Senior Professional Development Strategist

Gainsight makes triple hire to boost growth. March 25, 2026 Gainsight has announced the appointment of three senior leaders to its finance and go-to-market operations. Following the departure of Alka Tandian, after nearly seven years in the CFO role, Gainsight has appointed Paul Sheppard as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). In addition, the firm has appointed Ozlem Yuksel as Executive Vice President of Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy & Operations and Emily Singer as Senior Vice President of Corporate Marketing. The appointment comes six months after Chuck Ganapathi became CEO, and they are the first new leaders that Gainsight has announced. It is an exciting time for Gainsight as it looks to consolidate its recent acquisitions, including Skilljar, Update AI, and Moderate Kit. It has scaled its Agentic retention platform following the launch of Atlas, including multiple agents and further investment in Staircase AI. The company has also been recognised for its leadership in customer success from both Gartner and Forrester. With these go-to-market hires, it hopes to see the business grow further. Chuck Ganapthi, CEO at Gainsight, commented, "We are building the next chapter of Gainsight in a moment that demands both innovation and speed. Paul, Ozlem and Emily each bring a unique combination of domain expertise and enterprise execution, and represent the caliber of operators we need to succeed. We are excited to welcome them to the team." Who is Paul Sheppard? Sheppard will oversee global finance, strategic planning, investor relations, M&A, legal, human resources and IT operations. Sheppard joins from Amplify, where he was CFO and head of Corporate Development. He has held several CFO positions during his career, including at Entangled Group, Invoke, and ConnectEDU. He was also the Chief Operating Officer, Learning Science Platforms & Vice President, Strategy, at McGraw-Hill. During his career, he has worked in investment banking and Private equity, both in the UK and the US. Sheppard has an MA in Social and Political Science from Cambridge and an MBA from Wharton. He also volunteers as a mentor at the NYU Steinhardt Edtech Accelerator and is based in New York. Sheppard commented, "Gainsight has a proven ability to translate product innovation into tangible business outcomes for customers. I am joining an exceptional team of builders committed to helping Customer Success and Revenue leaders drive agentic transformation." Who is Ozlem Yuksel? Yuksel will be responsible for aligning Gainsight's GTM execution across sales, marketing and customer success. For the last couple of years, she has taken a career break, spending time with her family, travelling, and learning new skills. Before the Gainsight announcement, she posted about her recent experiences, "I reflected deeply on what kind of work and what kind of teams energize me. And I reconnected with curiosity, creativity and joy - things that I had lost in the daily grind. I'm incredibly excited and ready to bring this renewed perspective and focus into my professional life." Her last corporate role was at Google, where she was VP of Americas Operations. Before Google, she spent over 8 years at Salesforce in senior roles across Sales, Customer Success, and Marketing. Earlier in her career, she held positions at Hewlett-Packard. She began her career at McKinsey and Company. With nearly twenty years of experience across various industries, she is a recognised leader in B2B GTM strategy. She has worked at leading SaaS vendors and brings a wealth of experience to the role. Yuksel has a BS in Industrial Engineering from Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, a Master's in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford, and a PhD in Industrial Engineering from Stanford. She is also a member of the Chief Network. Yuksel commented, "Customer success has entered a new era where digital, agentic and human capabilities work seamlessly together to create lasting value," said Yuksel. I joined Gainsight because I believe we have the opportunity to redefine what that looks like at scale. I'm excited to help operationalize this next evolution by building a go-to-market engine that turns Customer Success into a measurable growth driver." Who is Emily Singer. Singer will lead corporate narrative, integrated marketing, brand strategy and global events. During her career, Singer built and scaled high performing terms at several B2B technology companies. She joins from Spring Health, where, as VP Marketing, she increased share of voice from sub-30% to 60-90% among key competitors, expanded press coverage by 50% YoY, and drove 10x web traffic during marquee campaigns. She joined Salesloft following its acquisition of Drift, retaining her VP of Marketing role. Singer led the GTM integration strategy for the acquisition. She aligned two high-performing marketing teams under a single vision while delivering on Drift-only marketing commitments and providing Sales support. Before Drift, she was the Director of Corporate Communications at Alteryx. Early in her career, she worked in PR at various agencies. She has a BSc in PR and Sociolog from the University of Oregon and an MBA from the University of Colorado. Singer commented, "Gainight has earned credibility, community and unrivalled leadership in Customer Success and is now uniquely positioned to disrupt the category it created. I deeply resonate with the company's mission to be human-first while winning in business, and I have long admired the brand's mastery of both AI innovation and human connection. I am excited to partner with this incredibly talented team to author our next chapter." Enterprise times: what does this mean. Gainsight has added three experienced leaders who can help it scale in a market that is growing more competitive. Despite being the leader, there are growing numbers of competitors in a market that is becoming crowded. Hiring Yuksel is an especially strong appointment. With time to reflect on her career to date, she will be eager to make a difference and continue her career where it left off. Singer brings deep experience and has led the integration at Salesloft. Drift will be valuable if Gainsight continues to make acquisitions as it did last year. In Sheppard, Gunapathi has found an experienced CFO who has experience in dealing with private equity and funding. Gunapathi is putting a new and exciting team together that he expects will deliver the growth he is seeking. March 19, 2026 March 11, 2026

Common Interest has acquired a 51% stake in Amplify, with plans to purchase the remaining 49% over five years. Amplify's leadership will become partners in Common Interest. Founded by Anthony Freedman in 2023, Common Interest focuses on connecting brands with audiences through popular culture. Amplify, known for its creative expertise, will collaborate with Common Interest to enhance brand engagement. Common Interest will move into Amplify's London office in May 2025.

Middle-of-year data from Amplify shows that schools across the country have made some progress increasing the number of K-2 students on track for learning to read, but broader trends remain a concernBROOKLYN, N.Y., Feb. 26, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Amplify, a publisher of next-generation curriculum and assessment programs, today released a research brief on the latest K-2 middle-of-school-year literacy data. Findings reveal that while this year's kindergarten cohort has returned to pre-pandemic literacy readiness levels, overall progress remains slow. Only 56 percent of students are on track for learning to read, and 29 percent of students are far behind."The return of our youngest students to pre-pandemic reading levels is encouraging—but that said, broad literacy trends in the United States are still concerning," said Susan Lambert, chief academic officer, elementary humanities, at Amplify. "This is a moment to celebrate, but also a call to action: To prepare students for life-long success, we need all students exceeding pre-pandemic early reading levels. By regularly monitoring student progress via tools like middle-of-year data, educators can respond earlier when their students need support."The research brief outlines how middle-of-year data is uniquely positioned to help schools plan for instructional changes and implement those changes before the following school year.Progress monitoring—identifying, supporting, and tracking outcomes—is one strategy schools can engage in when working with students who are the most at-risk for not learning to read