The B2B industry is composed of various job roles, with both men and women of equal caliber. However, some women in the business world have made their presence reach the new heights with their dedication and expertise, regardless of the industry they work for. These leading women have successfully elevated their organizations and personal brands and inspired us by their stories on online platforms.
In today’s article, we’re going to list such most influential women leading the discussion on B2B space. To put this list together, we’ve considered the profiles of those undertaking pivotal roles, making outstanding contributions to the company, and the ones pushing the boundaries of age-old stereotypes. But given the vastness of the B2B industry, we might have overlooked a large number of exceptional talent, but such is the nature of a top-15 list.
On that note, and in no particular order, here are the top 15 most influential women in the B2B industry as we see them:
1. Meagen Eisenberg – CMO, TripActions
Meagen Eisenberg, the former CMO of MongoDB, is a veteran technology marketing executive with nearly 25 years of experience in high-tech. A graduate of Yale School of Management and Yale University, Meagen is an advisor to a few of Bay Area Technology Startups, including Mintigo, Apptimize, Accompani, and Insightpool. She specializes in marketing automation, demand generation, and field marketing strategy and execution.
2. Shannon Brayton – Member of the Board of Directors, Vidyard
With 25+ years of experience shaping corporate narratives and leading teams, Shannon’s experience ranges from consumer to B2B industries, including LinkedIn, Yahoo! and eBay. She was garnered as one of the world’s most influential CMOs by Forbes Magazine for three consecutive years. Shannon was also called as “a force of nature any company would want on their side” by PRWeek in 2017.
3. Kirsten Allegri Williams – CMO, SAP SuccessFactors
Kirsten Allegri Williams, known for her outstanding leadership and collaboration skills, has inspired a lot of women on social channels. Her positive, uplifting, and optimistic nature have helped her lead various career opportunities. Not to forget, she has recovered cancer bravely and considers it as a pivot to bring herself to work. Being an opera singer and a digital marketer, Kirsten blends art and science in her everyday routine.
4. Kelly Watkins – VP, Global Marketing, Slack
Kelly Watkins has built her marketing cred at companies like Bugsnag and GitHub. Her degree in theology helped her unfollow the traditional path to marketing and thereby approach it with two principal C’s – craftsmanship and courtesy. This interest has taken Kelly from nonprofits to consulting firms and then to several tech startups, which eventually brought her to Slack as a Senior Product Manager.
5. Sydney Sloan – CMO, SalesLoft
Sydney Sloan is an accomplished B2B global marketing leader who is continually helping lead SalesLoft into the next phase of growth. She is a believer in and advocates for the imperative relationship between marketing and sales. She has spent a large part of her career helping companies transform customer experiences and establish lasting relationships with clients. Sydney also serves as an advisor to Marketo and Folloze.
6. Cari Baldwin – Co-founder and Board Member, Women in Revenue
Cari Baldwin is a data-driven professional with 20+ years of marketing involvement. Her passion for generating leads and converting them into lucrative customers has helped her produce powerful results. Her most recent experiences involve Chief Revenue Officer at Square 2 Marketing and Chief Instructor of Digital Marketing at Green Fig. Cari is a frequent speaker on topics like Account-Based Marketing (ABM), advocacy, and demand generation.
7. Michelle Suzuki – VP Marketing, Instructure
Michelle Suzuki, a prominent B2B technology marketing executive with 25 years of experience uplifting brand engagement, has helped the companies ranging from high-growth startup to Fortune 500. She was named as the ‘Utah Marketing Association’s 2016 Marketer of the Year’ for bringing software brand Rizepoint to excellence. Suzuki has led worldwide marketing initiatives at some of the renowned tech companies like Novell, EMC, and Ancestry.com.
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8. Konstanze Alex, Director B2B Influencer Relations, Dell
Konstanze Alex is a Digital Communications and Content Marketing leader who has served various large and global IT brands in her career life. She is a true professional with top standards, and her focus has always been on driving a robust, comprehensive strategy for influencer content co-creation that impacts the brand’s SOV and consideration as a reliable leader in Digital Transformation.
9. Tracy Eiler – CMO, InsideView
Tracy Eiler is a highly proficient SaaS marketer and demand generation expert. She has been driving various marketing strategies at both traditional and cloud-based enterprise technology companies for the last 25 years. At InsideView, she takes care of the end-to-end marketing strategy as well as initiatives. Previously, Tracy held executive roles at Cloud9, MarkLogic, Replicon, Postini, and Business Objects. She is also a co-author of a business book called ‘Aligned to Achieve’.
10. Ellie Mirman – CMO, Crayon
Ellie is a hands-on marketing leader with a track record of initiating successful marketing programs. This SaaS veteran has formerly served as the VP of Marketing at Toast before becoming a CMO at Crayon. Previous to that, Ellie held multiple marketing leadership positions at HubSpot too. Her skilled areas include lead generation, product marketing, automation, branding, content marketing, and customer development.
11. Ardath Albee – CEO, Marketing Interactions
Ardath Albee is a well-known B2B Marketing Strategist and the CEO of her firm, Marketing Interactions, Inc. She applies over 28 years of expertise in business management and marketing experience to help organizations create persona-driven digital content marketing techniques with powerful content platforms. Ardath is also a die-hard writer and a storyteller. She has written two books – ‘eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale’ and ‘Digital Relevance: Developing Marketing Content and Strategies that Drive Results.’
12. Ann Handley – Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs
Ann Handley is the world’s first Chief Content Officer, who speaks and writes about rethinking how business markets. She is a keynote speaker, author, and also a member of the LinkedIn Influencer program. Ann penned one of the Wall Street Journal best-sellers – ‘Everybody Writes’ and also co-authored ‘Content Rules.’ She is a must-follow influencer on Twitter, as Forbes garnered her as the “Most Influential Woman in Social Media.”
13. Alicia Hale – VP, Marketing Communications, UiPath
With a great attitude and a democratic style of leadership, Alicia Hale knows almost everything about digital marketing. She has a way of inspiring and engaging the people all around the world with her strong technical background. While working at emagine, she managed all aspects of digital marketing efforts such as SEO, CRO, SEM, and social media. At UiPath, she handles the marketing efforts of a company that was named by The Forrester Wave as the category leader for robotic process automation (RPA) in Q2 of 2018.
14. Jada Balster, VP marketing, Workfront
Jada Balster leads a world-class marketing organization, Workfront, which is focused on thought leadership, customer advocacy, pipeline generation, and brand development in EMEA. She was named as a “Martech Hero” by The Drum and one of B2B Marketing’s “top women in tech.” Jada is a respected leadership, marketing, and work management thought-leader who was featured in City AM, The Drum, Marketing Magazine, The Telegraph, B2B Marketing, and Management Today.
15. Heather Zynczak – CMO, Pluralsight
Heather Zynczak, CMO of Pluralsight, leads a data-driven marketing organization that is known to deliver real and qualitative outcomes. She plays a crucial role in handling the company’s digital revenue and increasing brand visibility. Heather is a former developer turned marketer, who is now considered as a champion for data-driven marketing. Heather has held various executive marketing and product management positions at some of the world’s largest enterprise technology companies. At present, she also serves on the board of IT software company SaltStack.
Conclusion
Women influencers can be of great inspiration to the public. The list mentioned above shines a light on such powerful women in the B2B space. Follow them and be a part of their journey if you wish to take your brand to the whole new level.
