Zendesk CIO and SVP of Operations Colleen Berube has been named a winner of the 2022 National CIO of the Year ORBIE Awards. The prestigious accolade is one of the premier technology executive recognition programs in the US, and comes on the heels of Colleen receiving a Bay Area CIO of the Year ORBIE Award in 2021.
For nearly 25 years, the CIO of the Year ORBIE Awards has recognized executives who demonstrate excellence in technology leadership, innovation and vision – characteristics and qualities that inspire others to achieve their potential. Recipients are selected via an independent peer review process of prior ORBIE winners.
Receiving the national award in the Large Corporate ORBIE category, defined as companies that generate over $1.2 million in annual revenue, Colleen was selected from a pool of over 200 applicants based on her proven track record of outstanding technology leadership and innovation, the business value her team provides to help Zendesk scale and grow, as well as her personal contributions to the broader technology and business communities.
“Congrats to Colleen on winning this national OBIE award after her Bay Area award last summer,” said Zendesk COO, Jeff Titterton. “Colleen and her IT organization team have helped Zendesk improve our processes and systems, pushing for transformation in our less mature areas and rolling out technology and tools including Z2 and CPQ that are making things better for our customers and more efficient for our employees.”
Under her leadership and in collaboration with teams across Zendesk, Berube and the CIO and Operations organization support and drive some of our most important cross-functional, initiatives such as:
Commerce to Cash: Quote to cash process and technology which is driving a meaningful reduction in manual intervention for the Sales and Revenue Ops teams including introduction of a new technology to provide a more efficient system to create and approve quotes offering a better experience internally for employees and customers, from configuration to quotation.
Z2: The revamped Zendesk customer service platform that transformed our channel strategy by eliminating email in favor of messaging for a faster and more personalized response, and created a more scalable and flexible tech stack. The change introduced bot automation that decreased handoffs to sales by 12% through improved lead validation and reduced total time to resolution by 28%, all while maintaining an overall customer satisfaction (CSAT) score of 90% since launching in Q4 2021.
Work Better Together: This is a company-wide initiative to improve our ability to scale that looks at how we are reinvesting to fuel our growth and make work easier. Teams across Zendesk saved a total of $16 million and 43,000 hours in a year through making intentional changes to how they work together. These efficiency gains translate into opportunities to collaborate more effectively.
Along with the CIO and Operations organization, Colleen has remained committed to building and improving Zendesk’s data, processes and systems, focusing on transformational change, and providing technology leadership, especially in turbulent times. Congratulations, Colleen!