Leslie Ackerman

I started my career in credit and collections right out of college, but I quickly realized that most customers ended up there because salespeople wrote bad contracts. I thought, geez, I could do better than that, so I decided to try sales. I ended up at Xerox for 13 years and absolutely loved it. Then I got married, had a family, and took a break to raise my four children. After my youngest launched into kindergarten, I decided to relaunch my career and got into data center sales. From there, I wanted to move into software because it seemed more interesting than space, power, and cooling, but I didn't have the background to get hired. So I went to work for Gartner, a premier IT consulting firm, for 18 months, interviewed with several software firms, and chose ServiceNow. I've been there for almost 7 years now and just got promoted into management in January. Today, as Director of Sales for the insurance industry, I manage 7 people and make sure everyone is supported the way they need to be, that our customers' needs are being met, and I serve as a point of escalation. I also coach and mentor early-in-career folks to help them on their career paths and journeys.