Profile: Ely Lai of Salesforce.com

Company  
Salesforce.com, the market and technology leader in software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service, is
based in San Francisco. The company manages customer information for more than 38,000 customers including ABN AMRO, Dow Jones Newswires, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, Sprint Nextel, and SunTrust Banks.

Salesforce.com uses Xactly Incent™ to automate compensation for its worldwide salesforce.

Title         
Senior Manager for Global Sales Compensation

Department
I work in Global Sales Operations, where I manage a team of four and work with an analyst in Europe and another one in APAC. We own the administration of the salesforce.com compensation plan worldwide. We have approximately 1,000 payees globally. 

A bit about me
I was born in Taipei, the Republic of China, but I grew up in Alameda, California. I won’t tell you how old I am, but I was born in the Year of the Ox on the Chinese Lunar calendar. Go figure that one out. Anyway, that makes me hard working and a leader. But on the downside, I can be stubborn.

Education
I attended American University, Washington, DC. Go Eagles!

What I like about my work
I probably arrived here 5 minutes before you for this interview (10 a.m.), but I was at work until 10 p.m. last night. I like the flexibility of my role and working with people around the world. When it’s 3 p.m. here, it is 8 a.m. in Japan. When it is 5 p.m. here, it is 9 a.m. in Singapore. And when it’s midnight here, it’s 9 a.m. in Paris. The time difference makes me quite the night owl sometimes.

Hobbies
Are you ready for this? I like to shoot pool. My friends bought me a pool cue and once you have one, well, you’ve got to use it. I consider myself a reasonably good player. Not great player, but good. I also love to cook. I’ll cook anything but I especially like to cook Chinese food because of my background. I also like Italian. On weekends, I can spend an entire day in the kitchen. I find it very therapeutic. And my work associates are the major beneficiaries of my weekend cooking marathons.

Favorite food
I think it’s just white rice. When I’m tired and grumpy, I want white rice. It’s comfort food. You know, like some people would say mashed potatoes and gravy are their comfort food.

What’s currently playing on your iPod?
I’m currently listening to the top 100 Billboard songs from the 1980s to 2002. That’s a huge range. It brings back good memories and it’s easy to listen to. 

When you’re not saving the world in sales compensation, what would we find you doing in your free time?
I would be playing pool, cooking or spending time with friends.

Describe your life at quarter close.
At quarter close, we work that weekend. It’s hard in this role not to work afterhours. I take a lot of pride in what I do and getting things right. It’s hard to walk away. It’s a global responsibility. As a team, we are here until the job is done.

We are a publicly traded company and we take the responsibilities seriously. Sales is closing orders. Order management is processing orders. We have a compliance team that audits every single order. My team is at the end of this process, which means we are the last ones to get all the data. We then process it through Xactly Incent and make sure we do our SOX compliance requirements so that we can release earnings.

What are some of the most satisfying takeaways from your job?
One of my greatest satisfactions is managing a team. I enjoy mentoring them and helping them grow. But sometimes the mentoring takes a back seat to getting the job done. It’s also nice to partner with your sales management team so they see the value-add that we provide. Finally, it’s always nice when we meet our deadlines in a timely manner.

What other things have you done in your career?
I first started working in sales compensation at Informix, a database company, which was later purchased by IBM. I later went on to do compensation at Ariba and Hyperion. I’ve been with salesforce.com for two years now.

How do you maintain your expertise in sales compensation?
We’ve used different consulting firms to leverage their knowledge. We’ll bring them in and ask them to take a look at what we’re doing. I also network with friends and peers in the industry, plus I belong to various user groups.

What’s the shortest amount of time in which you turned around a new commissions forecast for a vice president?
For a previous employer, one of my responsibilities was compensation plan design. Facing a particularly tight deadline, salespeople and management met in New Orleans—and we actually turned around a compensation plan design in just two days. Although we had a few conference calls in advance, the actual plan design took only two days! This was one of the best team efforts I’ve seen in compensation plan design—with salespeople, account executives, sales management, sales engineers, and other sales support groups working together to understand how the compensation would impact one another. So when the plan was launched, we had great support for a plan that leveraged everyone’s knowledge.

What is the most common obstacle that you face to complete commissions on time?
It’s a combination of sales splits—because they come late in the month—and being aware of any exceptions.  And we have a tight deadline. We have to make sure that all the front-end processes are in sync with the back-end processes. And we can’t process without everything being audited. Finally, we have to make sure payroll gets it to ADP. Coordination between global teams is critical.

What is the trait you most admire in your co-workers?
The trait I most admire is the desire to do the right thing for the business. Get it done well and get it done right. At salesforce.com, we all understand that we are part of a process—and that means we own a part of the process. If we can get our piece done then that gives other people in the process more time. We work well together as a team.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in sales compensation management?
I think one of the biggest challenges is dealing with a lot of strong personalities. Senior people are kings of their kingdoms. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell people that they don’t have the authority to approve something. Another big challenge is getting people to buy into why we are changing things; there’s a learning curve involved. It can be painful sometimes, but once you get past the hump, it’s okay.

If you could invite three people (living or dead) to a dinner party, who would they be?
Oprah Winfrey, Thomas Keller and my mother. (Note: Thomas Keller is the chef and owner of The French Laundry in Yountville, California. The Napa Valley restaurant has won several awards and is considered by many critics to be one of the best in the United States—some say in the world. Remember, Ely likes to cook!)