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Team Bios

Marlaina Capes

Senior Training Consultant, Americas

Marlaina has extensive experience helping organizations improve performance in the areas of sales skills and leadership development. She spent eight years with Microsoft facilitating and leading a sales enablement team.

Marlaina served as Director of Learning and Development at Washington Federal Bank and Head of Learning and Development at OfferUp. She developed the management suite of solutions at F5 Networks and at ServiceNow. She has extensive experience working with inside and field sales teams to achieve measurable improvement in performance.

At SRG, Marlaina has worked with industry-leading clients, including Alcon, Balluff, Goodpack, Gympass, Infor, Microsoft, Ring Central, and Wencor.

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Laura Choudhary

Senior Training Consultant, Americas

Laura's unwavering passion lies in her pursuit of driving outstanding business outcomes through the nurturing and development of individuals. With an extensive and distinguished career spanning over two decades, she has amassed a wealth of invaluable experience in both the private and public sectors. Laura's professional journey is punctuated by her remarkable 15 years success at Xerox where she outperformed as a B2B sales professional and spent many successful years as a sales manager. Over the course of the last decade, she has dedicated herself to the cultivation and implementation of cutting-edge sales and leadership development programs on a global scale. Laura's commitment to elevating both people and businesses continues to shine brightly as she delivers engaging learning opportunities with the Sales Readiness Group. 

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Alonso Chehade

Director of Marketing

Alonso Chehade is a seasoned marketing professional with a wealth of knowledge and experience in the sales training industry. With almost a decade under his belt, he knows what it takes to drive success for sales teams. At SRG, Alonso is the go-to for creating and implementing marketing strategies that drive growth and increase revenue. In addition, he has a burning passion for helping sales teams reach their full potential and is dedicated to helping sales leaders create a culture of continuous learning with a focus on delivering results.

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Jeffrey (Jeff) Cordes

Senior Director of Training Services

Jeff has sales, sales leadership, and training experience working in Fortune 100 companies across numerous industries.  He drives sales performance through the development and training of sales professionals at all levels. Jeff’s experience includes senior executive sales leadership positions at IBM Global Services as the Director of the IBM Management Development Institute, and most recently as the Chief Learning Officer for Xerox worldwide.

Jeff is nationally recognized for his ability to lead energized, thought-provoking sales training initiatives that deliver measurable results for sales organizations. His intense focus on changing the seller’s mindset to client-centric has transformed sales organizations, driving new business, account growth, and retention of top sales talent.

At SRG, Jeff has worked with industry-leading clients including ABM, Axonius, Evident, Navistar, Ricoh, and RR Donnelly.

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Ilana Guttmann

Director of Learning & Development

Ilana Guttmann has over 20 years of experience designing learning experiences for a range of industries. She specializes in adult learning methodologies that engage learners through a variety of media to achieve a high degree of transfer of learning. Ilana has a deep background as an instructional design and organizational development consultant, working with organizations that include Tableau Software, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and HTC America.

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Sarah Bedwell

Senior Training Consultant, Americas

Sarah, a cornerstone in business growth and sales professional development, began her notable journey as employee #72 at Tableau Software, spearheading its growth from $12.8 million to $1.1 billion. Her roles ranged from founding the EMEA office to leading Enterprise Sales and Sales Enablement, culminating as Director of Operations for a $334 million sector. Her own venture now merges GTM strategy with execution, focusing on sales performance and behavior change. With expertise in Sales Leader Coaching, GTM Enablement, and Change Management, Sarah is dedicated to elevating sales professionals' success and impact.

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Rein Kansman

Senior Training Consultant, Americas

Rein brings significant experience in sales and training to SRG.  With over 20 years at Sysco Foods, Rein's wealth of experience spans various leadership roles encompassing sales, management, and operations.

Rein is a published author, with his latest book titled "Introducing Love: A New Corporate Paradigm." Rein's insights provide invaluable guidance for cultivating positive dynamics within corporate settings.

Rein's educational background includes graduating from Michigan State University with a degree in Hospitality Business, which equipped him with a solid foundation in understanding and catering to the diverse needs of individuals and teams in professional environments.

At SRG, Rein has worked with industry-leading clients including American Republic Insurance, Briggs & Stratton, Navistar, and Pernod Ricard.

