Rosalyn Santa Elena

Chief Revenue Operations Officer

SingleStore

Vice President, GTM Operations

The RevOps Collective

The RevOps Collective is on a mission to Elevate, Empower, and Enable Revenue Operations to be the strategic differentiator of every organization to optimize the end-to-end customer journey and power The Revenue Engine. How? Through the power of Consulting, Coaching, Core Competencies, and Community.

Specializing in Revenue Operations-as-a-Strategy through 4 primary pillars:

* Strategic GTM and RevOps Advisory Consulting Services
* Fractional RevOps Leadership
* RevOps Executive 1:1 Professional Coaching and Training
* RevOps Community and Networking

Learn more at www.TheRevOpsCollective.com or reach out at info@therevopscollective.com

Founder and Chief Revenue Operations Officer

Growth Forum

On The Revenue Engine Podcast, you will hear from founders, CEO's and Revenue Leaders from hyper-growth companies and learn about their strategies to drive growth, lessons learned, and deep insights. These are the most inspirational stories from revenue generators, innovators and disruptors, as well as Revenue Leaders in Sales, Marketing, and, of course, my favorite - Operations!

The Revenue Engine Podcast unpacks everything that optimizes and powers the revenue engine!

Please listen and subscribe on your favorite platform here: https://www.growthforum.io/podcasts/revenue-engine

Host of The Revenue Engine Podcast

Pavilion

Executive Member, Dean of RevOps School and Host of the RevOps Corner

Salesloft

GTM Ambassador and Partner

WINN.AI

GTM Ambassador

Sendoso

Advisor

CaptivateIQ

Scratchpad

RevSure AI

Founder at The RevOps Collective | GTM Strategy & Revenue Operations Executive - Consultant - Coach - Community Builder | Host of The Revenue Engine Podcast | Advisor for B2B Companies | Dean of RevOps School at Pavilion

As the Founder of The RevOps Collective, an advisor for several high-growth startups, an active leader in several communities, a keynote speaker, and the host of The Revenue Engine Podcast - 

I'm on a mission to elevate the Ops function & Ops professionals. How? By providing RevOps-as-a-Strategy through 4 pillars:

🌟  RevOps Executive Coaching & Professional Development
🌟  RevOps Community & Networking
🌟  Strategic GTM & RevOps Consulting Services
🌟  Fractional RevOps Leadership

Why work with me?

🔑 Advisor to over a dozen B2B high growth startups (see Experience & Volunteer ⬇️)

🔑  25+ years of broad technology experience & over 20+ years leading GTM Ops teams

🔑  Worked at several public enterprise companies & several high growth startups from $10M to $10B

🔑  Expertise in GTM motions across enterprise, mid-market, and SMB in both sales-led and product-led models, including freemium, self-serve, consumption

🔑  Experienced in H/W, S/W, SaaS, Services across data center ops, electronic design automation (EDA), storage networking & drives, supply chain automation, data solutions/ management, e-commerce, and revenue technology

🔑  Led a team of 20+ and have been a team of 1 building from scratch

🔑  Supported global revenue teams as small as 20 and as large as 2000+

🔑  Knows how to build, scale, and grow the end-to-end GTM infrastructure (people, process, technology, data, insights, enablement, and strategy), leading to a better customer (and employee) experience

🔑  Experienced in all things Ops - marketing, sales, channel, partner, renewals, customer success, services, support, business, product, finance operations - including enablement

🔑  Deep expertise in end-to-end Revenue Operations from top-of-funnel to prospect to customer to retention and expansion

🔑  Understands how to be scrappy and iterative for today, but with an eye on scale and the knowledge of “what good looks like” at different sizes/ stages of growth. 


