alumni

Kimberly came to Salesforce in October 2010 after working many years as a technical trainer at several different organizations. What drove her to explore the opportunity at Salesforce, you ask? She told us, “There were only about 5,000 people at the company when I joined. Everyone seemed like part of one giant family and I thought that this was a place where I really fit in.”

Kimberly’s first role at Salesforce, as an eLearning Technical Lead, was a perfect fit given her experience in the space.In this role, Kimberly was in charge of managing the maintenance and delivery of online training courses for the company. This would eventually evolve into what is now known as Salesforce University. Then in 2013, Kimberly’s Vice President (VP), at the time, left for a job at Appirio, a Salesforce consulting partner that provides strategic, operational, change enablement, and user adoption services. Kimberly’s VP knew how great she was at her job and when a similar role opened up at Appirio in 2014, she reached out to Kimberly to gauge her interest. “The role at Appirio was essentially what I was doing at Salesforce at the time. I really enjoyed working for my VP and wanted to be under her leadership once again,” said Kimberly. She left Salesforce to join Appirio in July of 2014.

Kimberly was away from Salesforce for just over 4 years. Kimberly told us, “During my time away I always kept in touch with my Salesforce network. Whether it was via text message or meeting up in person to grab lunch I remained in touch with my former colleagues through the years.” One of those people was Kimberly’s former manager, Jay Thayer. “I always kept in touch with Jay. We’d chat about our kids, our trip to India and Eddie Murphy” said Kimberly.

We asked Kimberly what eventually make her decision to come back to Salesforce? She said, “I always knew deep down that I would be back at Salesforce one day. It just feels like home. The people make it fun and gave me a sense of belonging.”

In 2019, Kimberly returned to Salesforce as a Senior Program Manager of Technical Learning and Development — a role that she still holds today. “I get to manage the training for all of our internal engineers. I also run UpSkill, a continued education program for our engineers. I thoroughly enjoy what I do today here at Salesforce,” said Kimberly. 

Right after Kimberly’s return to the company, the pandemic hit and drastically change the way Kimberly and her entire team worked. “We were flexible and made the quick switch to an all virtual work environment,” she told us. “My SVP sent everyone on the team a plant to spruce up our home offices, to thank them for their hard work and for all that they have been able to do during the pandemic. On Slack, I posted a picture of the plant to show everyone where I decided to put it. In the picture, next to my plant, was a bronze giraffe statue. Everyone loved the picture so I decided to start taking a picture of the plant and the giraffe side by side in different locations. This quickly evolved into an ongoing series that has people wondering where I’ll place my plant and giraffe next,” said Kimberly.