No Ordinary Janet, with Janet Gregory

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Janet Gregory. Janet is a successful Silicon Valley tech maven and the breadwinner of her family. She was an early employee at a start-up in the late 90s and wasn’t sure if the business plan would take off. Much to her delight—it did—the company IPO’d and the stock price went through the roof … and then the dot-com bubble burst followed. As the stock went from its highest highs to its lowest lows, Janet and her husband watched their funds dwindle. Their nest egg was now, jokingly, only enough to buy a latte at Starbucks. This expensive lesson made Janet and her husband realize that they needed a trusted financial advisor to help them make better decisions and get out of the “buy and ignore” mindset they were in.

Today, Janet is mostly out of the paid work world, but still does some select workshop facilitation, speaking engagements and consulting. She ran the sales practice for KickStart Alliance for more than 15 years, providing strategy in business development and sales planning for clients expanding existing markets or entering new ones.

Janet has over 25 years of corporate experience in Silicon Valley, including two successful start-ups.

• ShoreTel (now Mitel) where Janet was part of a turnaround executive team that helped the company achieve profitability, rise from anonymity to top 10 market share. As Vice President of Sales, Janet positioned ShoreTel for a successful IPO (Initial Public Offering) and rise to #3 in the US market.
• Latitude Communication (now Cisco Systems), Janet was part of the founding executive team. As Vice President of Sales, Janet took Latitude Communications from zero revenue to profitability and a successful IPO.
• Octel Communications (now Alcatel / Lucent), Janet held multiple management roles in business development, sales, marketing and customer service.
• ROLM/IBM (now Siemens), Janet held multiple positions in sales and product marketing, rising from individual contributor to manager, and attending IBM management training.

Janet is co-founder and principal of Kickstart Alliance (www.kickstartall.com/), a consulting firm dedicated to connecting clients with customers.

Author: “Built for Global: Navigating International Business and Entering New Markets” (2017), “Hanna’s Story: Perseverance and Love Escaping Nazi Germany and Homesteading Wyoming” (2018), “Eat Happily” (2018), and “Age of Freedom: Women at the Crossroads of Career and Change” (2021).

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