Top 3 Super Powers 

🌟  Communication - the ability to influence w/o authority, quickly earn trust through empathy & accountability, drive alignment, and bring everyone along the journey

🌟  Seeing around corners, identifying blind spots, and making recommendations based upon experience, insights, and creativity

🌟  Balancing between strategic thinking & tactical execution and between short term & long term


☝🏻  Learn more about RevOps and how I can help: https://therevopscollective.com


Always open to some #OpsTherapy, a chat about being a working mom, some Starbucks, and a good Black Milk Tea with Boba.

This one hits SO much harder in 2025...


Recognition in the inaugural year of 2022, then in 2023, again in 2024, and now 2025 🙏🏼

🤯  🤯  🤯  🤯  🤯  🤯 

Mind blown. Completely.

To be recognized as one of the 100 Powerful Women in Sales for the 4th straight year ...

From over 1000+ nominations?

Among these INCREDIBLE powerhouses?!

I'm speechless 😲  but also so, so, so grateful 🙏🏼


And 2025 has been hard. Like all-out-hands-down-no-doubt-about it, hard. 

The hardest year for me personally. Mentally, emotionally, and physically. And I know it's been hard for so many others. 

But you know what? We are still standing, still showing up, and still #inthistogether  🙌🏼 


🎉  Congratulations to all of the powerhouse women who have been recognized and to all of the women who, although not on this list, deserve to be recognized for the 🔥 🔥 🔥 they bring to the world of revenue each and every day  🎉🎉


Special shout out to just a few women who inspire me every day (and tagged others below as there are way too many to list!) 

💜  Alice Heiman
💜  Christine Rogers
💜  Christina Brady
💜  Cynthia H.
💜  Hannah Ajikawo
💜  ✊Heidi Solomon-Orlick
💜  Jill Bruno
💜  Leslie Venetz
💜  Lindsay Rios
💜  Meredith Chandler
💜  Stephanie Valenti

See the full list below. Big thank you to Demandbase and Women in Sales for continuing to amplify the voices of women in sales.


#womenempowerment

VP, GTM Operations at SingleStore | Founder at The RevOps Collective | GTM Strategy & Revenue Operations Evangelist | Coach | Community Builder | Host of The Revenue Engine Podcast | Advisor for B2B Companies

"No job hoppers". 
"No one year stints"


Saw someone share an open role with this type of language about a year ago. But this mentality still exists now.

💁🏻‍♀️  Can we please stop referring to folks in B2B SaaS with 1 year tenures as "job hoppers"?


There are many reasons why someone might have a shorter tenure at a role.

Or a few roles with shorter stints.


💁🏻‍♀️  If you have been in a high growth or early stage company, especially in B2B tech, you probably know someone who has a role (or several) with a 1 year tenure. 

Or maybe you are that person.


🤷🏻‍♀️  And if don't know anyone, you either live in a bubble or maybe you are just that blessed.

Can we please start to normalize shorter stints in this market, especially for startups?



#revops  #career #jobs

This old picture from 2000 reminded me of how we are often asked to choose -


Picture with my oldest two (3rd wasn't born yet!) 👦🏻👶🏻


This was the same year I was promoted to my first leadership role

I had a toddler and a baby in tow  👦🏻👶🏻

And like many women in the workplace, I debated whether or not I should take the role -

💪🏼  I knew I worked hard for it
💪🏼  I knew I deserved it
💪🏼  I knew I could be good at it


But that inner voice kept asking -

😟   Are you sure you can juggle added responsibility with two young kids?
😟   Would the kids suffer from you taking on more at work?
😟   Will others on the team respect you and believe you can be good at both?
😟   Do you accept that you will have to work 2x, maybe 3x, harder to prove your commitment?
😟   What if I end up failing at both?


I did take the promotion and thank goodness I did. It was a pivotal move that led to career growth and more promotions over the years. 🎉

But was it easy? 💁🏻‍♀️

HELL NO! 🙅🏻‍♀️

It was ALL the difficulty I thought it would be +++  more

And probably every day since, I've still struggled and juggled 🤹🏻‍♀️

Different roles, different challenges, but every day it's some kind of juggle

Juggling career and family and home has never been easy and maybe never will be.

