Aries Systems Corporation

Tell us a little about yourself – how long have you been working for Aries? What did you do before joining Aries?    

I joined Aries last summer as a Business Development Manager on the global Sales team. I’ve been in the higher education space selling cloud technologies/SaaS for about 15 years spanning roles at McGraw-Hill, Oxford University Press, and Cambridge University Press. I began working more closely with researchers when I took a position as Sales Director at Code Ocean, a New York based startup (at the time)where I helped launch a new vertical selling a computational reproducibility platform to researchers and libraries. Just before joining Aries in July 2022, I worked on a platform sales team for a reseller of Oracle’s cloud systems targeting CIOs/CTOs in higher education and was able to collaborate on some really innovative projects with Apple to implement campus-wide solutions for student access/control and POS projects.

What have your roles at Aries been?

My current role at Aries involves selling new products and services to existing customers and bringing on net new EM/PM customers. My territory includes North America, Latin America, and Central America. Since I’ve come onboard with Aries, I have been fortunate enough to be involved with other key accounts across the globe and I really enjoy seeing the immediate impact of solving problems with our technology throughout the scholarly publishing ecosystem.

How have your previous roles helped you in your current position?

Some of my previous roles were at organizations who were also market leaders with their product/service, much like Aries, but it’s always a challenge to lure customers away from competitors who also have a strong following with sticky solutions. Nearly all of my previous roles involve developing sales and marketing strategies in order to break into new markets with new use cases, so that’s something I really enjoy.

How do you stay up to date with customer needs and industry trends?

Industry conferences have been a great way so far to better understand customer needs, especially now that very few offices are requiring people to return to in-person work environments. I do enjoy staying as close to the end user as possible because that’s where you really get to hear what the needs are and also get a sense for what the real pain points are. In my experience, gone are the days of monolithic large deals decided on by a small group of decision makers. End users have a tremendous amount of influence and there’s a lot more work on the Sales side to educate stakeholders as to what problems we are solving as different roles come in and out of these conversations leading up to a final decision.

Attending Aries’ recent Editorial Manager User Group meeting (EMUG) in person was a valuable experience, as it allowed me to directly engage with our user community. During the event, I had the chance to converse with our users about the latest industry trends, identify potential opportunities, and address any existing gaps in their workflows and technology needs.

Tell me about your department and the people you work most closely with.

I work on the Sales/Business Development team. I really value the folks on the Aries Client Services (CS) team and don’t think I could do much of my job without their help whether it be answering my technical questions about the platform, connecting me with customers, or providing their insights so I can best address user needs. On the contract renewal side of the business, I tend to lean on the Billing team quite a bit as they help me navigate the various systems and processes. I also work closely with the Marketing team in shaping new GTM strategies and Sales assets.

Describe your typical workday.

Most of my time is spent reaching out to prospects and managing my sales pipeline. Depending on the stage of the prospect and what problems they are having, there could be weeks where a lot of effort is geared towards drafting/reviewing agreements, analyzing billing data, prepping for demos, drafting pricing and proposals, or prepping for customer facing demos.

What do you most enjoy about your job? What do you enjoy most about working for Aries?

I really enjoy taking new customers through the entire sales cycle and having them come back to add on additional products or services. This shows me that they are not just happy with the sales part of the process but that they also have had a great experience with other members of the Aries team along the way—it’s a real compliment when those same customers boomerang around for more.

What are you currently reading, listening to, or watching?

I started reading a book called Dark Pools about AI driven trading bots that feed on big orders from mutual funds and retail orders. My Spotify is currently littered with Taylor Swift songs but that’s only because my two daughters have taken over my playlists! I enjoy listening to the live music in Austin when I can, and my most recent concerts were seeing the Marcus King Band and a group from Mexico City called Jesse & Joy.

Tell me about some of your hobbies/interests outside of work.

I have a wet lab and enjoy black and white photography.