Shelly Davenport

General Manager, Small Business Unit

Born:
San Francisco, CA

Prior Experience:
Salesforce.com - VP, Sales
Hyperion - VP, Corporate Sales
Oracle Corporation - Sales Director


Education:
San Diego State University, BS Management Information Systems

What I like to do outside of work:
Enjoying time with my 2 little girls and husband, Running, Strength training, skiing and reading.

Q: Where in your background did you learn the most?
A: My sales career started at Oracle where I was able to build my direct sales and management skills. From there it has been over 15 years of nonstop learning.


Q: If you could meet one person in history, who would you meet and why?
A: I just finished a short biography on Roberto Clemente (my nephew said it was the best book ever) and would be interested to ask Roberto this one question. If you knew you had one day left to live would you still have gotten on that airplane to help the earthquake victims in Nicaragua? I suspect the answer would be YES!


Q: What's been your biggest surprise during your time at SuccessFactors?
A: The people are real! What you see is what you get. They really do leave the jerks at the door.


Q: If you had 20 seconds to tell a new client about why they should use SuccessFactors, what would you say?
A: Time to take the guess work out on managing, promoting and paying your employees. No excuse with SuccessFactors we have the Best Practices and OnDemand delivery model to make it easy, simple and affordable.


Q: Why do you believe in the promise of Performance & Talent Management?
A: >1,200 customers and 2 million users (as of Jan. '07) need I say more! Just the tip of the iceberg.


Q: Do you have a story or memory of how P&TM has helped you in your career?
A: I started my career in a technical position and was given the feedback if I wanted to move up in the technical team I needed to learn the Unix operating system inside and out. Focusing on achieving this task helped me quickly realized I was in the wrong job for the company.


Q: Why are you proud to work at SuccessFactors?
A: I have an opportunity to help Small Businesses grow and change the way they manage their most important asset - Employees!