Jackie Travieso is an 8x Salesforce MVP, Charlotte Community Group Leader, Co-organizer of Dreamforce2YOU Florida, Co-host of MVP Office Hours (US), and a Community Mentor. On top of the many hats she wears, Jackie is a 15-year professional Salesforce consultant experienced at bridging gaps between business process, requirements, and Salesforce functionality for deployment and integration management. A previous colleague of Jackie’s notes that “most folks spend a lot of time on professionalism, leadership skills and communication skills all this is a natural for Jackie and she does it all well.” We were lucky enough to connect with Jackie briefly over her time in the Salesforce Community, and as a female leader:
Can you tell me a bit about what you do in the Salesforce Community and what your role is?
My involvement with the community, now an entire ecosystem, actually began in 2007, a year or two prior to User Groups being a formalized program and now a worldwide opportunity. I co-led the Tampa Bay User Group for six years. I currently lead the Charlotte Administrators Group and have been fortunate to bring people together monthly over the last five years who enjoy both learning and sharing their experiences in a plethora of Salesforce areas. In addition to our monthly content meeting, we host a monthly Office Hours where we give everyone an opportunity to talk about their wins, challenges, new discoveries, or simply chat about anything on their mind. In my day-to-day role as a community contributor, one of my favorite things is making introductions. I learned from a mentor years ago that bringing people together is what grows the world.
Some of my other contributions have included co-hosting MVP Office Hours, co-organizing the first-ever Community Event; Dreamforce to YOU - Florida (years two and three), and participating in a number of Salesforce-related events that enable our community to excel and expand their knowledge. I also help Community Group Leaders organize their groups and excel as leaders in the community. I've had a number of one-on-one conversations with Ohana who are looking to find their first consultant job, negotiate a job change, seek their first Salesforce certification, or simply chat about frustrations they are experiencing and discussions about how to get past the bottleneck. I guess you could say, I have an open (virtual) door to anyone looking for guidance. These and other community contributions have led me to the honor of Salesforce MVP for the past eight years. I never dreamed my path of helping others would be recognized by those around me in a formal spotlight such as the MVP Program. I am grateful.
As a female leader, what has been the most significant barrier in your career?
I think my most significant barrier is self-doubt. If we could simply remove those burdensome thoughts of not being able to execute an action item, hit a goal, or achieve a milestone, we’d find ourselves halfway to the endpoint before we even started. This is why it’s so important for female leaders to lift up young women in the workforce who they recognize as self-doubters. They will thrive if someone will tell them, “they can do it” and then support them in their journey.
Who inspires/inspired you and why?
I’ve had two amazing female mentors in my life. At the time I didn’t recognize them as mentors, but grew to understand as I got older that these amazing women played that role without ever muttering the words mentor. Frances Borzi was the first person in my professional career who said, “Jackie, you can do this, I know you can. I believe in you.” While I don’t remember the project she laid out before me, I remember her words and they’ve stuck with me through the years. My second mentor, Kathleen Dennett, was pivotal in my Salesforce career. She said, “You do what you need to do, I’m just here to remove your roadblocks.”
I’ve tried to model my behavior after these two selfless women who knew the importance of elevating others.
What are some of the characteristics of a good leader?
Great leaders have a natural attitude for seeing people succeed and excel at whatever they attempt. They simply remove roadblocks. They empower others to do what they need to in order to achieve their goals and clear the path to success. Great leaders are always the first to attribute success to their team members and put their impacts in the spotlight for others to acknowledge.
What advice would you give to the next generation of female leaders?
Be the leader you want to see in others. Put your focus on what your team needs rather than solely on their output. Be vulnerable, openly look to your colleagues to teach you new things. It’s how we grow and it’s a great way to allow others to gain confidence in their skills as subject matter experts.
What is your proudest accomplishment?
I am most proud of taking a leap into the world of Salesforce, saying goodbye to the corporate world, and establishing my own small Salesforce consultant business where we focus on Sales Cloud. I’m now a company of two, three if you count the cat who occasionally makes appearances during conference calls, and we are enjoying every minute of helping businesses implement or enhance their Salesforce orgs with streamlined business processes or automation that ensures better data and a friendly user experience.
Where will we find you on a Saturday morning at 10 a.m.?
If it’s the second Saturday, you’ll find me at Salesforce Saturday in Charlotte via Zoom. Any other time you might find me in any number of places or simply still snoozing with the cat.