlearn podcast, we discuss leadership with Rachel Skaff, Managing Director of North America Partner Sales at AWS. At AWS, she oversees the channel sales organization for North America, focused on accelerating growth through partners. 

Joined by hosts Asher and Kelly, Rachel shares insights from her diverse career path and transforming AWS's partner model. The conversation explores challenges of work-life balance, especially for female executives, and offers advice for navigating careers amidst disruption. Emphasizing lifelong learning and adaptability, this episode provides valuable perspectives for partnership and sales professionals navigating organizational transformation.

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Chapters - 

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00:00 - Partnerships and leadership with Amazon Web Services executive

05:31 - Parenting, leadership, and experience

10:52 - Work-life balance, leadership, and prioritizing people over processes

19:06 - Modern partnership leadership and sales strategies

25:12 - Leadership, decision-making, and adapting to change

32:55 - Leadership, reinvention, and presence in a rapidly changing environment

38:01 - Transforming organizations and leading sales initiatives

44:33 - Customer centricity and leadership principles for executives

51:07 - Partner roles and carrying quotas in business

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Highlights - 

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• Work-life balance, leadership, and prioritizing people over processes

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Rachel offers advice for working parents, highlighting the challenges women executives face in balancing work and personal life. Kelly reflects on the messy, human side of leadership and stresses the importance of surrounding oneself with supportive people. Rachel also emphasizes that people are crucial for achieving results.

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• Modern partnership leadership and sales strategies

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Kelly, who transitioned from marketing to partnerships at HubSpot, shares insights on partner sales, discussing research projects and a global community for partnership leaders. Rachel emphasizes the need for channel sales leaders to unlearn old strategies in today's fast-changing landscape.

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• Leadership, decision-making, and adapting to change

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Executive leaders must think big and embrace new data-driven insights to stay ahead in the cloud journey. Rachel shares her experience of learning to admit being wrong and embracing change in a large organization. Asher reflects on career decisions and the importance of maintaining a positive attitude, expressing a desire to learn new skills like copywriting.

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• Transforming organizations and leading sales initiatives

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Asher discusses the complexity and long-term nature of transformation initiatives in sales leadership. Rachel shares her story of transforming from lackluster sales to commissioning salespeople anddescribes how she transformed a global partner sales organization to prioritize customer obsession.

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• Customer centricity and leadership principles for executives

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Leverage peers and mentors for guidance and support in uncharted territories. Rachel emphasizes customer centricity and achieving success through scale, while Kelly asks about how Rachel prioritizes customer and partner time and balances internal meetings with an external focus.

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• Partner roles and carrying quotas in business

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Asher suggests partner reps should carry quota for success, while Rachel notes every organization is at a different stage of their journey. Both emphasize the importance of delivering value to customers in meetings. Kelly underscores this focus on customer value as pivotal for success.

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Key Takeaways - 

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• Leaders need to continuously reinvent themselves and be open to change as industries evolve rapidly with new technologies.
• It's important to spend significant time externally with customers and partners to understand their needs and challenges.
• Balancing work and personal life, especially parenting, is very challenging but important to discuss openly.
• Carrying quotas or incentives in some form is important for partner roles to focus on generating business value.
• Surrounding oneself with diverse networks of peers and mentors is crucial for guidance in transforming organizations.
  

Key Quotes - 

"If you wake up every day and it's not a - Hell yeah!. Go find something else!” - Rachel Skaff