Chris Bakke

Founder

Currently: Investing, writing, and enjoying downtime.

Previously: CEO of Laskie (acquired by X/Twitter in 2023), Co-founder of Interviewed (acquired by Indeed in 2017), COO of 42Floors (acquired by Knotel), managed business development for Zillow (NAS $ZG), RentJuice (acquired by Zillow in 2012).

Founder, CEO

6sense

- Presidents Club FY2025, one of three selected from the Professional Services organization. 
- Winner of the FY2025 Innovation Award for creatively tackling adoption of our solutions by sellers, one of 12 individual awards given out at year-end. 
- Trained and motivated 3,000+ of our customers' sellers in-person while managing to only offend 2. 
- Praised more than once for my ability to "set expectations."

Head of Evangelism

- Toured the country with software's most entertaining and educational Executive Dinner series, 6sensory Supper. Performed in 14 cities in 11 states; banned in Canada. 
- Wrote, starred in, edited, produced, and directed 6sense's first Sales certification. 
- FY2023 President's Club qualifier. 
- FY2023 Marketing X Factor award winner (one of 4 Marketing awards given for the year). 
- Do the occasional demo, including main stage product demos at last two customer conferences and Magic Quadrant and Wave demos for analysts.

Senior Principal Product Evangelist

RSM US LLP

Director, Presales Engineering

Microsoft

Shape sales/customer relationships for a strategic set of Microsoft's customers who are adopting industry-leading products and services for their businesses. Work directly with customers, Dynamics 365 sales team, and implementation partners to achieve quarterly and annual sales quotas - closing net-new business, as well as managing and growing Microsoft's existing book of business. 
- Have achieved 100% attainment or better in every fiscal year. 
- FY20 Hero Award Winner 
- Conceived and executed "Dinner by Dynamics," a multi-course fine dining experience orchestrated by Dynamics Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, and Field Service held at two of the Bay Area's finest restaurants.

Business Applications Sales Executive

NetSuite

- Overall responsibility for the performance of the Apparel, Footwear, and Accessories sub vertical, including Professional Services, Product Management, and Marketing. 
- Participated in key sales meetings for strategic accounts throughout the US and Canada. 
- Developed enablement materials to educate the team on the Apparel industry. 
- Worked to overhaul the product demo to better reflect a true fashion company.

Segment Leader - Apparel, Footwear, Accessories

Wingtip

Part men's retail store, part social club. Retail store includes men's clothing, accessories, barbershop, cigars & accessories, and wine & spirits. Social club includes a bar & restaurant, wine cave, billiards room, roof deck, and boardroom. 

Started company from scratch; grew to $10M in revenue and 60 employees. Launched eCommerce site, raised $7M in equity capital, recruited, retained, hired, fired, marketed, blogged, email blasted, opened bricks-and-mortar store, serviced customers, negotiated leases, implemented systems, managed projects, managed finances, designed products, designed custom software, produced videos, produced trainings, interviewed by press, ran Board meetings, worked with partners and vendors, and ultimately created a San Francisco institution.

Founder & CEO

Agile Software, Siperian, Ooyala, Zenefits, Movable Ink

Short-term (30-180 day) consulting projects to improve the company's product demos. Usually included  new demo script, recorded demo, and kickoff presentation.

Software Demo Consultant

Blue Martini Software

Promoted from the field to leverage skills across a sales force that grew to 75 people on four continents. Responsible for sales training, tools, and productivity. Created and executed Bootcamps, Sales Playbooks, managed the demo environments, and coordinated or delivered training to inside sales representatives, sales engineers, and account executives.

Director, Sales Enablement

Number two Product Consultant in worldwide revenue in the company's first year of selling product into retail eCommerce accounts. CEO Club. Primarily supported a team of Account Executives on the West Coast, but frequently sent into other territories for strategic accounts. Organized and emceed Sales Kickoffs.

Presales Engineer

Andromedia

Following the acquisition of a collaborative filtering company (product recommendation engine), the top Account Executive and I were the sole team tasked with selling it into new accounts. Assisted in critical presentations for largest deal in company history.

Presales Engineer, Strategic Accounts

Top Sales Engineer in the company, focused on the flagship web analytics product. Supported accounts throughout the country. Trained new Sales Engineers. Authored the company's most popular white paper.

Started in software sales during the dot-com boom. Left software during the bust to pursue my dream of reinventing the traditional men's store. The result was Wingtip, a one-stop shop for the modern gentleman offering high-end men's clothing & accessories, wine, spirits, & cigars, a barbershop, and a fly-fishing shop in downtown San Francisco. The retail store covered 6,000 sq ft on the ground floor, while the top two floors of the building featured 13,000 sq ft of private social club, and a full-service bar & restaurant, wine cave, billiards room, boardroom, cigar lounge, and roof deck. Returned to software in late 2018, currently evangelizing the leading B2B marketing & sales software at 6sense.

Ami Arad

After 4 years at 6sense, it's time for a new adventure which I can't wait to share in the new year. In the meantime, reflecting on my time in numbers:
5,000+ customers' sellers certified on the Sales solution
300+ strangers taught how to saber Champagne (30+ did it live)
19 Marketing executive dinners 
13 outfit changes in 2.5 days as the Breakthrough emcee 
10 Gartner MQ & Forrester Wave demos 
7 Sales executive dinners (200+ sales leaders "fired" iykyk) 
2x Presidents Club (from 2 different departments)
1 B2B marketing lifestyle magazine published & printed 
0 ragrets

Evangelist by title, entrepreneur in spirit. Former founder, CEO, seller, sales engineer.

A collage of 30 different people sabering a bottle of Champagne at a 6sensory Supper, a Marketing executive dinner hosted by 6sense. 

There are two things I take ridiculously seriously: the movie Tommy Boy and the Manhattan cocktail. With the holidays approaching, it was time to level up both. I present to you my new Manhattan travel kit.

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I haven’t yet figured out how I’m going to deploy this, but I did just realize that you can’t spell EVANGELIST without EVIL AGENTS…

New Ami Business Book Power Rankings™ dropped today: 
Still #1: The Experience Economy by Joseph Pine & James Gilmore 
Close #2: Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara 
New #3: Alchemy by Rory Sutherland

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Ami Arad

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The Battle

Chris Bakke

Ami Arad

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Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Ami Arad's LinkedIn Performance

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