Propel22: We're just getting started!

Two years ago, when we started building Rocketlane, we had thorough, perceptive conversations with leaders in the customer onboarding and implementation industry. We realized that each person we talked to had honed in on and perfected one aspect of onboarding: kickoffs, stakeholder management for enterprises, gamification of product adoption, partner-led onboarding, you name it.

We thought we should set up an avenue where people can help each other bring such new ideas into each other’s onboarding process. This led us to create Preflight, a global community for customer onboarding and implementation professionals. We also created resources such as podcasts and templates. 

We wanted to take it a notch further and provide a global platform for leaders to share their knowledge and for professionals to learn and network. And so, Propel was born.

Of community, sharing, resourcefulness

The maiden Propel event, Propel22, brought together more than 30 industry leaders and experts who shared their learnings and insights over the course of two days (March 15 and 16, 2022). 

Propel attendees learned best practices, lessons that speakers drew from their experiences, and actionable ideas to transform their onboarding teams from cost centers to strategic differentiators. 

Here’s the full list of thought leaders who delivered talks and workshops at Propel22:

1. Aaron Jones - VP - Services and Global Partner Strategy at HubSpot
2. Aaron Thompson - Founder & CEO of Red Slacks and CRO at SuccessHACKER
3. Alex Farmer - Founder of Customer Success Excellence and VP - Customer Success @ Cognite
4. Bill Cushard - Host of Helping Sells Radio, author of The Art of Agile Marketing: A Practical Roadmap for Implementing Kanban and Scrum in Jira and Confluence, Executive Director & Global Head - Future of Work and Customer Education Practices at ServiceRocket
5. Deepak Kumar - CCO - ContractPodAi and angel investor
6. Donna Weber - Customer onboarding expert and author of the bestseller Onboarding Matters
7. Ed Powers - Seasoned Customer Success expert and consultant
8. Emilia D'Anzica - Founder of Growth Molecules and globally recognized as one of the Top 25 Customer Success Leaders 
9. Gaines Murfee - Manager - Customer Implementation @ Chili Piper
10. Gemma Cipriani-Espineira - Chief Customer Officer @ Chili Piper
11. Irit Eizips - Top CS strategist, CEO & Chief Customer Officer at CSM Practice
12. Jeff Kushmerek - CEO & Founder of Infinite Renewals
13. Jerry Henry - Director - Professional Services and Onboarding at Sendoso
14. Kristen Hayer - Founder & CEO, The Success League
15. Kristi Faltorusso, VP - Customer Success at Client Success
16. Lincoln Murphy - Expert, thought leader, and Customer Success Growth expert at Sixteen Ventures
17. Maranda Dziekonski - Chief Customer Officer at Swiftly
18. Mary Poppen - Chief Strategy and Customer Officer @ involve.ai 
19. Matthew May - Go-to-Market advisor and ScaleUp Strategist for companies in the investment portfolio of Insight Partners, author of bestsellers The Shibumi Strategy and The Laws of Subtraction
20. Meg Lovell - Senior Director - Business Transformation @ Everbridge
21. Mikael Blaisdell - Executive Director, Customer Success Association and Director @ Mikael Blaisedell & Associates
22. Peter Armaly - Advisory Board Member @ CSM Practice and VP - Customer Success @ ESG
23. Rod Cherkas - CEO at HelloCCO and the former VP of Professional Services at Gainsight
24. Star Hofer - One of the Top 100 Customer Success Strategists for 2020 and 2021, VP - Customer Success at PartnerStack
25. Srikrishnan Ganesan - Founder & CEO, Rocketlane

A big thank you!

We’d like to thank the speakers for making time in their schedules and investing their energy and effort in this initiative. Every one of them enthusiastically agreed to be a speaker when we approached them.

To quote Rocketlane’s CEO and co-founder Srikrishnan Ganesan, “There’s something about the CS and PS community. You ask and they give. They don’t say no. It’s all very pay-it-forward. We’re all beneficiaries.”

Equally important are the professionals and experts who attended the event. It was encouraging to see the level of engagement you displayed on both days, it kept us motivated and helped us keep the momentum going. We hope to come back next year bigger and better!

In the meanwhile, we’d love to hear from you on what you thought about Propel22, what we could have done better, and topics we should be covering in the next Propel. Do write to propel@rocketlane.com with your suggestions and feedback!

More resources

1. Propel22 recordings
2. Implementation Stories
3. Preflight Conversations
4. The Launch Station - a podcast for all things customer onboarding
5. Customer onboarding resources from Rocketlane