But you know what?

25 years later, I'm here to tell you that it can be done. 
And you don't have to choose.
And don't let anyone (including yourself) tell you otherwise.

It's your choice. 
You can choose career. You can choose family. You can choose both.
It's your choice.


Have you felt this pull between career and family? 




#workingmom #worklifeharmony

Since it's the weekend, I've got a really important question to ask...



Team Dog 🐶  or Team Cat 😺 ?


Or both 🐶  😺

Or something else?


I've always been a  🐶  person (these are my two precious pups here 🥰 )

But my adult sons both have cats now (gasp! 🤷🏻‍♀️)


And I think they are trying to convert me... (insert pic below) 


BTW, I'm allergic to cats, but after spending some time with their cats, I might be open to "both" 🤷🏻‍♀️ Maybe?


Never "no" to dogs though. 
Dogs are the best. 
And you know, we don't deserve them. 💜💜💜

Why does lead routing feel like this? 🫣  



It always starts out simple

Then it starts to get complicated

And more complicated

And more complicated

And then you have a tangled web of rules that are nearly impossible to follow - or worse - impossible to update! 🤯 


Most of us build logic to route leads based upon static data points -

📍 geographical location
📍 company revenue size
📍 company employee size
📍 persona
📍 title


But with today's AI capabilities, I am finding technology like Default where professionals (who are not coders like me!) can build complex routing logic with automated workflows based upon -

📌  quota attainment
📌  win rates
📌  scheduling prioritization
📌  funding
📌  data from form responses
📌  data from your CRM

All in plain language vs. a bunch of "if/ then" formulas and tangled webs!

Isn't it time to stop using complex logic rule set ups?

How are you optimizing your lead routing process?




#Defaultpartner #inbound

Brand partnership • VP, GTM Operations at SingleStore | Founder at The RevOps Collective | GTM Strategy & Revenue Operations Evangelist | Coach | Community Builder | Host of The Revenue Engine Podcast | Advisor for B2B Companies

❌  Forget about a "single source of truth"  ❌

I started saying this four years ago

Why?


Because "single source of truth" implies a system. 
A repository. 
A place to store data.


Instead, can we focus our efforts on a "single view of the business"?

Why?

Because what we really care about is aligning the -

✅  people
✅  process
✅  technology
✅  strategy
✅  data
✅  insights
✅  enablement 

☝🏻 (aka RevOps) ☝🏻


🔑  on the business
🔑  on the next best action
🔑  on the outcomes


❌  Stop spending so much time trying to get all of your data into one system  ❌ 

Instead, focus on getting -

the right data 
at the right time
to the right people

so that you can -

💡  understand the business
💡  avoid blind spots
💡  highlight what's working, what's not
💡  make decisions
💡  guide the business
💡  take the next best action
💡  improve results and outcomes



💁🏻‍♀️ How are you shifting from data gathering to data actions?


#data #revops

Feeling a little feisty this weekend...


Can you relate?


#revops

☝🏻  What's the one word (or phrase) you wish would be BANNED from saying to someone in RevOps?


I'll start...


"Can you just install this new tool really quick?"


🤦🏻‍♀️


#revops

If you're in a Revenue Operations role...

Or really in any role...

It's easy to think that if you just work hard, everyone will notice and you'll be recognized and rewarded 💪🏼

But is it enough? 🤔

For me  👩🏻, I believed keeping my head down and working hard would pay off

Even as I watched other folks promote themselves, "toot their own horn", and constantly highlight their "wins"... 👏🏼

I didn't feel the need to do that 🙅🏻‍♀️

I believed that the value I brought to the organization would be demonstrated through my contributions and my work

And yes, over time, I worked in the trenches, paid my dues, and slowly climbed that proverbial ladder 🧗🏻‍♀️

But could I have accelerated my career and moved faster by being more vocal about my achievements? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Maybe.

Maybe not.

I'll never know for sure. 

