Alina Vandenberghe

Pavilion

CEO Group/CMO Co-chair ( New York )

Chili Piper

Started Chili Piper in 2016 with a deep desire to help revenue teams be more productive and get more joy at work. In 2022 we got a financial transaction valuing the company close to a billion dollar. Immediately after valuations dropped to a third. Now cash break even growing to get ready for IPO 

Chili Piper is the most advanced routing and scheduling software for B2B revenue teams. 
We solve interesting problems, live and breathe our core value of “help,” and have a ton of fun doing it while fully distributed around the world — powered by espresso and hot sauce.

Co-Founder & Co-CEO 

KosmoTime

Use the power of AI to re-invent the future of productivity. Merged into Chili Piper

Co-Founder

Sharecare, Inc.

Sharecare is one of the fastest growing health tech startups in the world. It was developed by Dr. Mehmet Oz and Jeff Arnold as a home for your health. Just like you have social, professional, and creative profiles online, Sharecare makes your ultra personalized consumer health profile a reality.

After 2 months in the company we launched a mobile app that received 5 out 5 stars reviews and high daily usage. It became the central focus of the company, getting closer to the goal of making your phone your digital health coach.

Senior Vice President of Product

Pearson plc

Head global product management and engineering teams across multiple business units for mobile for both global consumer initiatives in education & mobile enterprise products. 

Manage team comprised of product managers, graphic designers, ux experts, program management + software architects, mobile, server, infrastructure, java developers.

Head of Mobile

Bloomberg

Work on strategy, product management & development for mobile platform and products across various Bloomberg Business Units.

My most recent product, Bloomberg TV+ on iPad has been highly praised by users and media “This is what Steve Jobs envisioned when he introduced the iPad. He's watching from Heaven”(iTunes store).

Lead Cross Platform Mobile Product

Thomson Reuters

- Manage product lifecycle from paper prototypes to production-ready deployment. Products include: analytics platform, CMS deployments, social networks, ecommerce platform,  consumer facing APIs, media desktop platforms, mobile applications and visualization products
- Lead product management through customer centric approaches (engineering, design, user experience, marketing, sales, customer support, operations).
- Lead end-to-end customer experience and user experience across all front-end products. Pioneered consumer centric methodologies that increased user adoption, simplified business processes and shortened development cycles.

Director of Community, Collaboration and Mobile

Manage mobile websites and applications for iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Nokia, Blackberry and Kindle, in multiple countries (India, China, Japan, UK, US, Canada, Brazil)

Achievements:
- News Pro for iPad has been named "favorite news app" by Engadget, was featured in the Apple store, picked as staff favorites and received press coverage in FT, WSJ, PaidContent and other blogs. Was included in Apple Keynotes and preinstalled on devices in Apple stores
- iPhone NewsPro was declared best news app of 2010 by the World Economic Forum's head of Communications and Media.

Mobile Product Manager -Consumer Media

ITerating

Iterating.net (International Web Agency with subsidiary in New York, Paris and Bucharest) :
•	Manage projects from initial requirements to completion, covering multiple industries (social networks, e-commerce projects, auction based business websites, user-generated content and corporate sites), multiple web platforms (Joomla, Drupal, Dolphin, Wordpress, custom PHP, custom Java) & several mobile platforms (iPhone, Android and Symbian)
•	Work with clients to identify requirements, including market research, competitive analysis & identify business cases
•	Design product: UI wireframes & mock-ups (using Balsamiq, Visio, PowerPoint and other tools). At times completing the products design myself if the time/budget didn't permit a full time designer 
•	Manage Implementation by leading teams of developers, designers & QA
•	Manage Releases using both Waterfall and Agile approaches
•	Manage Client relationships and reporting

Iterating.com  - wiki based software guide ( matrix approach to compare open source and commercial software products) 
•	Redesigned the site to improve navigation and user experience
•	Led its implementation and migration from Java to Joomla platform
•	Prepared Press Releases & Trade Show presentations (Java One, LinuxTag, DebConf)
•	Manage SEO process, track user behavior and trends through analytics tools and server logs . Recommend navigation & layout changes based on analytical data
•	Manage Community relations: forums, networks, mailing lists, email marketing

Achievements:
•	Iterating.net: Over 20 projects successfully completed on time and on budget (90% repeat customer base) 
•	Iterating.com - Reviews: unanimous praise from the press: Web 2.0 Journal , Dr Dobb's , IT Manager's Journal , Venture Beat. Traffic Growth: From 3M Traffic Rank to 60K (Alexa)

Product Manager/ UX Lead

Asesoft

Responsibilities:
Responsibilities covered the full cycle from lead generation to contract negotiation, including marketing materials & trade show presentations
Achievements: Signed up over 30 new accounts, Grew business 120% year over year

Sales Manager

Co-founder & co-Ceo @Chili Piper 🔥 🌶 Here I talk about lessons I learned to jumpstart my career from an intern to SVP. And to grow a company from 0 to almost 1 Bn

