Alliances

Casey Foss

January 7, 2026 by

Casey is an expert at helping leadership teams develop, articulate and execute growth strategies, and helping clients capture value through emerging technologies. She spent more than 15 years at tech consultancy West Monroe, helping to guide the firm’s growth from $26 million to nearly $1 billion in revenue. Casey held multiple executive roles at West Monroe, including Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Commercial Officer, where she led everything from corporate and go-to-market strategy, to partnerships and customer experience, to IP and delivery innovation. She is an expert at bringing together multidisciplinary teams to design offerings that create value for companies, clients and their partners. Casey is passionate about mentoring future female leaders, supporting philanthropic causes including pancreatic cancer research, and serves on the board of Girls on the Run Chicago.

Why do you seek out high-growth, entrepreneurial organizations?

I thrive in fast-paced, nimble organizations that take a test-and-learn approach, and I appreciate leaders who are eager to challenge the status quo and fail fast. Entrepreneurs who have a growth mindset and who are willing to challenge their leadership teams to think differently about how to serve clients and empower their employees, are the ones who can create an organization that stands out and can have real impact.

You’ve had a significant impact on client growth at West Monroe. What is one lesson you have learned that you think is important for other services firms to consider in their growth journeys?

Today success requires blending physical and digital experiences, and using data to design something that is unique and drives real results. We talk a lot about how to create efficiencies through technology, but we can’t lose sight of the people who must engage with that technology and the processes to support it. This includes customers, partners and employees. Otherwise, it will be an expensive effort that doesn’t produce anticipated value.

When designing offerings or solutions, it’s important to start with the issue you’re trying to overcome and the desired outcomes, all through the lens of the industry in which you operate. Then it’s about handcrafting the right team, marrying multiple disciplines to design something that can be implemented and improved upon. That is the key to driving long-lasting, effective change within the organization.

In your 15+ years at West Monroe, you’ve seen the firm grow from $26M to nearly $1B. What do you think has contributed the most to the firm’s success and growth?

During my time at West Monroe, we evolved from a traditional tech consulting firm to a digital services firm and each evolution was special. But the bottom line is the biggest reason for our firm’s success is the people and reinforcing a culture of constant improvement. In a people business, employees have to understand the vision and strategy, but also their role in bringing it to life. We spent a lot of time making sure everyone felt empowered and accountable to make the strategy a reality.

Mike Epner

September 22, 2023 by

Mike has more than 25 years experience building and scaling professional services organizations, from early stage startups to global organizations. He has a gift for mentoring and motivating global teams, and has generated more than $1 billion in value across multiple services organizations. As the former President and COO of Traction on Demand, Mike grew the Salesforce consulting partner from 200 people to 1,500 people, overseeing sales, delivery and operations until the firm’s acquisition by Salesforce in April 2022. Prior to Traction, Mike was SVP of Consulting Services at Appirio, VP of Services at Borland, and CEO at TeraQuest Metrics. He has created deep partnerships with cloud pioneers like Salesforce, Google, and Workday, and is an accomplished photographer. He is on the board of the Texas Photographic Society and Zennify, a Salesforce and Databricks consultancy.

Why are you passionate about helping leaders of IT services firms?

One of the most gratifying aspects of being a leader is watching members of your team achieve things that they didn’t know were possible. When helping leaders in IT services firms, there are personal, economic and social achievements that can alter the course of many lives. For me, that is legacy – and why I do what I do.

You have a lot of experience as a leader, and a strong ability to mentor and motivate large teams. What factors are important when it comes to successfully leading large organizations?

Trust – a large team can immediately sense if your words don’t match reality. Building and maintaining trust in leaders and the team is paramount.
Communication – the “indirect network” becomes very important as companies exceed the 500 person mark. Leaders need to plan for this shift and change their approaches to recognize this – the founder-driven ways of influencing may no longer work.
Predictability – as a business scales, lots of things will change and leaders must alter course in response. Having real information when making these adjustments provides more certainty to decision making – and allows smart risk taking to capitalize on the opportunities that surface along the way.

What advice would you give founders who are just getting started in a highly competitive ecosystem?

Take the time to get the foundations that you will need to grow in place. These include your market differentiators, your economic models, your processes (sales, delivery, operations, etc.) and your strategies around people (who, where, key roles, etc.). Stay focused on what you will need as a business to establish ongoing advantages and evolve. The requirements of the company evolve every time you double your revenue and headcount.

