Amy Fanara is the new chief revenue officer at LRN. As CRO, she leads revenue-generating departments within the organization, driving sales and partner retention while building strategic partnerships and alliances. Her passion, integrity, skills, and experience are sure to drive substantial growth at LRN.
Amy joins LRN from Conduent, a leading business process outsourcing (BPO) organization. She led global sales teams to a record breaking 2020 finish and was instrumental in Conduent achieving a 94% increase in new business signings year-over-year. She accomplished these results while leading their commercial healthcare businesses through an organizational transformation.
Prior to Conduent, Amy spent 17 years at ADP, famous for its payroll, tax, and HR software, as a top senior sales executive. At ADP she made positive contributions to the evolution of the company by delivering solutions that fueled sales and revenue growth, transformed national sales staff development, and improved customer satisfaction. Earlier roles in sales took her around the world, including a three-year assignment in Tokyo for AT&T JENS where she was responsible for the negotiation of contracts with channel partners throughout Japan.
I sat down with Amy to talk about leadership, the importance of creating efficiency in an ethical way, and how she sees her role influencing the solutions LRN provides partners.
This interview has been condensed and edited for space and clarity.
Carolyn Grace: Much of your career experience ties back to making processes, communications, and operations more seamless not only for businesses, but also for the people who use their products and services. What has drawn you to these kinds of roles?
Amy Fanara: For me, it boils down to the interpersonal relationships that you build at work and the impact you can have on folks—both in their career and their life. I think that comes through creating efficient processes and role clarity. That helps you get to know people on a deeper level, place them where their skillsets lie, or develop their skillsets to where they want to be. I think it's a great way to move people in the appropriate direction and give them a sense of purpose in the role that they're in. I also think that I’m good at managing chaos—I've got seven-year-old triplets at home!
CG: What drew you to LRN specifically?
AF: I have worked in the world of sales and sales leadership for more than 20 years. During that time, I've always prided myself and my teams on the fact that we have operated at an ethical level. Because of how I have conducted my career, the mission and vision of LRN deeply resonates with me. I’m very excited to be part of the next step in the evolution of LRN. We have the ability to drive numbers by getting people into the appropriate roles and using processes to ensure we can meet—and exceed—our goals. And in doing so, we will impact so many lives because we have this beautiful purpose of helping people around the world do the right thing.
CG: What three things are top-of-mind for you right now that you hope to achieve internally in this role?
AF: There's a synergy when people are passionate about what they do, and you feel that the minute you get here. So first, I want to be able to do right by the rest of the organization and jump in and provide that same caliber of passion.
Next, I want to make sure that I can contribute my expertise to improving processes, which is already happening at LRN. My hope is to not disrupt the work that's already been done, but rather add a bit of my experience to take that process improvement to the next level.
Finally, I want to create connections with my peers and team as fast as possible. I often tell folks that I'm an over-communicator because I believe it’s important to share strategy and insight with people at every level. So, I'm scheduling one-on-one meetings with all of my the team members so that I can get a feel for who they are, why they're here, and what they think can be improved. In every organization there is always room for improvement.
CG: What about externally? How do you see your role influencing the solutions we provide our partners?
AF: I have a tremendous amount of excitement getting to know our current partners, talking about their own ethics and compliance evolutions, and understanding both how they’ve impacted LRN and how LRN has impacted them. I'm looking forward to finding partners that have been with us for years and hearing their stories. And I hope to meet partners who have just started working with us, so I experience onboarding alongside them.
It's exponential, the lives and the impact that I think LRN can have. Some folks might look at it as a sales organization, or selling a product or solution. But it's so much more than that. We’re listening to what our partners are trying to accomplish, how they want to get there, and what behaviors they're looking to elevate in order to achieve those outcomes. The partner feedback loop is going to be one of the most important things for me to understand.
There is a reason we call our clients PARTNERS at LRN. I am excited to bring a new level of connectivity with our partners that will strengthen the relationship with us and deepen trust. Our partners are at the center of everything we do, every decision we make. I look forward to creating more opportunities to build the bonds within this community so that are partners can learn from each other as much as they learn from us.
CG: As chief revenue officer, you have a voice on the LRN leadership team. What qualities do you think make up a good leader?
AF: Inclusivity and engagement for sure, which I feel are so prevalent at LRN and our day-to-day work with our partners. Our careers take a lot of our time; at times, we probably spend more time with our coworkers than our own families. If leadership can proactively inspire people, it makes that time worth it. Like I was saying earlier, I think we each have the power to impact people’s lives—at work and outside of work. I also think the amount of collaboration a leader is willing to extend matters significantly. When we surround ourselves with people who have different talents and strengths from us, that only makes the solutions we provide our partners—and their people—even stronger.
