Alexandra Gerritsen, Cali’s Vice President of Customer Experience and Transformation, has won the Top Tech Award, recognizing her as one of the “unsung heroes” of information technology in San Diego County.
Gerritsen received the honor, now in its 12th year, on May 16, 2019 at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. Gerritsen won in the category of small private organizations with 51 to 150 employees. The event is sponsored by Cox Business along with media sponsorship from the San Diego Business Journal, and is the largest annual celebration recognizing the county’s outstanding IT executives. Over 300 honorees were nominated by their peers and selected by an independent judging panel.
“Ali is at the top in everything she does,” says Cali President and CEO Doug Jackson. “The Cali team and customer benefits everyday from her ability to harness technology to make our work easier, more efficient, and more profitable. Her expertise and hard work has a direct impact on our performance, and gives us a serious competitive edge.”
Adding to that sentiment, Gerritsen says, “Cali is a disruptor in an industry that has not seen change for decades. The use of technology is a key differentiator and gives us an advantage over our competitors by allowing us to service the traditional B2B model and sell directly to consumers. We would not be a successful omni-channel, rapid-growth company if it was not for the technology we utilize at Cali.”
Gerritsen earned her MBA from USC’s Marshall School of Business and her Bachelors Degree from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. She also holds a number of specialized project management certifications which have proven invaluable in implementing large-scale infrastructure, business systems, customer experience programs, and department restructuring campaigns at Cali.
Her many accomplishments in 2018 included integrating new business systems, incorporating improved infrastructure, and designing new customer experience procedures. As a result, Cali now benefits from better demand forecasting, optimized digital marketing, automation efficiencies, strengthened emergency back-up systems, survey technology to track customer sentiment, and an improved phone platform enabling reps to make 30% more calls.
Before coming to Cali, Gerritsen served as Director of Technology and then Senior Director of Operations at Buzztime in Carlsbad, where her focus on automation, business process improvement, and implementing lean methodologies saved the company $55,000 in recurring spend each month in her first year.
Beyond the many new systems improvements she spearheaded, Gerritsen is also an extremely well-liked and respected leader on the Cali team. She is driven, highly experienced, helpful, and a genuinely fun person who never loses sight of the humanity of the people she works with.
“I am so honored to be given this recognition,” Gerritsen says. “I could not have achieved this award without the help and support of my Cali Tech Team, as well as this company’s commitment to continuous improvement through the use of technology.”