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Nathan Makela

Client Success Manager

Nathan brings a diverse skillset to the SRG team, specializing in writing, editing, operations, and digital learning. Nathan earned his Bachelor of Arts in English, Creative Writing at the Colorado College. At CC, he was News Editor at the Catalyst Newspaper, an editor at Cipher Magazine, and a News Intern at the Colorado Springs Gazette. Additionally, he has experience working as a peer tutor at the Ruth Barton Writing Center, a Design Assistant with the Innovation Institute at Colorado College, and as a Student Representative for the English Department. Nathan is known for his attention to detail and his passion for language, accessibility, and education.

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Jenner Marcucci

Senior Training Consultant, Americas

Jenner is a highly accomplished sales professional who has made a significant impact working with top-tier organizations across a wide spectrum of industries.

His extensive background encompasses sales, sales training, sales management, leadership development, and organizational development, positioning him as a versatile and sought-after expert in these domains.

Jenner is a dynamic speaker, facilitator, consultant, and coach. He has an infectious enthusiasm for learning, listening, and problem-solving. He spent 2 years in Madrid, Spain, and is fluent in Spanish.

At SRG, Jenner has worked with industry-leading clients include Alcon, Aerie Pharmaceuticals, Bystronic, Dentsply, and Oceaneering.

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Andreas Piani

Senior Training Consultant, Europe

Andreas is a highly experienced and professional sales trainer and consultant working across multiple industries. Earlier in his career, he worked for 15 years as a hands-on sales manager and director for several high-growth, B2B-focussed research and technology companies, with an emphasis on scaling their businesses by selling customized services to medium and large corporate clients.

Andreas's educational background includes a masters in Philosophy, which provided him with a well-rounded perspective prior to pursuing an MBA at Steinbeis Business School in Berlin. He is fluent in English, French, German, and Italian, and conversational in Spanish.

At SRG, Andreas has worked with industry-leading clients including Arjo, FIS, and PandaDoc.

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Greg Steward

Vice President, Business Development

Greg is an accomplished sales professional and sales leader. As Vice President of Business Development, he is responsible for new business development, managing client relationships, and developing the SRG sales team. Coming to SRG from a successful startup where he was a top performing sales representative, Greg refined SRG’s outbound sales strategy and has worked with industry leading clients including ABM Industries, Avanir, Edwards Lifesciences, HD Supply, Infor, Kemper, and Smartsheet on customized sales and sales management training solutions.

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Laurel Tanner

Account Executive

Laurel is responsible for connecting with prospects and working with them to discover how SRG can best serve their needs. Laurel comes to SRG from the world of education, where she was a classroom teacher, curriculum designer, and team leader in public and private school institutions. She led several initiatives to adapt classroom training to eLearning and virtual instructor-led training (VILT) using various online platforms during the pandemic. She brings her talent for leadership and empathetic listening to the sales team and prospects, and clients of SRG. Laurel holds a BA in Education from Western Washington University and a teachers certificate in Texas and Washington state. In her spare time, Laurel enjoys hiking and reading about personal development.

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Will Voelkel

Senior Training Consultant, Americas

Will has significant experience in sales, sales training, sales coaching, and sales leadership across multiple industries. He brings a results-orientation, creativity, passion, and practical solutions to every client engagement. In both, the consulting and corporate arenas, Will has designed and facilitated hundreds of training programs and initiatives.

He has extensive experience working with Fortune 1000 clients including American Express, BNY Mellon, Brown Brothers Harriman, Cigna, Colgate-Palmolive, J.P. Morgan Chase, Lufthansa German Airlines, Novartis, Pepsico, Pfizer, Northrop Gruman, 3M, and Weight Watchers International. Will is also an adjunct instructor at NYU’s School of Continuing Education and Leadership.

At SRG, Will has worked with industry-leading clients including Dataminr, HD Supply, FactSet, FIS, People First FCU, and Wencor.

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Maya White

Director of Client Success

Maya brings a unique and gifted eye for project management that she has crafted over the last 15 years of event planning and management. Most recently hailing from Point B as an event marketing manager where she project managed and lead events. The long list of compliments and high praises from stakeholders and clients alike speaks volumes of her ability as a PM. Maya effectively communicates with her partners to hear their vision translates into effortless anticipation and effective on the fly problem-solving. Her knowledge of systems and understanding of what makes a project run efficiently comes naturally. Maya is a part of the training operations team at SRG.

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