DataGrail’s Employee Spotlight series highlights the person behind the professional, digging deep and discovering what drives our team members.
Auburn Santo recently joined the DataGrail team as a Customer Success Manager. Auburn brings with her a depth of experience in customer success and sales in addition to her education from Boston University.
What excites you about joining the DataGrail team?
Throughout the interview process to the end of my first week, it’s clear that everyone at DataGrail is excited about the space and opportunity at hand – and that gets me excited! A startup is nothing without an enthusiastic, supportive team, which DataGrail has in spades. Looking forward to immersing myself in all things privacy, and the adventure ahead.
What’s your role at DataGrail, and how do you see yourself growing over the next 2 years?
I’m joining DataGrail as a Customer Success Manager. I’m excited to help develop the operational groundwork for our team as we scale – especially since my portfolio will demand increased efficiency through repeatable processes and automation.
What has been your favorite project or challenge you’ve worked on in your career?
“Postmates for Work” is a new corporate meal delivery program at Postmates that I helped scale and support as lead account manager. A startup within a startup, if you will. The pandemic accelerated our plans to bring this to market faster than we anticipated – within one quarter, our small but mighty team of 7 (sales, product, engineering and myself) increased our annual run rate by 700%.
If you could learn to do anything, what would it be?
Skateboarding! I’ve already started learning this as a New Year’s resolution (riding a Penny board), and it’s been a great way to explore San Francisco. Highly recommend the Great Highway, since it’s currently closed to vehicle traffic and very flat for beginners like me.
What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
Until the world is open and safe for travel again, I love curling up on the couch with our 5-year-old Frenchie and catching up on shows. The Mandalorian, The Queen’s Gambit and Ted Lasso are my most recent binges. If you have any recommendations, send them my way!
Why did you choose to work in technology, and what led you to working at a startup?
After 4+ years of “attending” tech conferences in San Francisco (I used to be a catering manager), I bit the bullet and challenged myself to learn something new. I’d always been afraid of technology since my Sociology degree and work experience wasn’t an exact match – but thankfully, I had a great manager at Google that showed me the ropes as an SDR and I’ve never stopped growing since.
Auburn celebrating Jaws’ 4th birthday
Enjoy this piece? Check out our previous spotlight, featuring Tiffany Chen, Sales Development Representative!