Today we’d like to introduce you to Flora Muglia.
Hi Flora, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I graduated from Duke University with a degree in Public Policy and Arabic. I was passionate about tech policy and got a job in public sector sales at Microsoft. That is where I met Lauren Marturano, Zinnia’s Founder & CEO, about nine years ago while we were both in sales roles at Microsoft and it is also where I became customer-obsessed. I loved working with customers, understanding their pain points, what made them tick, all of the challenges they faced in their day-to-day work life- not just pertaining to Microsoft technology. My strategy was always to do right by my customer and know that the revenue would work itself out – and it did. I consistently exceeded my sales targets and received internal recognition through several awards and was entered into a high-performer program within the company.
About four years into my tenure at Microsoft, I had the opportunity to join an incubator within the company, Microsoft’s version of a startup, and build its nonprofit industry vertical from the ground up. I was employee #11 on a team bringing in $130 million in revenue (that is pennies for a company like Microsoft) and there was so much white space – every customer was like, “Yes, finally Microsoft is paying attention to us” and that is how we knew we were onto something. I was on the team for almost five years and had three different roles, I started in sales, then moved into sales operations and led global go-to-market strategy for Azure, Microsoft’s enterprise cloud platform, and finally was Chief of Staff. In under five years, we were able to grow the team to a $1 billion business with 200 employees. That team gave me a taste of the startup world and also a sense of the challenge that Zinnia’s business model is solving.
About a year ago in my role as Chief of Staff, I was tasked with planning a 200-person, 4-day offsite where we brought team members in from ten countries around the globe. It was the first time the team had the opportunity to gather in-person post-pandemic and there was a lot of pressure on maximizing the impact of the event. I coordinated all of the logistics, the content for the entire week and emceed the event – all on top of my day job. The event burned me out, but the lightbulb also turned on that there must be a better way to streamline event planning – technology had a role to play to streamline the headache that planning an offsite can be. So I called Lauren to better understand what she was building.
Lauren Marturano launched Zinnia in August of 2022 through the Atlanta Ventures Studio (who touts big names like Calendly and Salesloft) with an objective of helping bring teams together seamlessly through technology. Zinnia’s vision is for human connection to be at the center of every organization – which resonated deeply with me. I joined Zinnia in January 2023 as Director of Sales. Right when I joined, the economic climate started to look a lot more uncertain – and a lot of companies reduced or cut internal travel, which removed the offsite line item and we realized we needed to expand our offerings to support the events they were running. While they weren’t planning internal events, they were attending conferences and hosting customer dinners and experiences to accelerate revenue and deepen customer trust. Lauren and I both planned countless customer dinners through our tenure in enterprise technology and another lightbulb went off that this was a great way to help companies drive revenue while reducing the burden of planning and logistics that often lands on marketing and sales. In June, we launched Zinnia for Sales which enables you to plan and book a client happy hour, private dinner, or sales experience in a matter of clicks by sharing some basic information about your event, view restaurants with private dining capacity curated to your preferences, and select your venue of choice while Zinnia handles the rest. Our goal is to help marketing and sales scale their time, build trust, and drive revenue by breaking bread with their customers and cultivating a meaningful moment of connection.
As we look ahead to Zinnia’s future, we’re innovating on how we can further help companies build connections. We have some exciting offerings coming soon that will transform meeting preparation and customer research using the power of AI.
My journey has always included driving impact and creating connections. We’re excited to use technology to deepen connections between people in new and exciting ways, transforming the way we do business.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I’m a believer that obstacles create new roads and opportunities. My challenges were my catalysts to seeing new opportunities.
The first example of this was planning the 200-person offsite for my team at Microsoft. I was not an event planner, I had a very busy day job, and due to some unforeseen circumstances, we had a staffing shortage, so I was left to manage everything almost entirely on my own. The event ended up being seamless – it accomplished our goals of celebrating key milestones, bringing the team together after years apart during the pandemic, and landing strategic priorities, but it also almost cost me my sanity. Once the dust settled on the offsite, I realized that I wasn’t the only one tasked with planning a huge event who had no experience in the space. I also realized that there were certain headaches – like keeping track of countless emails and decentralized agenda and document tracking, that could easily be solved with technology. My headaches and sleepless nights became an opportunity and I knew I wanted to jump in and see how we could make similar events better for others in the future.
The other major obstacle recently has been the uncertain economic climate. Right after I joined Zinnia, budgets started getting cut, people were laid off, and internal travel was eliminated – and in the process, offsites were put on hold. However, this opened the door for us to think differently about different types of events that drive connection and the importance of deepening relationships to drive business growth. We realized companies were still hosting sales events and customer dinners, and from a tech perspective, those dinners are usually one part of the offsite planning experience. We decided to build Zinnia for Sales to help field marketing and sales leaders plan and book private dining, strengthening customer relationships and closing business in the process. Now pocketbooks are opening back up and offsites are back on the radar; we have a stronger tech platform to support the end-to-end event planning experience.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My background is in sales and go-to-market strategy. I’ve held roles from solution specialist, to account executive, go-to-market lead, to sales director.
I love working with customers, hearing their feedback, and translating the patterns into products and offers that solve their greatest challenges. I enjoy looking at the data to see patterns that indicate direction – what messaging is landing, identifying our true ICP, seeing gaps that could be filled by a new feature or offer based on consistent feedback – and then executing those changes.
At the end of the day, I am a customer advocate and I work tenaciously to support my customers. I take their problems on as if they were my own and believe that relationships lead to partnerships.
What makes you happy?
I’m a huge believer in balance – I love my work at Zinnia, building our business and supporting our customers. But also love my family, spending time with my fiancé and our golden retriever, traveling the world, eating at top restaurants and making new recipes, and spending time hiking or skiing in the mountains or surfing or scuba diving in the ocean.
Building a business can be all-encompassing which is really exciting. Having healthy outlets to create balance have been critical to my happiness and success!
Pricing:
- Zinnia for Sales – Pro subscription to plan unlimited events per month – $99/user/month – https://www.getzinnia.com/for-sales
- Zinnia for Sales – Starter – $200 per event – Zinnia for Sales – Pro subscription to plan unlimited events per month – $99/user/month – https://www.getzinnia.com/for-sales
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.getzinnia.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getzinnia/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/flora-muglia/
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@zinnia_events
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/getzinnia
