We are delighted to announce that Jennifer Ley has joined XTM International as new Chief Revenue Officer. Based in Chicago, Jennifer was most recently a General Manager for a SaaS-based marketing software solution and responsible for the overall profitability of the largest product line within their portfolio. Prior to that, she spent her career growing revenue and optimizing cost structures within the areas of Sales Management, Retail, Product Development, and Sourcing.

Jennifer excels at developing new ways to excite the market around a solution, while delivering efficient processes that align internal operations with client expectations. This breadth of experience, her customer-first mindset, and personal drive make Jennifer the perfect fit as we continue to deliver industry-leading localization technology and support to our customers.

We’ve asked Jennifer to tell us a bit more about herself, what motivated her to join XTM International and what she thinks the future holds for the SaaS industry.

Hi Jennifer. It’s great to have you on board! What attracted you to XTM?

I was immediately impressed with the breadth of industry expertise held by XTM’s founders. They have incredible knowledge of the localization space, a clear vision on where they want to go, along with big goals for expanding their reach. 

As many companies have a global presence, according to Gartner, 66% of buyers think it is important to have vendor websites and landing pages in their primary language, which means there is a significant market opportunity for localization technology as companies continue to look for ways to optimize their processes. With XTM providing a vendor-neutral workflow automation solution, we are a perfect match for companies looking to reach people in their native languages more quickly and efficiently, so to be part of this growing industry is a very exciting prospect.

There are also challenges to what you just mentioned. There’s been a lot of discussion lately about a potential recession. In a revenue-focused role, how do you go about addressing this in the minds of customers and buying decisions?

In order to build lasting partnerships with your customers, you need to understand all the challenges they are currently facing. To do that well, we need to know their struggles, inside and outside of their organization, and leverage our experience, tools, and partners to build a pathway to ultimately helping them overcome obstacles and achieve their goals. When a down-turn occurs, what naturally happens is our buyers become more budget-conscious and therefore more selective when it comes to allocating their money. 

Buyers tend to look deeper at the value they’re getting from a particular service and alternative options. It’s our job to make sure we clearly articulate the value of the scalability, flexibility, and depth of our technology and assist business stakeholders in building a path to implement our solution across their organization as well. In my experience, this exercise has also led to lasting, mutually beneficial partnership which customers will continue to invest in over time.

XTM was recently recognized by CSA Research as one of the fastest-growing language companies. What do you feel are keys to sustained future growth?

There’s an opportunity for us to showcase how using a translation management system impacts an entire enterprise whole organization and fuels multiple revenue streams. Historically, there’s only a small cluster of people within organizations who are responsible for managing content localization. However, the impact of the critical work of those individuals impacts many companies’ global sales and supply chain engine. The reality is a company’s localization process shapes their customers’ experience. 

Many companies create content in one language, and then let other teams manage the localization piece in a decentralized workflow. However, localization should be integrated and included in all global launch plans and centralized with other workflows as a naive step in the go-to-market process. Why outsource the final step of a global launch and hope that all that goes well when it is important to ensure your brand presence is of the highest quality in every market you sell in? The trick is finding the right tools to work as the foundation of a global workflow and a partner who can assist you during the change management phase of the transition is key. That’s where XTM can come in and help.

I want to explore how we can be a better partner, reduce pain points, and increase visibility and transparency with all our customers. Ultimately, we want to help our customers achieve their business outcomes faster, cheaper, and better than our competitors.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

There are so many, but one that is relevant to me today is that we don’t always have to have all of the answers. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed, wishing we knew exactly what to do. The world is a challenging place. Believing in ourselves and our ability to persevere is something that I constantly reinforce with my team—and myself. It is okay not to have all the answers, but action is the best medicine for anxiety. Others may come up with all the reasons why something can’t be done, but if you believe it is the right thing to do and it needs to be done, then let nothing stop you.

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

I have a pretty big family, plus one more on the way. There are always events to prepare for, somewhere to go or something to attend to. However, it’s important for me to spend time as a family, watch my kids grow and make time for the precious moments you just don’t get back. When I do have some time for myself, I like to try new things. I love to travel and explore different parts of the world or try things I have never experienced before. If I want to stay closer to home, I enjoy spending time with good friends, watching or reading thought-provoking materials—and I do tend to sing a little Karaoke from time to time as well. 

Lastly, could you tell us a bit about what you plan to do in your first 100 days at XTM and give us a sneak peek of what’s in store for 2023?

XTM has been running a successful business for many years, so I’ve got an amazing foundation to work with. My primary focus is to learn more about the staff and customer experience at XTM. I firmly believe if we can build a best-in-class customer experience, our business will organically grow, so I want to explore how we can be a better partner, reduce pain points, and increase visibility and transparency with all our customers. Ultimately, we want to help our customers achieve their business outcomes faster, cheaper, and better than our competitors, so I want to ensure we are well-positioned to deliver on that goal. 

As for 2023, we will look to continue to invest in the best customer experience available in the market and leverage our partnerships and expertise in the industry to innovate our platform to provide the toolset out there. I’ve seen some exciting enhancements and new features coming out for XTM Cloud which are planned for the new year, so stay tuned for more information coming soon!