How to walk the tightrope between tactics and strategy

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 before August 30th when prices
increase.


 


 


 


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