Rich Lyons

September 22, 2023 by

Rich is an entrepreneur and growth expert with 30+ years of experience in IT, professional services and business development. Rich was the founder and CEO of Lyons Consulting Group (LYONSCG), a $50 million eCommerce digital agency and service provider that worked with global customers like GoPro, Patagonia, Herman Miller, and FootJoy. When LYONSCG was acquired by Capgemini in 2017, Rich went on to hold multiple roles across the company for the next four years. He served as EVP, Digital Commerce Experience Leader for North America, defined the firm’s global commerce go-to-market strategy, and led hyper-growth initiatives for Capgemini’s most important partners (Salesforce, AWS, Microsoft, SAP, Adobe, Google and others) with the goal to grow $1B+ practices.

Rich now serves on advisory boards, and advises business leaders on how to improve sales processes and accountability. He holds an MBA from Northwestern University and founded the Lyons School of Transformational Business, teaching courses on sales, entrepreneurship, and leadership. He is currently finishing a book on Life Is Sales, has been married for over 30 years to his wife Dr. Gertrude Lyons, and is the proud father of two daughters.

Why are you passionate about helping leaders of IT services firms?

I’m passionate about helping others to not make the same mistakes that I made. Having worked since 1995 in IT services and eCommerce (Whittman-Hart, marchFIRST, divine, LYONSCG, Capgemini), I have seen a lot and have a great deal to share in terms of what was successful and what was not.

You founded the Lyons Consulting Group in 2003 as a digital commerce agency, and ultimately grew it to $50M+ before being acquired by CapGemini in 2017. How did your strategy evolve over those 14 years?

I had a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) to be a $50M IT consulting firm by the time I was 50. Before selling to Capgemini, we started as a staff aug firm, and we pivoted and changed strategy many times over the 14 years that I ran the company. We got into eCommerce in 2005 and became the first implementation partner of Dewandware, now Salesforce Commerce Cloud. We shed all of our other IT consulting services in 2009 during the financial crisis and focused on only eCommerce. We added full creative capabilities, digital marketing/digital strategy, Magento (now Adobe) and Hybris (now SAP) as other platforms, and expanded internationally.

M&A in services isn’t easy, but Lyons Consulting Group has been a successful acquisition by CapGemini. What advice would you give to founders to help ensure a smooth integration for the team and customers?

My intention was never to sell, but the market changed rapidly. When we decided it was time to consider selling, we looked at both strategic acquirers and PE firms. It’s important to know the culture you’re going into, where you fit, what the future looks like to the best of your ability, and to ensure that your customers and employees will be well taken care of after the transition.

When it comes to a successful integration, communication is KEY – early and often, with clients and employees. We visited all of the customers that we could, and reached out to the others with phone calls. We held all-company meetings for the announcement, with many follow-up meetings to answer questions. Through all these, we tried to reassure our customers and our employees how they could benefit from the acquisition. For customers, it meant access to additional offerings and services. For employees, it meant additional training and other resources and opportunities that only a larger company could offer.

With more than 30 years of sales, alliance and business development experience, you’ve seen a lot. What are the biggest mistakes that services companies make when scaling sales?

Hiring saviors is the biggest mistake I see services companies make. Be sure to vet new hires, especially sales managers. I am a firm believer in metrics, so I believe that metrics and activity tracking should be a part of every sales compensation plan. Also, Alliances can be a huge channel for sales and leads – don’t undervalue this channel. And don’t undervalue a good alliance manager who knows the ecosystem.

Companies looking for that next phase of growth often decide to “go up market”, but it’s not always easy. What are the biggest challenges sales teams face when trying to break into and win business in the enterprise?

I always wanted to serve the whole market, so I believe it is a natural progression. Get happy clients and references in the midmarket. This will naturally lead to larger clients in the enterprise space. The key is happy, satisfied customers. Earn the right to be in the enterprise space. Everyone likes to hear a story with measurable results. Sales teams need to learn to tell these stories, with the results and benefits.

Joey Poarch

October 25, 2022 by

Joey has worked in technology consulting for more than 20 years, spending the last 14 of those focused on presales and solution architecture. He has worked as a consultant within large companies like PeopleSoft and within several fast-paced consultancies like Appirio and MTX to build their pre-sales teams, improve estimation methodology and tools, and work hand-in-hand with finance, operations and delivery to maximize profitability. He now leads the pre-sales team for Zennify, a consulting firm focused on helping financial services firms adopt Salesforce and nCino. Joey has also held leadership roles at Topcoder where he was the VP of Platform Services. Outside of work you will find Joey mountain biking in the mountains of Southwest Virginia or playing music with his band Chasing Fall!

