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Jina K.
Customer Success Leader | GTM expert (Seed to Series C) | Carta Employee number 4
With over a decade in customer success, GTM, and account management, I was the 4th employee at Carta, guiding its growth from Series Seed to a Series E company valued at over $8B. I've built three CS organizations from the ground up. Specialties: GTM Strategy, Customer Onboarding, Customer Journey, Ideal Customer Profiles, KPIs, Product Customer Fit, Employee Equity, Cap tables, Pre-seed to Series C Startups, Fintech, Venture Capital, Startup Advising
Work
Syncly (Ycombinator 2023)
https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/synclyI supported them in achieving product-customer fit, managing customer expectations, enhancing features, identifying customer pain points, and negotiation. They initially struggled to comprehend customer pain points and how AI could address these, as well as defining their ideal customer profile. Ultimately, they recognized that the true value of their product was most apparent to customers handling more than 10,000 tickets, leading to the realization that it was more effective to target product teams.
Kredfeed (2023 Techstars)
https://www.techstars.com/newsroom/2023-techstars-miami-acceleratorI assisted Kredfeed in refining their customer onboarding process and created a customer journey map. Additionally, I helped them conduct user interviews to identify the customers' pain points. Through this discovery process, Kredfeed was able to successfully fundraise last year and increase their customer retention by 50%.
My journey as employee number 4 at Carta
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSWIoJTUfn4&t=3sAs a seasoned Customer Success Leader, I bring rich experiences that have uniquely shaped my professional journey and approach to customer success. My career took root as employee number 4 at Carta, after surviving the World Trade Center collapse, the Financial Crisis, and the Lehman Brothers crash. These experiences honed my resilience, adaptability, and strategic thinking, essential qualities that I bring to the table as a customer success leader.
Experience
Techstars
Mentor
Dec 2022 - Present
Techstars is a global startup accelerator that provides funding, mentorship, and access to a vast network of entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate partners to help startups grow. It operates numerous accelerator programs worldwide, focusing on various industries and sectors.
- GTM Strategy
- Customer Journey
- Customer Onboarding
RedRock Partners
Co-Founder / Executive Coach
Dec 2021 - Present
We are a team of experienced startup veterans, led by an entrepreneur who was employee number 4 at Carta, and played a key role in the company's growth and development, resulting in its current valuation of $8 billion. We understand the challenges and opportunities that come with building a startup, and we're here to empower entrepreneurs to achieve their goals. Our products and services include: One-on-one coaching sessions: We offer personalized coaching and mentoring to guide entrepreneurs in creating and executing a successful business strategy. Workshops and seminars: We host workshops and seminars to provide entrepreneurs with valuable insights and knowledge to help them succeed. Networking opportunities: We connect entrepreneurs with other successful business leaders and investors to help them grow their network and expand their opportunities. Our goal is to help entrepreneurs build successful and sustainable businesses, and we're committed to providing the guidance and support needed to make that happen.
- Seasoned startup veteran with experience as employee number 4 at Carta, where I helped build the company from the ground up
- Key role in the company's growth and development, contributing to its current valuation of $8 billion
- -Starting a startup coaching business to help other entrepreneurs and startups succeed
- -Offering expertise and experience to guide entrepreneurs in building successful and sustainable businesses
500 Startups
Resident mentor
May 2020 - Present
- Mentored 100+ Startups to develop overall direction and strategy for customer success team
- Focused on improving customer satisfaction, reducing churn and driving growth.
- Guided startups in establishing clear objectives for their customer success organization.
- 500Startups Silicon Valley Mentor (Mar 2020 - now)
- 500Startups Korea Seed Program Mentor (Aug 2020 - now)
- Lead Mentor for KISED Program (Korea Institute of Startup & Entrepreneurship Development Government Entity) (Oct-March 2021)
- Lead Mentor for KIC (Korea Innovation Center at Washington DC) (Jan Feb 2021),
- 500Startups Korea Seed Program II Mentor (Jan Feb 2021)
Quotabook
Advisor
Feb 2020 - Present
QuotaBook is a fintech infrastructure startup founded by ex-VCs and Silicon Valley engineers. After being incorporated in Aug 2019, the company has been funded by more than 20 VCs, accelerators, and banks within its first year. QuotaBook helps startups and investors sync crucial equity and corporate governance data through an online equity platform so that every shareholder and portfolio company can communicate through a single source of truth. The company is a 500 Startups alumni, Google for Startups alumni, AWS scout partner, and Y Combinator alumni. It is the leading solution used by most of the top startups and VCs in Korea.