But my advice for others? 🗣

It is okay to celebrate your wins 🏆 and take credit where credit is due


Have you ever been overlooked for a promotion or broader responsibility and thought...hmm...maybe I should have advocated for myself more? 💁🏻‍♀️

And maybe "tooted your own horn" just a bit more? 🙋🏻‍♀️

What are your thoughts? 



#revops #career

🗣  When I was running my own consulting business, I spent a lot of time speaking to early stage founders


Some pre-seed, some seed, some Series A, some more mature but looking to scale -

To give complimentary advice on -

🔑  Is this a problem worthy of solving?
🔑  What are the use cases we should be tackling?
🔑  What are the most pressing pain points?
🔑  What market and industry trends are you seeing?
🔑  Who would be interested in this type of solution?
🔑  What is our product vision missing?
🔑  How should we evolve our product offering and roadmap?
🔑  Is anyone addressing this problem today?
🔑  How do organizations solve for this today?
🔑  What can we do to improve the user experience/ interface?
🔑  What is the right type of account for our offering (account ICP)?
🔑  Which target personas should we be selling to?
🔑  What is the right messaging for these personas?
🔑  How do we build brand awareness?
🔑  What content makes sense for our website? For other content?
🔑  What should our first hire be?

And much more...

💭 My philosophy?

Give, give, give - give your -

✅  Time
✅  Advice
✅  Guidance
✅  Experience
✅  Expertise
✅  Knowledge
✅  Value

And eventually, you might find yourself on the receiving end!

Many of those discussions may lead to discussions around advisory, consulting, and partnerships opportunities

And if not?

Well, at least I (hopefully) helped someone in some small way 💜

If you are someone who is looking to -

👉🏻  build your brand
👉🏻  secure consulting opportunities
👉🏻  join advisory boards
👉🏻  expand your knowledge of technology 
👉🏻  grow your trusted network

My advice?

See above, my friends ☝🏻

Give, give, and give some more.

Give your time, your expertise, your experience, your knowledge...

And those opportunities will natural come your way 💜

As we head into a new week...


📣  Let go of your fears!  📣



Let me say that again...

📣  Let go of your fears!  📣




✊🏻  Let go of your fears
✊🏻  Stop writing bad fiction stories about about the future
✊🏻  Remember that positive outcomes are possible
✊🏻  Fear is an illusion and only a temporary state of mind

✊🏻  Be brave. Be courageous. And believe in yourself.

🙌🏼 Happy Monday and let's go get 'em!



What fear are you going to let go of this week?


#inspiration #empowerment

🗣️ I didn't even know this was a debate, but apparently it is


Do you have a lead scoring model or not?

I thought everyone had a lead scoring model

(Sure, it might be super simple, or it might need to be updated, but it exists...)


Doesn't everyone use some kind of criteria to determine whether a lead

🎯 gets addressed by a person? or
🎯 gets put in a nurture campaign? or
🎯 get disqualified?

Or no?


We spend so many dollars, hours, resources on generating leads, don't we want to ensure they are the right leads before passing them onto our sales team?

If your inbound is almost non-existent, I can see an argument for skipping a lead scoring model.

But if your inbound is healthy, it is critical to prioritize those leads to ensure the most qualified leads are routed immediately to the right sales person to work.

We all know hot leads get cold quickly.

And equally important is to not flood your sales reps with unqualified leads with missing data or the wrong personas, industries, actions.

This just causes unnecessary friction, distraction, and frustration. I'm sure you've seen this before.


With technology like Default that helps you create meaningful forms, enrich leads with the right data, and route based on relevant data and AI-generated context, you can easily align your lead scoring criteria to lead routing and lead follow up.

No excuses for not having a robust workflow for turning these qualified leads into booked meetings.

💁🏻‍♀️ Do you have a lead scoring model? And if you don't, how are you determining which leads to share with your sales team?