Why are you so passionate about helping professional services businesses?

Working with and within professional services teams offers the opportunity to work with a variety of different customers across industries. I enjoy the continuous learning that requires, and the ability to share that knowledge across different customers, verticals and industries.

At what point in a company’s lifecycle do you believe the sales solution architecture skill set and roles should be built out? What advice do you have for companies starting this journey?

Organizations should be thinking about how they will support pre-sales on Day One. Day One for a startup might not mean dedicated resources as everyone has multiple responsibilities, however, creating clearly delineating between sales and delivery processes is important. Once you have a four or five-person dedicated sales team, there needs to be a plan for how they will be supported, and putting that structure into place doesn’t happen overnight. Fully onboarding a pre-sales resource is going to take 6-12 months, so make sure to plan your pre-sales team growth in lock step with your sales team.

Because solution architects play such a key role in both pre-sales and successful delivery, companies struggle with where to put these individuals or teams organizationally. What advice would you give companies as they make this decision?

Presales solution architects are typically part of the sales team, but almost always have a delivery background. In my experience, pre-sales should be dedicated to sales and not have a utilization target. Giving presales resources a delivery target can make for a contentious relationship with both sales and delivery because there isn’t a clear priority. Having dedicated resources for presales means they can focus on winning business and avoid conflicts of schedule and priorities set from multiple parts of the business.

Maintaining rate cards, including rack rates, discounting guidances and margin expectations tends to be a tough topic for companies to tackle. What advice do you have for companies just getting started with this process?

When starting out I recommend trying to keep ASM (as sold margin) calculations as simple as possible. Keep the number of roles to a minimum and figure out your average cost rate of onshore, nearshore and offshore resources. Work closely with your finance and operations teams to establish your ideal margin, and define your thresholds that would require approvals. Keep approval thresholds to two or three max. Keep it simple.

Katie Brown

September 23, 2022 by

Katie has been a “go-to” change agent in the cloud computing space for more than a decade, always on the hunt for processes that need to evolve, ideas that need to see the light of day, and more scalable ways to service customers. She started her career in technology as an individual sales rep, where she quickly noted the need for more intelligent marketing support. This led to her founding the firm’s first marketing practice, and eventually to leadership roles at Xerox and Appirio where she managed everything from solutions, to strategic programs, to global methodology and operations. She is currently leading Okta’s Expert Acceleration practice, where she is responsible for the quality and scale of its global expert ecosystem. Katie resides in Rochester NY, and when she’s not taking on risky home renovation projects, she likes to throw big family parties and support local politics. To burn off steam she likes to box and dance (not at the same time).

Why are you so passionate about helping professional services businesses?

Services are where the promise of the product is fulfilled. For many product companies, their service partners are their strongest advocates, eager beta testers and , frankly, a candid outside voice about the realities of a product in a customer environment. Plus, there is nothing more gratifying than engaging with a team of experts who can be a trusted, nimble guide to a future state.

Most IT services companies now offer some level of productized IP, from a packaged methodology to a true product, but few do it particularly well. Why do you think that is, and what can services companies learn from product companies to drive a better outcome?

Technologists developing IP at a services firm tend to focus on the “what”, not the “why”, of the offer. And when there is a “why”, it’s not all that different from what else is out there. Like any product, customers need to know why this solution really matters to them and why it’s special. Put some of your best/most grizzled customer-facing folks (e.g. account managers, sales reps) on the case to help crystallize the actual benefit language to customers that will translate well in the deal cycle AND in delivery.

At Okta, one of your focus areas was to accelerate the understanding and use of new products by external partners and your own internal customer success organization. What were some of the most effective tactics that you used to do this that services companies can adopt for their own IP?

For implementers, its labs, labs, labs! Oh, and lab guides. Get consultants hands on early and help them understand the early use cases for this IP. You will be surprised about how much they figure out (and QA) from there. For success orgs, involving them in later stage product design is key, so they can help to formulate the customer value taxonomy around that product. Putting together a cross-functional team of customer-facing roles and product teams before going to market is another effective way to propel knowledge across the organization. This will also reduce your dependence on lengthy and costly enablement programs that many times come in too late for the experts to truly scale up knowledge.

Many companies gather but don’t effectively leverage insights from NPS / CSAT feedback. What steps can companies take to better integrate feedback collected into their delivery approach?

