Lisa Del Real, Associate Vice President of Global Channel Programs and Operations at RingCentral, was one of three women to receive the 2018 Alliance of Channel Women LEAD Award recognizing exceptional female leaders in the tech channel. ACW LEAD Award winners were honored at a ceremony during the 16th Alliance of Channel Women ACWConnectLive Event on October 9th in Philadelphia during Channel Partners Evolution.
“Alliance of Channel Women launched the LEAD Award as a way to recognize those women who showed outstanding leadership, innovation in the channel, advocacy and mentoring for others,” said ACW President Stacy Conrad, Director of Channel Sales for TPx. “We had an overwhelming group of nominees this year. Lisa was nominated by her peers and voted for by the ACW Board of Directors as one of three women to receive this prestigious award. We are grateful for Lisa’s continued inspiration and leadership.”
Del Real drives global channel partner programmatic and operational go-to-market, enablement and support to make it easy to transact with RingCentral. Overall, her charge is to drive company revenue through the channel. Programmatically, Del Real drives partner mindshare, enablement and sales incentivization through creative communications, promotions, events, training and the curation of a top-notch partner portal across all partners. Operationally, Del Real’s team processes new subagents and master agents to expand the number of partners selling the service. Internally, Del Real creates and manages operational procedures for direct and channel sales to collaborate in complete channel harmony.
Combining business and technology early in Del Real’s career, she was a research assistant at Accenture Technology Labs and determined and predicted the future intersections of business and technology. Del Real holds a bachelor of science degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
ACW interviewed Del Real about the past, present and future of women in leadership.
Who is the woman who showed you how to lead the way (e.g., your role model)?
I have a long-time mentor I admire immensely. She left an executive position in technology to pursue a second career teaching high school students. My mentor decided to bow out of corporate America at the height of her career to make a difference in her community. I was fortunate to have this mentor as my high school math teacher. She quickly saw my love for numbers and problem solving and encouraged me to pursue a degree in engineering. I did so successfully with her support and encouragement. Mary, my mentor, defines altruism to me; to honor her, I will pay it forward.
What are you doing to lead the way for other women in the tech channel today?
I consider it part of my responsibility as a professional woman in tech to not only lead by example, but also to serve as a sounding board, a mentor and a positive resource for women in tech. I value the opportunity to mentor other young women outside of my organization who seek guidance and advice on their career growth. With the support of my leadership team, we have made a commitment to hire more women over the past two years. And when RingCentral makes a commitment, it sticks to it. I’m so pleased to see so many future women leaders both on my team as well as in RingCentral as an organization in general.
What is one thing we could accomplish that would most benefit women in the tech channel going forward?
Mentorship is key to the future success of women. Sharing key aspects of our own authentic experiences enriches and helps other women in both their personal lives and careers. It’s also important to note that no matter who you are, you can mentor and help another woman. This is how we give back, and that’s why I encourage all women to make it a priority in 2019 to mentor another woman–all it takes is one conversation.