We’re excited to welcome Stephanie Buscemi, Chief Marketing Officer of Confluent and former Chief Marketing Officer of Salesforce, to our board of directors. With 25 years of experience in marketing and technology, Stephanie’s industry expertise and track record of outstanding leadership will be essential to our continued growth.
Stephanie joins our board following a series of exciting and impactful announcements. We announced our Series E Funding, hired our Head of DEI Markita Jack, shared our vision for a hybrid, people-first workplace, and launched Aurora, our next-generation user experience. We’re committed to leading in a more innovative (and exciting) future in tech, and we’re proud to share the milestones that take us a step closer to this goal.
Now, we have the pleasure of welcoming Stephanie Buscemi into our community. Let’s get to know our newest board member:
Stephanie, can you tell us a little about yourself?
I’ve spent the last 25 years in enterprise software, in a variety of marketing leadership roles. I love the field of marketing, as it presents a unique opportunity to be the voice of the customer. The marketing function sits within an organization at the epicenter between “who makes” and “who sells” a product and services. When executed effectively, this role has the potential to create a vision and narrative for the customer. I have always valued the marketer’s ability and opportunity to impact the customer experience. In my work, I’ve focused on expanding the story a marketer tells, reaching beyond topics like products and services, to focus on values, mission, and ethics. Customer centricity and cultural inclusivity have always taken priority in my work.
On a personal note, I am married and have a 15-year-old daughter and three grown stepchildren. I have lived in the Bay Area for most of my life. In my free time, I enjoy practicing yoga, reading, skiing, traveling, and spending time with my family.
Tell us about your journey to Iterable.
Throughout my career, I have often witnessed CMOs and Marketing leaders define themselves as a “brand-” “demand gen-”,“product-led” CMO. While none of these denominations are explicitly wrong, they describe the interests of the company and not the customer. Building a company’s brand, driving revenue growth, and being product-driven are all critically important, but when described with such singularity, they are far too inwardly focused. Rarely do I hear an elevator pitch that begins, “I am a customer-led CMO, I am here in service of the customer and as such I am a lifetime student of the customer and an evangelist for them within my company.”
To thrive in today’s customer-driven economy, I believe that marketers and businesses have to put the customer at the center of everything they do. Iterable’s commitment to customer-centricity is what attracted me to the company. Iterable empowers marketers to unify the customer experience across all channels in real time, helps brands orchestrate experiences for their customers, and enables behavior-based personalization all while honoring demands for privacy full compliance across HIPAA, SOC2, GDPR, and more.
How does Iterable stand out in the marketing technology space?
The marketing technology space is rapidly changing, and is at a pivotal moment with the convergence of digital, AI, and the demand for seamless, memorable, and individualized customer journeys. Whether opening an email, posting to social media, talking to a service rep, buying something online or in a store, customers want a brand that is intuitive, empathetic, and will work to build a relationship based on trust and transparency. Iterable is at the forefront of this marketing transformation. They are guiding some of the world’s most advanced marketers in industries like consumer packaged goods and retail on how to orchestrate rich customer experiences at scale, striking the right balance between privacy and personalization.
How do you anticipate your experience at Confluent and Salesforce will impact your role on Iterable’s board?
Today, my experiences at Confluent are directly applicable to so much of what Iterable will encounter on its growth trajectory over the next couple of years. For example, having spent the last six months scaling a late-stage startup has provided me with great learnings and insights I can share with the Iterable team as the company continues to grow.
I also bring a wealth of experience with the key audiences that Iterable targets and serves, like marketers and digital leaders. I can share not only my experiences but those of countless other B2B and B2C marketers, having interacted with marketing customers over the past seven years at Salesforce. And, as a marketing practitioner myself, I can communicate first-hand the opportunities and challenges that face the modern marketer, informing Iterable’s strategies moving forward.
I’m also looking forward to sharing my learnings from my years of enterprise go-to-market expertise at companies like Salesforce, Oracle, and SAP to help Iterable drive scalable growth globally.
What excites you most about Iterable?
Without a doubt, the Iterable product and the people. The Iterable product is ahead of what is a very crowded and noisy marketing technology landscape today. The limitless marketing tools and technologies marketers have at their disposal are, for the most part, still incapable of orchestrating personalized experiences for their customers.
This is where Iterable stands out among the rest. A number of Iterable’s customers, unprompted, have shared the transparency and visibility in which the Iterable team works with them. They repeatedly cited how easy the product is for them to use and how Iterable sticks to their commitments and is continuously innovating and driving new value for them and their respective businesses. The Iterable team is seen as a trusted partner to their customer, and the product is bringing joy to our customers’ customers.
We’re big on values here at Iterable. Which of our four values (Trust, Humility, Balance, Growth Mindset) resonates the most with you and why?
Iterable is committed to a set of core values, and I respect greatly the importance they place on their values in everything they do. Businesses need something to anchor and guide them; they have to be about more than just their products and services. Iterable is guided by their values, and it serves them well, creating value for their customers as well. It’s tough to select just one value that resonates most, as they all speak to me is foundational to building and growing customer relationships. Without trust, you have nothing to build on, and therefore, I would say it is the most important to me.
To learn more about the Iterable values and culture that Stephanie speaks so highly of, check out our Culture page.