- Customer onboarding
- Go To Market Strategy
- Ideal Customer Profile
- Customer Journey
Capitola
Director of Customer Success
Mar 2023 - Feb 2024
Capitola is a next-generation commercial insurance specialty brokerage focused on professional lines. Backed by top-tier VCs, our team of seasoned insurance and technology experts shares a vision to elevate the wholesale experience. Centered around people and fueled by technology, Capitola is dedicated to providing enhanced responsiveness, increased transparency, and superior service to retail brokers and carrier partners alike.
- Engineered a comprehensive customer success framework, integrating advanced digital tools and a user-friendly knowledge base tailored for commercial insurance brokers, enhancing client engagement and service efficiency.
- Developed and executed targeted training programs, aligning team performance with company objectives, facilitated by regular executive feedback and check-ins.
- Optimized the onboarding process, achieving a 70% reduction in time-to-value, and proactively identified upsell opportunities through in-depth live deal collaboration and customer health analysis.
Hit Start
Interim Head of Customer Success
Jan 2023 - Apr 2023
Hit Start is a podcast management platform that gives producers, contributors, and businesspeople a simplified way to collaborate. Coordinate your productions, catalog your files, and streamline the approval process. All on one platform.
First Round Fast Track
Mentor
Dec 2022 - Dec 2023
Mentored Customer Success Director and helped them shape their career path by finding the right opportunity.
Ceeya Inc.
Advisor
Jul 2022 - Dec 2022
Our mission is to enable everyone to be independent and become a successful solopreneurs by following their dreams. We are doing this with the most innovative solutions and the world-class customer support.
Mason
Head of Customer Success
Dec 2020 - Dec 2022
Mason is the fastest way to take smart devices from idea to end user. Whether building a single-use device from scratch or scaling a smart product line, with Mason it’s 20x faster and 10x less costly to build, deploy and scale. The Mason Smart Device Platform is the only fully managed infrastructure for developing and delivering dedicated devices. It frees innovators to focus on what matters: application development, feature specification and UX. Organizations of all sizes rely on Mason to bring innovations and hundreds of use cases to market without reinventing the wheel.
- Lead a team focused on driving expansion, adoption, and retention through CS strategic initiatives
- Built and scaled technical support and customer success team.
- Increased ARR from $2M to $28M.
Resilinc
Senior Customer Success Manager
Dec 2019 - Jan 2021
Every year, tens of thousands of events – ranging from natural disasters to factory fires to health epidemics – shut down manufacturing and wreak havoc on global supply chains. We believe a resilient supply chain is good for everyone: it keeps product flowing, the world moving, and most importantly, people in their jobs. Resilinc was founded with the purpose of strengthening global supply chains, making them resilient, sustainable, transparent, and secure. We do this via our technology-driven solutions, which create an ecosystem where organizations can collaborate with their suppliers and customers with a spirit of transparency and trust to acquire unmatched visibility into their multi-tier supply networks, and partner across tiers seamlessly to recover supply chains during disruptions. Since our launch in 2010, Resilinc has defined the supply chain mapping, monitoring, and resiliency space and is widely considered the gold standard for supply chain resiliency, worldwide. With over 1 million supplier sites mapped encompassing over 4 million parts and raw materials, we are the first line of defense for our customers, helping them navigate supply disruptions. Our early-warning alert system monitors and predicts potential disruptions across suppliers, sites, and materials; our platform enables them to collaborate closely with their suppliers; our historical data-backed insights give them options on appropriate actions to take. Always innovating, our AI-powered predictive solutions can predict delivery delays, price movements, and supply constraints for raw materials and commodities before they happen. Resilinc helps our customers protect revenue and turn supply chain risks into opportunities to gain a competitive advantage.