Started my own company before high school to pay for my own education. Sold lipstick and my tech skills. Decided to do a master in computer science because make-up was a low margin business

Went on to create first mobile products with millions of users for Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg, Pearson. Some of them went to be keynoted on stage by Steve Jobs 

The past few years have got me back to entrepreneurship and it fits me like a glove. I founded Chili Piper - the demand conversion platform that doubles inbound conversion rates for cool companies like Spotify, Airbnb, Snapchat, Shopify and thousands others. Recently gone through a financial transaction that got us close to a billion dollar valuation 

On LinkedIn I write about lessons I learned as a woman & mom entrepreneur and hope to help others find their own giants within to prevail in their lives at work  

Co-Founder & Co-CEO

Chili Piper is the most advanced routing and scheduling software for B2B revenue teams. 
We solve interesting problems, live and breathe our core value of “help,” and have a ton of fun doing it while fully distributed around the world — powered by espresso and hot sauce. 


Even though I was convinced remote work will work, we failed miserably 

So we're now mandating everyone returns to the office. Full official statement here 
https://lnkd.in/dwAd_6ix 

Our CFO decided to make Chili, New York our new location. In the midst of relocating employees from 40 countries, and my children to a new school. It's not easy but we have to do it in order to make the operational efficiencies work

Our April fool campaign that went viral yesterday? We had zero meetings to plan for it 

When you work “remotely” you can’t brainstorm effectively everyone tells me. Especially when it comes to “creative” work 

Well I beg to differ. For this campaign and many others we just collaborated on google docs and Slack to tune up the idea and the message

You don't have to be in the office to think big

I’ve always wanted to be the CEO of a well known company. But no one warned me of the realities of being one 

- You have a lot more “bosses” than everyone else. Because you work for both the board and your employees. Working for so many people can be really hard 
- Boards and employees are at odds with one another in their needs. Shareholders want big margins. Which usually means small salaries, and long hours of labor. Employees want the opposite. Both have good reasons for their expectations of you. And both sides are never quite content (it’s only evolutionary that we want more!) . Add public markets into the mix for extra fun 
- You want to care as much as you can for humans and their wellbeing and yet no matter how many gaps you want o cover (especially in the US where family care, health care sucks. Pregnancy protection? Forget about it ) it’s never enough. Which tends to add a lot of sadness into the mix 
- You are put under a microscope and get blamed for everything that goes wrong
- People expect a lot from you. But generally, you receive almost zero praise 
- You get to be the escalation point for all the stuff that goes bad. And the bigger you get the more problems get amplified 
- You get villainized often as if you are the creator of all the evil in the world for creating capitalism
- You get little to no time for family or friends 
- You get almost no time for hobbies 
- You have zero time for downtime. Silent retreats who? 
- You are expected to be an expert at a LOT of topics 
- You can’t complain to anyone and as a result, it gets pretty lonely 
- The hustle never ends. Behind closed doors, you get people who have a net worth of a billion and above who think they are losers because they still haven’t done what x y z have done 

All these expectation above add up and it can feel very intense 

With all these things, I DO enjoy my ride a lot still. Because there are a lot of nice perks too like:  
- Getting to meet very smart people. Our team at Chili Piper is amazing and now we have a new addition in our circle. I see you Mark Kosoglow!  
- Living in a nice home and not having to worry about bills 
- Get exposed to complex problems that can be fun to figure out to solve 
- Resilience ++ 
- A deeper understanding of the complexities around us 
- Deeper appreciation for downtime. My eyes sparkle when I get to just sit and not have to make any decision at times 

Plus: You get to see impact in all walks of life. Positive impact on your employees, customers, and partners. It’s beautiful to soak all that in

I was extremely shy at the beginning of my career. People around me would tell me to build a network but I had no idea how to do that 

 I would have rather crawl under a blanket than make eye contact at an event where I would have to make small talk 

I knew no one in US and I understood zero political / sports/cultural references so this was particularly hard for me 

Eventually, after a lot of work , I managed to get out of my shell and now feel at ease at events and forming connections 

Below you will find some of the things that helped me . Note that it’s better to start building connections earlier when you don’t any help than when you find yourself in between jobs, raising capital or needing intros) :

1. Learn to listen. Truly listen. Not have 100 tabs open in your head while someone talks. Without judgement. It’s hard. And takes a lot of practice . Helps more than you think. Because in our lives it’s rare that people feel heard. And that’s how you start being listened back

2. Share your learnings. They might seem minor to you now but there’s always someone who’s a few steps behind you who will welcome those learnings . Make a habit of jotting down your learnings and distilling them for others. Just imagine yourself being the audience . Yourself a few years back 

3. Post those learnings either here or on X or on a substack . At the beginning it will feel silly to talk into the void . You’ll think your writing is imperfect. That’s fine. It will only get better overtime with lots of practice but you have to start somewhere 

