This week on the SaaS Revolution Show, we talk with Sarika Garg, Chief Strategy Officer at Tradeshift about walking the tightrope between tactics and strategy.
Sarika was raised in Africa and India and moved to Silicon Valley about 20 years ago. Fifteen of them she spent working between SAP and Ariba, moving up the ranks of product management. When she felt she had gotten too used to the comfy life that big organisations can create, Sarika jumped into the deep end, joining Tradeshift, first as VP of product marketing and then raising up to Chief Strategy officer two years ago. At the time, the company employed 100 people and she was the first CSO.
Nowadays the company employs 1000 people and at its last Series E funding round led by Goldman Sachs, it was valued at $1.1 billion. No wonder then, that Tradeshift is one of the fastest-growing Fintech companies in Silicon Valley. That has been achieved by navigating the complex network that Tradeshift offers to businesses and having both a disciplined long term view as well as timely day to day operational excellence. Both of those have fallen within the remit of Sarika and she has learned to walk the tightrope between tactics and strategy.
Listen on to hear:
- What should the role of a CSO be in a small company and how to know you need it
- How should companies navigate between long term strategy and short term execution
- How she makes the decision to pivot from her original strategy
Sarika will be joining us at SaaStock West Coast on September 11th in San Francisco moderating a panel which will aim to tackle another common tightrope SaaS companies need to walk and navigate: how to split their focus between attracting new customers and retaining the existing ones. Joining her on that panel will be Shane Murphy-Reuter, SVP Marketing at Intercom, Omar Nawaz, Chief Product Officer at Chargebee and Jason Reichl, CEO of GoNimbly. We have a few tickets left for SaaStock West Coast so be sure to grab one while you still can and at the best possible price.
