Blanca Galletero ─ Innovative leader creating exponential value from data with partners…
December 7, 2021 • 3 Minute Read
Blanca Galletero
Group Vice President,
Channels, Alliances and GTM Europe
Splunk
Are you looking for an innovative leader who has dedicated her career to creating exponential value from data with partners? We know the person—Blanca Galletero!
Blanca Galletero is the Group Vice President of Channels, Alliances, and GTM Europe at Splunk. She is responsible for leading the Partners Organization in EMEA with the aim to create value in every interaction within the Splunk ecosystem. Blanca is also the Leader of the Cybersecurity, Data, and AI cluster for Women in Tech Spain, with the mission to connect, provide visibility, and promote career opportunities for executive women in digital and STEM careers. When she is not working, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two daughters, and is a passionate apicultor (beekeeper).
Please meet this IT Wondrous Woman™, Blanca Galletero!
Our 10 Questions for this IT Wondrous Woman.
Fun Facts
1. What’s the one thing about you that your business colleagues don’t know about you?
Most people don´t know that I have a passion for bees. My family and I started 10 years ago with our first beehive and have grown our apiary up to 70 beehives. It is a great experience to do this together, and is especially satisfying to be able to share our produce.
2. Before the pandemic, how many air miles/KMs did you flying annually?
I used to fly at least twice a week, mainly within Europe. And 3-4 times a year to the US. Now that we have started to slowly come back to travelling I enjoy it even more than before.
3. What is the most adventurous food you have eaten and what city/location did you eat it?
I had crocodile while in Cuba and Fugu fish (poisonous) in Japan.
Your Career
4. What are the top two experiences, achievements or failures that shaped your journey as a successful leader?
The achievement that made me direct my career towards IT was when I developed an application to process the Cash payments for Amazon, in record time (4 weeks), with a team of 2 people, in the UK first, that got exported to France and Japan, back in 1998 when Amazon was still a bookstore.
A failure in my career was when I joined a company which did not live up to the values and principles they shared during my recruitment process. It was a hard lesson but it helped me to learn more about myself, and also what was important for me as a leader about principles and values.
5. Did you have a mentor in the early part of your career and, if so, what is the biggest lesson you learned from your mentor or influencer?
I have been lucky throughout my career to have had really good mentors. I would like to highlight specially a manager that helped me by trusting me, pushing me continuously but gracefully out of my comfort zone, and allowing me to take on bigger projects every time. She has been instrumental in my career as she became a role model and a north star for me.
Walking In Your Shoes
6. What is one piece of business or career advice you would give to your younger self?
Smart is beautiful, take your smartness for a walk and allow serendipity to nurture true innovation, sometimes we are too constrained by what is expected from us. Don´t be shy and be wildly creative when creating strategy, and obsessive when executing.
7. As a leader, how do you remain a resource for people early in their careers?
I love mentoring and internships. I actively mentor young girls to come into IT and also am a true believer in having pools of young talent close to me. They are always an inspiration and help me to learn new ways to approach situations.
Today’s Business Environment
8. What is the most interesting project you have worked on in the last few years?
I am working on the creation of an ecosystem that will populate a Sustainability Dashboard to measure the 17 UN Sustainability goals. The topic is inspiring and the impact and the people I get to know even more. In parallel, I am also working to set up an open platform to define a standard methodology to measure the UN KPIs.
9. What skills are you currently developing or refining (in yourself) that will make you a more successful leader in the digital economy?
I am actively working on learning techniques to build purpose around every project I lead. It takes courage, time and collaboration with the bigger ecosystem, but when you achieve it, the impact is exponential.
10. What is your greatest business challenge today?
Defining healthy ecosystems where all the parts create value in a sustainable way with a common noble purpose. Once you advance with a common framework, the sky's the limit and huge value can be created for the stakeholders.