Carta
Head Of Customer Success
Aug 2013 - Jan 2019
Carta is trusted by more than 40,000 companies and over two million people in nearly 160 countries to manage cap tables, compensation, and valuations. Carta also supports nearly 7,000 funds and SPVs, and represents nearly $130B in assets under administration. Today, Carta’s platform manages nearly three trillion dollars in equity globally. Companies and funds like Flexport, Tribe, and Harlem Capital build their businesses on Carta. The company has been included on the Forbes World’s Best Cloud Companies, Fast Company's Most Innovative list, and Inc.’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies. For more information, visit carta.com.
- Built the first customer support/success program as employee number 4
- Developed the first in-house customer engagement tool increasing CS team productivity by 3x and NPS.
- Helped grow the customer ARR from 0 to $20M.
- Crafted first playbooks for implementation, adoption, customer engagement, and growth
- Managed highest value and most strategic accounts (including 5 that IPOed)
- Partnered with Product Management and Engineering to streamline and operationalize business
- processes and further revenue expansion and reduce churn.
- Built inbound chat strategy that resulted in +30% lead to opportunity conversion
Prudential Financial
Senior Account Manager, Global Pension Risk Transfer
Jun 2011 - Apr 2013
- Participate in deal negotiations from indicative bid to the closing of the $1B+ transactions for Global Longevity Reinsurance Group.
- Facilitate as an internal subject matter expert to various departments such as valuations, ALM and Prudential Investment Management by keeping them informed of any changes and resolve any issues that may arise on deal by deal basis.
- Drafted term sheets, quote documents, due diligence questionnaires and marketing presentations and white papers for clients interested in Prudential's Global Pension Risk Transfer solutions.
- Coordinate with Pricing and Valuation Actuaries to analyze the liabilities and the benefit structures of different pension plans.
- Manage the internal onboarding process for the current pipeline of deals ($10B+) as well as settlement and administrative process for our past deals ($2B+).
Lehman Brothers
Associate, Global Real Estate Group
Jan 2005 - Mar 2008
lehman brothers holdings inc. (pink sheets: lehmq, former nyse ticker symbol leh) (pronounced /ˈliːmən/) was a global financial-services firm which, until declaring bankruptcy in 2008, participated in business in investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales, research and trading, investment management, private equity, and private banking. it was a primary dealer in the u.s. treasury securities market. its primary subsidiaries included lehman brothers inc., neuberger berman inc., aurora loan services, inc., sib mortgage corporation, lehman brothers bank, fsb, eagle energy partners, and the crossroads group. the firm's worldwide headquarters were in new york city, with regional headquarters in london and tokyo, as well as offices located throughout the world.
- Developed technical specification to streamline $20B+ pipeline system and seamlessly integrate cross departmental workflow process.
- Act as a liaison between commercial real estate loan underwriters and the supporting technology group.
- Responsible for production and distribution of rating agency presales, offering memoranda and investor marketing materials for $ 2 B+ floating and fixed-rate CMBS transactions
- Analyzed loan portfolios, third party reports, cash flow models and pool selections across all types of commercial property including: office, retail, multifamily and hotel.
- Performed due diligence, prepared marketing materials and reviewed indentures for corporate debt, bank loans, CMBS, whole loans and B notes.
Lehman Brothers
Java Developer, E-Commerce Group
Aug 2000 - Dec 2004
lehman brothers holdings inc. (pink sheets: lehmq, former nyse ticker symbol leh) (pronounced /ˈliːmən/) was a global financial-services firm which, until declaring bankruptcy in 2008, participated in business in investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales, research and trading, investment management, private equity, and private banking. it was a primary dealer in the u.s. treasury securities market. its primary subsidiaries included lehman brothers inc., neuberger berman inc., aurora loan services, inc., sib mortgage corporation, lehman brothers bank, fsb, eagle energy partners, and the crossroads group. the firm's worldwide headquarters were in new york city, with regional headquarters in london and tokyo, as well as offices located throughout the world.
- Developed technical solutions for Large Loan, Securitization, Mezz Equity and Syndication group to automate distribution of road show presentations, create a central software application for better information flow.
- Developed a web-based reporting software for displaying applications in compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley in Java.
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