Sales Inside

LINDA VLASTELICA SOUVA

*** **** *** ******* • San Jose, California 95126

303-***-**** • ******@***.***

http://www.linkedin.com/in/lsouva926 & http://site.targetedcustomersolutions.com/

Director of Inside Sales

High energy, visionary Leader offering extensive expertise in the startup and development of Inside Sales teams while ensuring an exceptional customer experience and exceeding revenue and contribution goals. Award winning Inside Sales expert in fast moving, entrepreneurial organizations with cutting edge companies bringing innovations, high quality products and solutions to market. Specialized in building and mentoring Inside Sales teams that are customer focused while achieving revenue and contribution goals.

• Accomplished Inside Sales leader as illustrated through overachievement of revenue, margin, customer satisfaction and operational metrics in 15+ eligible years.

• Strategic and innovative while able to plan and act tactically in problem solving and crafting creative solutions. Demonstrated by design and deployment of innovative, agent technologies and sales methodologies that met Apple’s award winning standards for unique brand and quality.

• Specialized in recruiting and leading focused, Inside Sales teams through effective hiring, role definition, training, coaching, mentoring, and motivation to ensure revenue and quality goals are exceeded.

• Proven leader as recognized through receipt of 10+ Leadership Excellence Award and Industry recognitions.

• Featured speaker on International Change Management and Call Center Excellence at a variety of colleges and professional venues.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

TARGETED CUSTOMER SOLUTIONS, INC., San Jose, CA / Boulder CO • 2004 – Current (*Affiliated with since 2004)

Executive Inside Sales Consultant

Advised Fortune small and medium businesses [SMB] and startup ventures on Inside Sales and Call Center excellence. Deliver innovations in employee effectiveness, hiring, employee development, quality, processes, technologies, and customer engagement models. Identified key success drivers and ensured the strategic and tactic plans are in place to execute. Focused on SMB and start-ups seeking innovative problem resolution and delivering exceptional quality and goal achievement.

• Boosted revenues by 18% within 4 months through deployment of new sales model for ecommerce, SaaS client.

• Increased managed calls / agent by 10% through customer facing process improvements resulting in 6% incremental revenues for Fortune 500 client.

• Recent client experienced 4% increase in revenues within 90 days of deploying new training and process improvements.

• Provided established Telesales client with innovative, customized methodologies, metrics, training, coaching, and process improvements. Resulted in increased job satisfaction and improved customer experience of .7% as measured through customer satisfaction surveys 4 months after deployment.

APPLE, INC., Cupertino, CA • 2005-2008

Apple Online Store Sales & Service Global Business Operations Senior Manager

Spearheaded, improved, and supported all World Wide Telesales and Customer Service’s engagement models, applications, tools and process to support aggressive revenue growth and increased customer satisfaction scores while decreasing operating margins and generating incremental revenues.

• Improved operating margin by $12M and incremental revenues within 18 months through driving agent productivity by introducing new and enhanced agent –focused tools and technologies.

• Enhanced customer experience, created additional time for agents and established focus on revenue generation through process improvements in international team while piloting 4% improvement in agent utilization.

• Slashed operating margin by 27% in seasonal peak times by enabling first virtual call center with home-based agents

• Reduced agent system interface time by 50%, resulting in 30% increase in ability to handle calls, through implementing multi-track, multi-year technology and process roadmap for meeting market and product expectations.

• Facilitated goal attainment, lowered cost of sales by 35% and increased agent productivity/utilization through introduction of innovative solutions and technologies, while meeting Apple’s standards of unique brand representation and quality.

SUN MICROSYSTEMS, INC., • 1994-2004

Inside Sales and Support Director for Asia Pacific and Australia, Broomfield, CO / Santa Clara, CA

Defined premier in and Outbound Customer Support and Inside Sales model through internal and Third Party resources. Oversaw 130 direct and channel agents.

• Tripled Sun’s revenue in Asian market by designing and launching order management and support centers for Japan, Greater China, Asia South, and Australia/New Zealand by cultivating world-class sales and support organization.

• Increased Customer Satisfaction survey results by 2% in areas of expertise, problem resolution, and overall caliber of experience within 15 months.

Senior Strategic Inside Sales Manager, Broomfield, CO; Santa Clara, CA; Nashua, NH

Managed deployment of Global Centers and developed operating strategies. Supervised 15-person direct staff and integration of 1100+ agents in North and South America, Europe, and Asia.

• Generated operating margin savings of 9% while generating incremental $45m in product, software and service cross and up-sell by consolidating 40 toll-free call centers into 15 global centers. Centers included both In and Outbound customer sales and support engagement models.

• Defined strategic initiative and realized end-state experience by overcoming highly diverse call center environments through overseeing daily management of consolidating centers, closure of down sites, training, organization design, recruitment, marketing, telephony, and technological integration of local tools and systems.

Inside Sales Manager, San Jose, CA

Oversaw daily management of Inside Sales Center and supervised 5-person staff and 75-person Inside Sales Reps. Provided In and Outbound Sales and Support to system integrators, channel reps and direct services sales representatives.

• Exceeded goal of double-digit growth that propelled revenues from $24M to $325+M in fewer than 3 years.

• Saved 7% in operating margins by resolving high third party agent turnover rate and by spearheading successful transition from outsourced sales model to 75-agent internal organization.

• Recognized for overachieving annual revenue goals of 115% to 140% for 3 concurrent years.

• Increased telephone and web-based sales by 8% through development of integrated technologies and soft skills training.

SELECTED AWARDS:

• Exceeded sales, margin, profitability and performance goals in all 19 eligible years

• Recognized for Innovation by Apple’s Senior Executive Leadership team for innovation and quality customer experience

• Awarded Honors from Tom Peter’s Leadership Institute

• Received Sales, Customer Service, and Operational excellence awards at Sun Microsystems in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003

EDUCATION & TRAINING:

- Sales Methodology: Strategic Account Selling, Target Account Selling [TAS], Ongoing Inside Sales, Work From Home, Call Center Leadership and Optimization webinars and seminars

- Leadership: Tom Peter’s Leadership Institute

- Leadership & Sales: Certified Service Sales Director – Sun Microsystems, 1999

- Leadership: Certified Professional and Life Coach

- Quality: Six Sigma Certification, 2004

- Majored at San Jose University, San Jose, California. Major Cultural Anthropology

ASSOCIATIONS:

- Inside Sales Association - Help Desk Institute

- American Association Inside Sales - Contact Center Professionals

- Call Center Professionals - Contact Center Group

- International Coaching Federation

. LINDA V. SOUVA • Page 2 • ******@***.***

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