#defaultpartner #revops

As Marketing and RevOps leaders, how often do you hear this? 👇🏼 



"We need to drive more inbound with our website"

"No one is visiting our website"

"Maybe we need to revamp our website...again..."



Or maybe no one is saying it, but you're the one thinking it? 🤷🏻‍♀️


The truth is -

👉🏻  you've paid money to drive traffic to your website
👉🏻  then visitors are coming to your website
👉🏻  but no one wants to fill out a long form

🫧   then 90% + of your traffic disappears  🪄 poof 🪄  and -

❌   never books a meeting
❌   never makes it to a sales rep
❌   never turns into pipeline


The pain of trying to convert website traffic to pipeline. It's real.


Which is why I am so excited about Apollo.io's launch of Apollo Inbound. The easiest way to capture, qualify, and convert website visitors into pipeline.


❌  No more anonymous website visitors - 
✅  Use AI to reveal who's visiting your website

❌  No more long forms - 
✅  Just capture an email and the rest is enriched automatically


Every website visit becomes actionable pipeline in real time

And... no more revamping your website...again  💁🏻‍♀️



👉🏻  Sign up for a demo of Apollo Inbound: https://lnkd.in/g5KNZAzG


#ApolloInbound #ApolloPartner

This might not be for you -


But I almost always work Sundays ☀️ 

🙅🏻‍♀️  Not all day.

But anywhere between an hour to maybe 4.

Sometimes it's in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes late in the evening

But almost always I do at least some work.

💁🏻‍♀️   Why?

For me, it gives me time to -

👉🏻  review my calendar and organize/ shift/ schedule meetings
👉🏻  do some prep for the upcoming week
👉🏻  plan out the week (although this inevitably changes at least some!)
👉🏻  take care of anything more critical that didn't get done 
👉🏻  catch up on Slack and some emails

And overall, just helps me feel more prepared (and less stressed) going into the new week 

For me, it's less about HAVE to and more about WANT to 

Does this mean I'm suggesting that you work on Sundays?

🙅🏻‍♀️   Absolutely not.

Do what works best for you!

🙋🏻‍♀️  Do you choose to work on Sundays? 

🙅🏻‍♀️  Or is that a "no way" in your book?

Signals without actions are just noise...


With the great technology available to provide -

-->  contact phone numbers/ emails
-->  data for ICP alignment
-->  intent and active buying signals
-->  call recording and transcripts
-->  meeting and email activity
-->  content engagement
-->  product usage...


🤔   Why are deals still getting stuck? Especially in the middle of the funnel?


A recent research report from Flowla found that when asked where deals stall most often, 50% pointed to what they called the "messy middle" - the middle of the funnel - where deals disappear into internal discussions, stakeholders go quiet, and sellers lose visibility.

They also found that on paper, teams are tracking a lot of actions and signals -

But where the gap is?

🔨  Actioning those signals

Many teams admitted not actioning on those signals and not doing much with the data being tracked. The information might be available, but no one is acting on it.


👀   I see this all the time. And you have, too.

Dashboards are created --> 
sometimes they get looked at, sometimes they don't -->  
when they are analyzed, good information is uncovered --> 
trends are recognized, gaps are identified --> 
maybe everyone agrees on what's working, what's not...

then ... nothing happens...because execution is hard. 


Flowla references "Revenue Enablement 2.0" as the reset and the solution. Moving to action and motion.


As an example, instead of just tracking signals, every signal should be tied to a next step. 

A step thats automate through technology like Flowla where if -

A digital room is viewed? 
✅  a relevant check-in is recommended

A new stakeholder is invited? 
✅  a tailored introduction deck is provided

Things have gone quiet? 
✅  a personalized bump is created


Making each signal actionable instead of just noise


Learn more about the research and how to turn your GTM motion into action ⬇️ 

#revops #enablement

How are coaching, parenting, and leadership similar?




When my sons were younger, they played team sports...
 
Specifically, football 🏈 (Friday Night Lights!) & basketball 🏀 (year round, 3 different leagues!).
 
