Meet Doug McLeod – Director of Sales, UK & Europe

It takes a team of incredible people to deliver exceptional technology and service at Yottaa. We periodically spotlight some of the great people that make that happen. This month we interviewed Doug McLeod, head of our UK office!

What is your role at Yottaa?

I am the Sales Director for Europe, based in London. I work with companies in the UK and Europe who would benefit from using Yottaa technology to accelerate their website pages and serve their customers better. I’m also responsible for expanding our partnerships with technology and consulting companies in Europe, which is one of the most exciting growth areas for our business.

What did you do before Yottaa that helps you in your current role?

In my current role, I am taking a new, breakthrough technology that helps eCommerce companies increase revenue, and introducing it to a European market. It’s an exciting challenge, as Yottaa is not yet well known here, despite having almost a dozen great European customers like Kingfisher, Asics Europe, Nelly, and Cosabella.

I’ve been focused on helping expand new technology products into the European market for over twenty years, including several companies focused on improving the eCommerce shopping experience (Endeca, Amplience, and now Yottaa). I know from my experience with theses companies that the success of Yottaa’s U.S. based costumers can be replicated in the European market. Our strong customer references in the U.S. and the conversion rate improvements they routinely see (up to 20%) help enormously as I show European eCommerce teams the impact they can achieve by deploying Yottaa.

Before working at Yottaa, what was the most unusual or interesting job you’ve ever had?

When I first moved to Europe, I worked for a small consulting and research company. I helped expand their network of offices across Southern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Through that company, I had the chance to work with entrepreneurs and partners in some wonderful places…places that I never thought I’d have the opportunity to visit, let alone build a business.

What’s different about working at Yottaa compared to other companies?

When Rich Stendardo (Yottaa CEO) first described the company, the technology, and the culture at Yottaa, I was impressed by the proof-based nature of the sales process. During the sales process, Yottaa allows me to work with customers in a trial/POC to demonstrate the impact this eCommerce acceleration technology will have on their speed, bounce rate, conversion rate, and sales metrics. This is not something that many other technology companies are willing to do. I am able to make statements like “don’t take my word for it, let’s test it.” And then proceed to show the impact with their own traffic on their own site. Many people are selling eCommerce technology, but not many people are willing to put their money where their mouth is and prove the ROI before a customer purchases. I think that’s incredibly important in today’s market.

What do you love most about working at Yottaa?

I love walking into a room of people who are facing the complexity of running a large eCommerce site and web infrastructure, and giving them a new idea to help achieve their business goals. When I walk in, they typically haven’t met me, nor do they know much about Yottaa. As a result, I’m usually facing a lot of skepticism and doubt from the onset. I think the most fun part of my job is the process of establishing credibility through the strength of our product, our customers, and our proven impact on website speed and conversion rates. I’m able to turn that skepticism around, and leave them thinking “Yottaa understands our problem, has a product that works, and is willing to work with us to prove it.” To me, that’s fascinating – I love that.

What’s your favorite part about working with Yottaa customers?

When you are working with people running eCommerce websites, you have to understand that they are often overloaded with everything required just to keep the business running. They are also dealing with very technically sophisticated systems. When they interact with technology vendors, it is often hard to determine if a product will work for them, because the marketing claims and presentations all sound so similar, and sometimes don’t say much at all. I love that we can cut through all that noise and immediately prove value. That’s because our product just works – it makes websites faster overnight. I can’t take much credit for that – our CTO Bob Buffone and his team built our innovative technology and deserve the accolades. But I get to represent this innovation to our customers, and experience their appreciation when we can make their site significantly faster. It’s great to see them remove an entire list of performance projects from their queue that they no longer need to do, because now Yottaa does it for them. That’s very rewarding.

What do you like to do when you’re not at the office?

When I’m not in the office, I love being active. When I’m not spending time with my wife or our family, I’m often cycling, golfing, or walking my dogs. I also love reading. I’m a huge history fan so I enjoy reading history, fiction, and modern fiction.