Empowering Excellence: The Remarkable Women Driving AlphaSense’s Revenue Growth

In a world where innovation drives progress, the growing presence and influence of women in business and technology is a sign of an increasingly equal society. However, there is still a lot of room for improvement. As of 2024, women in the U.S. still earn less than men — 83 cents for every dollar — and hold just 10.4% of Fortune 500 CEO roles; only five of these leaders are women of color. Additionally, a 2023 McKinsey report shows women are less likely to be promoted to managerial positions than men, with only 87 women promoted for every 100 men. Despite hard-won gains, representation and pay parity are still lagging in leadership.

Women’s Equality Day is August 26, and although the day was started to mark the women’s suffrage movement, it is also a moment to celebrate powerful women leaders. I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce four extraordinary women at AlphaSense who have been my partners in scaling our revenue organization during the past seven years. Their groundbreaking strategies have been the backbone of our success, and I can honestly say that we could not have achieved our outstanding revenue growth without each of them. 

NIKI GUPTA, Head of Revenue Operations

From Data to Decisions: Shaping AlphaSense’s Sales Strategy

Niki Gupta’s job is to keep AlphaSense's revenue engine running smoothly. Over the last few years, however, she’s kicked the engine into high gear.

Niki’s RevOps team acts as the connective tissue across Sales, Customer Success, and Marketing, ensuring alignment and collaboration and measuring every aspect of the business, from the top of the funnel through closed deals, renewals, and upsells. The team’s insights go deep, slicing the data by rep, tenure, manager, geography, vertical, sub-vertical, persona, and more. Beyond metrics, the team also helps craft compelling stories with data, preparing us for company-wide, ELT, and Board meetings, and helping us make difficult strategic decisions. Niki’s leadership on this team has been a key reason for the team’s success, and with her focus, analytical skills, and strategic thinking she has cultivated a high-performance culture that drives consistent, impactful results.

Niki’s proactive approach is exemplified by her "Eyes and Ears" email, which lands in my inbox every Sunday night and is a crucial guidepost for the week ahead. For example, last week, she highlighted that pipeline generation in a specific region / vertical was lagging behind targets, with specific callouts around the need for tighter AE / SDR alignment. She provided a breakdown of the reps and managers who needed to refocus efforts, recommended specific actions to close gaps, and called out key deals requiring immediate attention. This real-time insight allowed us to course-correct early in the week, ensuring we kept momentum in critical areas.  

Examples like these are abundant: Niki’s ability to transform raw data into actionable insights has been transformative for our organization, frequently allowing us to identify and solve problems early and keeping us on the right track. She also takes a proactive role in analyzing market data, enabling us to make informed decisions about prioritizing new markets. By staying attuned to the team's experiences and reactions, her insights are not just data points but compelling narratives that guide the entire leadership team. In this way, Niki’s impact extends far beyond revenue operations—she is integral to every strategic decision we make. 

DANIELLE STEFANELLO, Head of Sales Enablement

High-Impact Enablement Strategies that are Foundational to AlphaSense’s Success

Danielle Stefanello is a true trailblazer in the enablement world. She defies conventional approaches and redefines how AlphaSense employees lead and grow. She embodies the very essence of a 10xer—someone who amplifies an organization’s impact tenfold. Danielle has become both the MVP and the backbone of our revenue organization, ensuring every individual she touches emerges stronger, more skilled, and ready to excel.

New hires don’t just go through onboarding; they embark on an immersive, transformative journey that equips them with the skills, tools, and knowledge necessary to thrive. Her onboarding process is rigorous and comprehensive, packed with tests, certifications, drills, and reflective call studies, all designed to immerse new hires in the real AlphaSense experience from day one. At a high growth, high velocity, dynamic company like ours, this approach instills a culture of continuous learning, development, and improvement—and the results speak for themselves. New hires ramp up faster, dramatically increasing both productivity and business impact.

But Danielle’s influence extends far beyond onboarding. She is a relentless student of AlphaSense itself, diving deep into our culture, go-to-market motion, and brand. Her guiding principle, "language matters," resonates through everything she does. She has an uncanny ability to distill dozens of customer calls, balancing empathy with sharp analysis to uncover strengths and pinpoint opportunities for growth. What sets her apart, though, is her gift for transforming these insights into actionable enablement programs and revitalized go-to-market messaging. As a trusted coach, she goes beyond surface-level solutions—she uncovers the root causes of challenges, empowering our growing leadership team to find the right words to drive meaningful change. Whether it’s through group sessions or one-on-one coaching, her guidance is nothing short of transformative.

"Better Never Stops." For Danielle, this isn’t just a motto—it’s a way of life. She embodies this philosophy every single day. And yes, she really doesn’t stop. It’s also the name of a groundbreaking training series she created. This dynamic program blends e-learning with hands-on workshops, equipping our sellers with the skills that have driven meaningful outcomes for customers and elevated performance across the organization.

In addition to all of the above and more, she built a six-month "Leadership Essentials" from scratch. This cornerstone of leadership development has taken every manager in our 700-person revenue organization to the next level. Through four core modules, Danielle has established a shared leadership language that reinforces our commitment to hiring, coaching, and promoting top-tier talent as we continue to scale.