Yes, I was a team mom  👩🏻, Athletic Booster Club member, ran concessions 🌭, organized parents, traveled w/ the team, fundraised 💵, etc.
 
Of course I was a parent who thought the harder we cheered 🗣, we could "will" the team to win 🏆
 
Needless to say, I have a huge appreciation for team sports...
 
And for coaching
 
Coaching is a lot like leadership in the workplace...
 
And a lot like parenting, too
 
The sooner you realize that each individual (player, employee or child) is unique, the sooner you will be a more effective coach, leader, or parent ✅
 
Each individual is unique -
 
💎  What they value
💎  What is important to them
💎  How they see the world, their perception, their reality
💎  What communication style works for them
💎  What motivates them, what discourages them
💎  How they like to work, how they like to work w/ others
💎  How best to engage them
💎  What they need & don't need
💎  How they learn best & retain teachings
 
There is no one size fits all  ❌
 
Your job as a leader is to figure out the optimal style and environment for each member of your team that will enable them to best learn, grow, and thrive.


#leadership

When it comes to addiction, disorders, and any mental, physical, or emotional challenge, one thing we don't talk about enough, at least in my opinion -



is the people who are caregivers for those individuals ❤️‍🩹 


Being a caregiver, partner, or parent of someone who is experiencing an addiction, a disorder, or some other challenge is freaking hard 🥺 

Like really freaking hard 🥹 

It's hard for the person experiencing it.

But it's also hard for the caregiver. The parent. The partner.


So on this Sunday, I just want to send some love 💜, appreciation 🙏🏼 , and support ✊🏼  to those individuals who are "fighting the good fight" on behalf of a loved one.

Whether they -
  
👍🏻  want your help
👀  realize that they need your help
🥊  or fight your help every step of the way


👋🏼   I see you
🙏🏼   I appreciate you
🫶🏼   And whether it feels like it or not, I have to believe that the person you're supporting appreciates it (or will someday!).

“Do as I say, not as I do…”

I am the worst hypocrite when it comes to this 🤦🏻‍♀️


🤷🏻‍♀️ Taking and making time for myself


Let’s be honest 🫣

I tell others -

my team members 
my colleagues
my family members
my friends 
my kids
my coaching clients
my community 

All the folks I care about 💜


⏳  Make time for yourself
🧘🏻‍♀️  Find space to relax
⏰  Take breaks
🔋  Do stuff to recharge
🙏🏻  Give yourself grace


Then someone asked me earlier today 

“What do you do to relax?”


Umm 😬

“Well, I’ve been thinking about installing the Calm app and meditating for 10 minutes a day…”

“And I’ve been thinking about getting on the treadmill and walking for a bit”

Does that count?

I think I need an accountability buddy.

What do you do to relax?

And how do you keep yourself accountable?

If you're a small business (or even if you are a large one)

And you need quality contact information

Where do you go?  💁🏻‍♀️  



One of my fellow GTM professionals asked me for help last night

And this ☝🏻 was one questions he asked (among others...)

And I thought about all of the data providers that claim to have the best contact emails and contact phone numbers  ☎️  

But I wanted to help him get started quickly 🏃🏼‍➡️  and make sure he was able to get the most accurate information 


💁🏻‍♀️  So what did I recommend?

FullEnrich

Why?

⭕  Not because I have used it in the past for my consulting business
⭕  Not because I think their CEO and Co-Founder Benjamin Douablin is innovative and actually a nice person 
⭕  Not because I am a FullEnrich partner


❇️   But because they have an 80%+ find rate
❇️   And because they aggregate contact data from over 20+ premium vendors
❇️   And because they leverage waterfall enrichment to ensure the most complete and accurate data

❇️   And mostly because they offer 50 free leads  🙌🏼 

(yes, absolutely free, no credit card required)

And who doesn't like to try something for free before you pay 💰 ?


#data #revops

taplio

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