First, gathering customer feedback and CSAT data needs to be a job. Someone needs to own it, and more importantly, when results come in, embed it as part of the organizational workflow. The owner should NOT be the project or account team, but sit at the practice, functional or geographical management level. The action can be owned by many people, but translating the feedback into action should be a measurable task with a name accountable. Also, create an ambitious, global target and report on it quarterly. A single, easy to understand target sustains attention. And finally, pay attention to whom you are NOT getting feedback from. Project health scores should consider not just survey results but also a lack of response.

Latané Conant

March 29, 2022 by

Latané Conant is the Chief Revenue Officer of 6sense, a RevTech leader that’s seen annual triple digit growth under Latane’s leadership and was recently valued at $5.2 billion. Prior to joining 6sense, Latané was the Global CMO and GM of Americas for Appirio, where she repositioned the company from cloud computing to customer experience, supported global expansion and helped pivot the company to verticalized selling. She has literally written the book on how to use data and insights to drive predictable revenue growth in B2B businesses, and is the founder of CMO Coffee Talk, a 2,000-person community of marketing leaders. Her background in product and services sales, combined with her unique experience in accounting, e-commerce, CRM and HR tech is not the typical CMO background. But then again, there’s nothing typical about Latané.

Why do you think marketing is such a critical function in people-based, services businesses?

Often CMOs underestimate their role in defining, developing, and maintaining a great culture. Brands build from the inside and manifest outward, which is why marketing must be very intentional about company strategy and culture. In a service based business this is EVEN more critical for differentiation and margin.

A lot of early stage companies struggle with establishing a solid GTM strategy and plan. What advice would you give to founders in this area?

First, find a category. Customers, partners, analysts, investors, and employees need to put you in context. You may not be an exact category fit, but this is where positioning comes in. Without an existing category, it’s going to be a long, expensive road. And being a category of one doesn’t help.

Second, use data to identify patterns in the market. Look at intent data to see what keywords and ecosystems are trending. Find a segment where you can differentiate and win, and then expand.

Third, before you hire a huge expensive sales team, test your hypothesis, adjust and test again. You need to understand your clear and defensible differentiators. Once you do, train the entire company (not just your sales team) on them.

Finally, don’t go it alone. Understand the extended ecosystem of what people buy around your offering. Develop meaningful and focused partnerships.

When it comes to B2B marketing strategies, you often say that in-market is the new inbound. Why do you think inbound marketing is dead, and how can companies get started with Account Based Marketing?

Demand generation and inbound marketing was born in the 1990s. For the next 20+ years, marketing produced content and interested buyers filled out a form with their email address to get it. Marketing then emailed them until they took a meeting. It worked pretty well then. Not so much now. Today there is a ton of great content available to buyers. It’s easy to get lost in the noise and if you make it too hard to get, buyers will simply go elsewhere. It’s also inefficient. You have no idea whether that “lead” is an ideal fit for what you’re selling, whether they’re ready to buy, or who else is involved in the buying process.

This is why so many companies are moving to Account Based Marketing, focusing less on leads and more on accounts and people, using the digital breadcrumbs out there to find buyers who are truly in-market. This requires an understanding of anonymous web activity (e.g. activity on your own website, research being conducted on other sites, activity on review sites like G2, etc.), which requires certain tools and skillsets. We’ve found when people move to this approach they have 2X bigger average contract values, 20% better win rates, and 30% better cycle times. If you wait for an inbound lead, it’s probably too late.

As a CMO, if you’re looking to build out a marketing organization, where would you start first? What would be your first 5 hires?

I think you simply hire the 5 best people you have ever worked with and the rest works out. A’s hire A’s…B’s hire C’s. So make sure you have A players on your team to start and build around them.

You’ve run large, growth-focused marketing organizations for both product and services firms. Is there a difference in terms of where marketing should focus and/or what kind of marketing leaders they need?

It’s a very different investment profile! Service margins are usually smaller, which means the percentage of revenue spent on sales and marketing is typically lower in a services company. This means you have to be more efficient with your spend, and sales and marketing alignment becomes more critical. Sales and marketing need to share the same world view on the overall bow tie funnel (acquisition through expansion) and jointly identify where and how to invest. Marketing dollars can take longer to generate results, but are typically more sustainable and programmatic.

Marketing directly to your channel partners also becomes more important. Software providers create categories and they invest in the top of the funnel / market education. As a services partner, your job is to reinforce how successful customers will be using the product and enable the channel sellers, which requires great sales enablement and top notch customer marketing.

While services marketing leaders may have different priorities, budgets, org structures and programs than product leaders, the role of the CMO is still the same. They are the Chief Market Officer, and they have to understand the market better than anyone else. This is why the best CMOs focus on data, market insights, customer experience, customer marketing & building communities.