SARAH FLACCAVENTO, Head of Strategic Initiatives and GTM Strategy

Key Architect Behind AlphaSense's Bold Market Moves and Growth Strategies

When an executive knows an industry from the ground up and has experienced growth from within various companies, they gain a special ability to see around curves, to anticipate, adapt, and set a course for their team. Sarah Flaccavento fits this description to a tee. She is instrumental in shaping the company's GTM vision and strategic market approach across multiple initiatives, including strategic M&A, international expansion, and launching new products. But Sarah doesn’t just fit these initiatives into a high-growth, scaling company—she turns them into the very fuel driving that growth engine forward.

Sarah has worn many hats throughout her career, from product specialist to customer success, account executive, business lead, integrations lead, and strategy lead. Not only can she grow a business and support the most ambitious sales efforts imaginable, but she can also maintain the ability to create scalable and ultimately profitable businesses. She understands the nuance of client workflows and business needs, guides product development to effectively meet those client requirements, packages, and prices, and delivers the solution to the marketplace.

Sarah’s strategic mindset and ability to see the big picture are vital in positioning AlphaSense as a leader in its field. For example, one of our biggest bets is moving from a user-based licensing model for teams to a complete enterprise solution for organizations with our Enterprise Intelligence solution. This required re-examining the addressable market, a new pricing and packaging approach that would be scalable within large organizations, and introducing new technical stakeholders in the decision-making process. It also required evaluating a new set of competitors and positioning against new generative AI technologies that clients were developing internally. We also needed new partnerships with the product teams to ensure our offering could meet and exceed market expectations. And even after all that planning and foundational work, to get the product off the ground, on-the-fly re-positioning, re-packaging, and re-pricing was needed. Sarah has been at the heart of every aspect of this monumental task that has touched every aspect of the AlphaSense organization, bringing her objective analysis, balanced decision-making, and even keel to the process.

KATIE DITANO, Head of Sales Development 

AlphaSense’s Revenue and Talent Pipeline Powerhouse, and Career Catalyst

Katie Ditano leads a team that’s not just essential to our revenue and talent pipeline—it’s been the most consistent and highest-producing pipeline generator in our business, critical for driving revenue and fueling our growth. Katie has this incredible ability to blend warmth with high standards, making her a true “players’ coach.” She’s the type of leader who knows how to motivate and inspire while holding her team to the highest performance levels.

Katie’s leadership isn’t just motivating—it’s hands-on. Every Friday, she dedicates time to run office hours for the entire Sales Development team. This isn’t just a quick check-in; Katie takes the time to truly listen to everyone across her 150+ person team, understand long-term goals, and provide each SDR and manager with a roadmap of actions, key stakeholders to meet, and check-ins to ensure they’re staying accountable. It’s rare to see a leader at her level invest this kind of time and attention, but it speaks to Katie’s commitment to junior professionals eager to launch their careers. She has a knack for spotting leadership potential, and with her high emotional intelligence, she can quickly identify when an SDR has standout capabilities.

Katie consistently drives a data-backed approach to pipeline generation, always zeroing in on areas where we can elevate performance. She doesn't just identify the gaps—she backs them up with real-time, accurate metrics. Recognizing the need for alignment, Katie transitioned Sales Development's quotas and targets to mirror the broader Revenue business. She shifted from meetings held to qualified meetings, ensuring our SDRs are rewarded for quality work that propels pipeline growth. On top of that, she introduced Closed Won targets for both SDRs and their leaders, bringing our team even closer to our revenue goals. Katie also implemented Partnership scorecards, allowing us to pinpoint strong SDR/AE partnerships and replicate their success across the board.

Under Katie’s guidance, we’ve built programs for SDRs that equip them to run effective demo’s. These programs have been game-changing—producing higher-quality meetings, shortening sales cycles, and slashing the time it takes for SDRs to hit peak productivity as AE’s. Each module gives the SDRs specific entrance and exit criteria, and exactly what they need to prepare for the next step. Since 2023, 131 SDRs have been promoted within the organization, which is a direct testament to the growth and development Katie has fueled in her team.

Katie’s dedication and innovative approach have transformed the Sales Development team into a powerhouse of talent and leadership. Her commitment to nurturing her people isn’t just reflected in the impressive number of promotions but in the consistent performance improvements across the board. Katie’s ability to balance empathy with high standards has set a new bar for leadership excellence, and she’s become an indispensable part of our organization’s success and growth.

RevOps, Sales Enablement, Strategic Initiatives, and Sales Development are the cornerstones of AlphaSense’s consistent and extraordinary growth, driven by the exceptional leadership of Niki, Danielle, Sarah, and Katie. These remarkable women have been critical partners in scaling our revenue organization, bringing unparalleled expertise, vision, and dedication to their roles.

The collective impact of these four leaders is a testament to the power and importance of elevating women across business and tech. As we celebrate their achievements, we invite other organizations to recognize the transformative power of women in leadership. Creating spaces where women like Niki, Danielle, Sarah, and Katie can lead, innovate, and thrive is not just a strategic advantage—it’s a game-changer.