2019-02-15

When Women Gather - Success Happens

Cairo

2 min read

On Thursday, January 21st, the New York Chapter of Planhat’s group “Women in Customer Success”, hosted its second monthly meetup. Thanks to the outstanding response to the December 2018 event, the NY chapter partnered with Sisense, an award-winning BI & analytics company. Spearheading the connection was Jennifer Pantin, an Enterprise Customer Success Manager at Sisense.

Against a backdrop of gorgeous green foliage, nearly 100 women (double the size of the first event) shared wine, pizza and appetizers as they discussed crucial aspects of the field and their careers. Weaving in and out of groups, New York CSMs shared their favorite bots, apps and hacks. Those trailblazing in small companies gushed and lamented over building workarounds, while CS professionals from larger organizations shared their expertise on scale, growth and being proactive in saturated environments.

There were many discussions around professional growth and VPs and Directors looking to hire took time to speak with job seekers, encouraging them to apply or, at the very least, gave advice around their job search. Perhaps most inspiring were discussions around salary. The gender wage gap in the U.S. has narrowed, but is still a heavy issue. Women executives at the meetup were quick to share numbers, tips on negotiating salary and the details of their success stories in an effort to impart knowledge on the attendees still growing in their roles.

Socially it’s often discouraged to share such “intimate” details with your peers, but is key to identifying and fighting inequity which is something incredibly crucial to the New York Chapter’s mission. It was exciting to see the fruitful discussions break barriers and knock down walls around that important topic.

The New York Chapter’s email list has grown exponentially. The coordinators will be enrolling volunteer members to assist in partnerships, manage a job board and facilitate the Slack channel among other core needs. Contact wincs-nyc@planhat.com to get involved; all women in customer success or women (or gender non-conforming folks) interested to learn more about the profession are welcome!