Ray Makela
General Manager
Ray is recognized as a thought leader in the sales training industry and has worked with clients in a wide range of industries including high-technology, health sciences, financial services, manufacturing, and professional services. Ray’s videos, white papers, and blog posts are frequently featured in leading trade publications. Before SRG, Ray was a partner and owner at Codesic Consulting. He was responsible for business development, managing customer relationships, and the development of the sales team. Ray has also held management positions at Accenture and Claremont Technology Group as a consultant in the Organizational Development and Change Management practices.
Earlier in his career, Ray served for seven years as an officer in the US Navy. He earned his B.A in Speech Communications from the University of Washington and an M.P.A. in Public Administration and Information Systems Management from the University of Southern California. At SRG, Ray has worked with industry-leading clients including Aristocrat, Dartktrace, Edwards, ServiceNow, Infor, Microsoft, and Navistar.
Norman Behar
Managing Director
Norman is recognized as a thought leader in the sales training industry and has worked with clients in a wide range of industries including financial services, healthcare, technology, manufacturing, and distribution. Norman’s white papers and blog posts are frequently featured in leading trade publications. Previously, Norman served as President and CEO of Catapult, Inc., a leading provider of personal computer training services, where he managed sales and operations prior to the company’s acquisition by IBM. Norman attended the University of Washington where he received his B.A. from the Foster School of Business and graduated Summa Cum Laude. At SRG, Norman has worked with industry-leading clients including ABM, AIG, Bio-Techne, Humana, RR Donnelley, and Zoom Communications.
David Jacoby
Managing Director
David has extensive experience developing and implementing innovative sales training and sales leadership development solutions for clients. David has written numerous blogs and white papers on sales training, sales effectiveness, and sales management, which are frequently featured in leading trade publications. David received his J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and received his B.A. from the University of Washington, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. At SRG, David has worked with clients in a wide range of industries, including AIG, Alcon, Coupa, Infor, Microsoft, Nintex, Verint, and Zoom Communications.
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, Infor, MedPro, and Microsoft.
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 (SRG). At SRG, Laura has worked with industry leading clients including Aptia, BigHand, Bio-Techne, Deluxe, and Wipfli.
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.
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. At SRG, Ilana has worked with industry-leading clients including Alcon, Coupa, Infor, Microsoft, and Zoom.
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. At SRG, Sarah has worked with industry leading clients including Bio-Techne, Citius Tech, Korber, and Open Text.
Chasta Bair
Senior Sales Training Consultant
Chasta brings over 20 years of experience in sales, sales leadership, and training. With a strong background in revenue enablement, she has worked with prominent organizations like 6sense and Xerox, where she served as the Sales Learning Program Manager. A strategic revenue expert and systems thinker, Chasta is passionate about empowering teams to drive field effectiveness and improve performance.
Jon Morgan
Sales Training Consultan
Jon brings over 25 years of experience in designing, delivering, and optimizing metric-driven sales enablement and training programs for Fortune 500 organizations. Most recently, he led global sales enablement efforts at Netradyne, a SaaS telematics leader in the transportation sector, and Honeywell Intelligrated, a $3.5 billion business delivering automated warehouse solutions. Jon also has over a decade of success as a sales executive with top-tier sales training companies. Outside of work, Jon enjoys outdoor activities, traveling, and golf.
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,Citius Tech, Deibold Nixdorf, FIS, and Zoom.
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.
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.
Kristen Talley
Senior Training Consultant
Kristen is an enablement strategist with progressive experience at Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Salesforce. Starting her career selling Google ads to companies like Expedia and LucasArts, she then spent 8 years living and working in Asia and Europe, building strategic programs to help enterprises capitalize on emerging technologies. Kristen specializes in field enablement, GTM strategy, and M&A enablement. She is a native of Seattle, WA, and currently lives on Fox Island, WA, with her husband, Jake, and their 11-year-old rescue pup, Maizie.
Chavon Torrens
Senior Training Consultant
Chavon has over 15 years of experience in sales, sales leadership, and training. She has held key roles in Revenue Enablement at 6sense and as the Sales L&D Director at Xerox, where she honed her expertise in leadership development. Chavon is passionate about coaching and empowering sales leaders and shes focuses on developing strategies and training programs that equip leaders to thrive in today’s competitive sales environment.
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.