4. Don’t try to impress. When you share your learnings it’s very tempting to say things that might sound boastful . Because you might want to try to belong. Feel accepted. But the more you try to impress the more people get turned off. Instead frame your learnings the way you would with yourself a few years back 

5. Follow people you admire and comment on their posts. Just to show your acknowledgment or support. It might seem small but it aids a lot to create a supporting system . If you can help with additional viewpoints or data even better 

6. Join several communities where your peers are. Comment on their posts too

7. Go to industry events in your area. Even if you hate small talk and feel you have better things to do. Eventually by attending a few of these events you’ll learn to make connections that last . Like any other muscle it needs exercise 

8. Celebrate people around. Notice things that others do that look worthy of celebration. And cheer on those folks in public. It creates a beautiful culture of celebration around you 

9. Connect people. Once you start making new connections - if it benefits both parties don’t be shy to make introductions 

All these things above might read like a lot of work but I think most of it can be done with less than 1-2 hours a week . Less once you get the hang of it . 

It’s never too late to start 

Pictured below Mariya Delano who networks a room like a queen 👑

CMOs 5 years ago vs CMOs now 

5 years ago

Carve out a % of the budget for brand-related campaigns depending on company size and run known playbook
Invest heavily in SEO for long-term gains 
Write and distribute great content 
Increase MQls from all campaigns 
Reach out to high-intent accounts 
Attention to TOFU/BOFU
Create a podcast 
Increase demand gen motions 


Now 

Measure brand impact and adjust levers to amplify only campaigns that work 
Figure out how to work with generative AI to create pipeline 
Amplify social media influencers with thought leadership content 
Increase multitouch attribution from target accounts
Reach out to well-segmented/scored accounts  
Attention to full-funnel to accelerate NRR 
Create autonomous bots 
Increased attention to demand conversion at all stages 

Marketing has become more and more complicated, it requires so many skills and precision in measurement. 

Very grateful I got to do this job myself for the past 14 months, I have a 100X appreciation for all that you do

David Hornik organizes these amazing invite only events where investors and founders get together to learn to get better at their craft.  This week I attended one of his event and boy was I impressed. Out of 220 attendees somehow I found 3!!! other Romanian woman 

4 if you count me 

Our home country is small and we don’t expect to bump into each other at tech events and yet somehow this time around we  did 

Mada Seghete (Romanian founder who built a $100M arr +) brought me to the event and taught me there’s no better path than just bring yourself to work fully . With all the lived experiences to make yourself a better person 

Oana O. one of the smartest VC in the AI space who has an unbelievable story of grit and determination . She made it to the Valley from a family from a poor village in Romania with no high school who didn’t afford her flight ticket to college 

Andreea Georgescu who I just met for the first time , daughter of Radu Georgescu the Romanian saas pioneer who sold Rav, first antivirus to Microsoft when I was in high school. Came full circle as one of my first college jobs was at the company he founded 

Leaving the event with a heart full of hope that there’s a lot more to build , a lot more to accomplish

I don’t think most energy to do your best work comes from rest 

Though rest and disconnecting from work definitely help 

So does nutrition, exercise, supportive social connections, therapy 

But I believe the fire 🔥 that ignites us most comes from somewhere else

I believe that most energy comes from having a purpose that’s bigger than yourself

It’s what has always driven me , and always will

And that purpose is a lot more motivating if it’s not about you. But your ability to be in service of others 

Seeing positive impact in others because of your work is the best energizer 

Seen in this photo masterminding our June 4th launch that will help more revenue teams with conversion in their numbers than we ever did

It feels like everyone in my network loves Huberman and he reached somewhat of an idol status. Yet some news about him this week are breaking my social feed  

A piece recently shows (no idea if it's true ) that he was "deceiving" multiple partners he was dating at the same time 

The article paints a picture of a horrible human . Who tries to deceive and manipulate 

I don’t know if it’s all true. Maybe some stuff is and some isn’t 

My curiosity is how these kind of articles end up being written  

When someone is famous for a particular reason (in his case a podcaster who distills science in a way that positively affects people’s health ) us as collective we try to idolize them to the point where we imagine they are perfect in all walks of life 

It’s sad to see people are trying to defile his character because he’s not a perfect human 

I’m not trying to defend or attack him. 

Just to point out that none of us are perfect. We try to our best extent 

We try to portray on social media and to our closed ones a perfect version of ourselves but we all have flaws . 

And as someone close told me this weekend : when you show your imperfections that’s when light comes in

But we’re afraid to show the cracks because generally we’re attacked. And labeled . And criticized 

And for that we’re afraid. And hide in corners. And that’s sad because many people have so much to say and instead say nothing at all. Stay lonely. For the fear of being taken apart 

I just wish imperfections would be more accepted 

So we can all learn from each other how to get better instead of taking each other apart

Taplio

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