Meet Elastic’s EMEA Go-To-Market Sales Team

Field Operations is an important team here at Elastic. They cover all go-to-market (GTM) functions related to customer acquisition, expansion, and retention. As a team, they think globally and act locally with teams covering every major international market.

Our Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) sales team is rapidly growing, so we wanted to take a moment to highlight some of our GTM Elasticians working in the region and hear a bit about the work they do and why they value Elastic as an employer.

Charlotte van Dijk, commercial account executive, north EMEA

I work in the commercial sector within the Benelux region as an Account Executive. I started my career at Elastic as a User Success Manager nearly 5 years ago. As a User Success Manager, I had the opportunity to work with a lot of different departments throughout the business. It was a great chance for me to see what it’s like to work in different departments throughout a company and to understand the mindset of someone who makes decisions on the other side of a big sales deal. This allowed me to prepare myself for the sales role that I am in today.

Unlike other companies where the sales journey can be heavily reliant on one sales employee, I work collaboratively with numerous colleagues. When the tech gets complicated, I have a technical representative who supports me. We also work with a sales development team to support account executives to create a pipeline. Teamwork is so important and Elastic is a great example of this.

When people ask why I enjoy working for Elastic, I say that we’re such a progressive company. Elastic is constantly thinking about how to improve based on employee feedback and what’s needed in the current moment. Elastic has always been distributed by design — we have a strong company culture while having a hybrid set up, in terms of working from home and the office. Elastic does all this and more — it’s inspiring to see.

Kate Allen, commercial account executive, central EMEA

I work in sales for the Eastern European bloc, which includes among others Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, and Poland. There are so many opportunities in the region — we have a lot of users, and there are many businesses interested in the solutions we provide. I travel to visit clients across Central and Eastern Europe and organize events to raise awareness about Elastic solutions and the ways we help companies to gain valuable insights from their big data.

I hosted an Elastic Day in Warsaw, Poland recently with our partner. We had an incredible turn out from our users and customers. I like doing events like these because I’m able to speak directly to devops and security teams to share the latest and greatest from Elastic.

Day-to-day, I’m talking to people and guiding them through how Elastic can help. I find out about their projects and help them understand how Elastic can solve some of their problems. 

When I started at Elastic, I was working in Munich as a sales development representative. From there, I grew into direct sales with the help of my mentor and current manager. Elastic has supported me in my moves throughout Europe. I lived in London and for the past two years I’ve been in Berlin. 

I have a job that allows me to live where I want and to travel for work, visiting beautiful cities and trying the local food. Travelling has always been a dream of mine and I’m happy to have found a job that allows me to do that. This year, I want to continue to travel to visit partners and customers and introduce them to Elastic. With sales, I have a problem to solve, we solve it together, and I get a lot of satisfaction from that.

Huage Chen, principal solutions architect

I came to Elastic from a company that was using our products for an OEM solution, so I was already in love with the technology. My role is multifaceted because I can join the sales cycle at many different points. In the discovery phases or the initial call, I try to help the account executive on the qualification and opportunity side. For the customer, I try to be their number one contact person, the one they consider as a trusted advisor. My role is not to sell. My role instead is to provide guidance from that first discovery call to a good solution, that will provide a benefit to the customer.

We do what we have to do in these scenarios. The sales cycle might take four months, eight months, a year — but throughout we want our customers to feel that we’re working with them, not rushing them, to finalize a project. Decision makers are cautious these days because they know migrating from an existing product to a new one can have a financial impact, so they want to make sure they’re making the correct choice. I invest in a customer in the same way as they invest in us. It takes time and the relationship that we build is one for the long term. It’s all about simple progress toward perfection.

I think my favorite part of the job is the people, and building these relationships. Since I joined Elastic, I’ve been working in multiple regions, and spending time with others, helping solve problems, is really precious. It’s what I enjoy the most.

Kathleen Gluck-Baud, public sector account executive, south EMEA

I started as a salesperson about 12 years ago. In many companies when you work in sales, you’re often working alone. Here at Elastic, though, you have a big virtual team that supports you. You have legal, your solution architect, and a user success manager who will care for the customer after a sale. They are very present throughout the process, which allows you to do your job better.

In the public sector, the sales cycle can take between eight months and a year. What’s different and excellent about Elastic is that the customer is already aware of the solution through a basic license. So when you’re animating a proof of concept and showing all the value of functionalities such as security and machine learning available through the paid subscription, you’re able to surprise and delight the customer.

When you are a salesperson here at Elastic, you are quite free to organize your schedule as you want. What it comes down to is your results. You’re often given freedom to do your job with a creative spin. I think Elastic is a bit forward-thinking in this space.

What I also like about this work is that work is never finished. You’re never just sitting in front of a white page. There are always opportunities to enlarge your impact and drive new initiatives. People listen to you when you have a great idea and help you execute on it. Elastic lives by the ethos that you’re going to do an excellent job when you feel comfortable to be yourself.

Interested in joining Elastic’s sales team? Check out open sales roles here.