Anna N Schlegel: Globalizing Success with Active Leadership Demonstration

10 Influential Female CEOs & Women Business Leaders 2023

With a proliferative leadership career that spans almost more than three decades, Anna N Schlegel is the author of the renowned book ‘Truly Global: The Theory and Practice of Bringing Your Company to International Markets.’ Anna is a recognized leader who has climbed atop the ladder of success and scaled her business to global levels. Moreover, she has helped various tech companies in the Silicon Valley become global players.

Becoming Truly Global

In 2017, Anna published her first book. The revised second edition was released in 2021. It offers an insider’s look at how companies can thrive in international markets, overcoming different cultures and language barriers. Anna takes a comprehensive dig into the globalization process from the beginning till the end. She also covers topics such as who to hire for the globalization team, how to make globalization an integral part of each department, and how to use the team’s research to build a brand’s presence in new markets. 

The Brains Behind the Geniusness

Anna is a demonstrated leader who holds demonstrated success in leading Fortune 500 global product management, digital transformation, enterprise content strategies, and international market strategy. She succeeds in firms that are experiencing significant global expansion, company revival, digital transformation, and engineering innovation. She has vast knowledge earned through postings in the United States and abroad and by having attended 5 different Universities in Europe and in the US.

Presently, Anna spearheads as the Vice President, Global at Procore Technologies. Being at the company’s forefront, she oversees the global expansion of the construction industry’s top software platform and ecosystem.

Inspired by a Robust Beginning 

Born between the Catalan and French borders, Anna believes that spending summers on the Mediterranean shore with many European visitors began her “Truly Global” DNA. She tutored and babysat before entering the realm of software, products and linguistics. Her foray into globalizing technology began when she joined a software business located in Barcelona during her undergraduate studies. She realized that in order for a product to sell outside of a country, it must be effectively positioned in the same way that a native would use it. She began as a technical translator, later opening her own localization firm and delving into code re-engineering. At this point, she has led globalization, global infrastructure, digital transformation, and PLCs at companies like Cisco, Xerox, VeriSign, VMware, NetApp and Procore Technologies, and she has done a fair amount of consulting with Google, Yahoo, and even companies like Levis Strauss.

Having authored “Truly Global: The Theory and Practice of Bringing Your Company to International Markets”, Anna believes that the long title explains it all. She describes, in the book, what globalizers do after leading and driving globalization at several large organizations, and serving as CEO and General Manager for a couple of globalization firms. With respect to that, she remarks, “I had and still have not seen another book that explains the craft of globalization from inside a corporation, what a company has to go through to win globally. It’s quite an orchestration, and it’s not widely known. People understand what a CMO does, or a CFO does, but our world, as an industry, seems to be rather misunderstood, or misplaced.” Speaking of the book’s success, it has been released twice and has sold in many countries. Moreover, it is being used by several universities. 

Diving into the Technology Sector

When she was 24, Anna founded her first company to globalize products in San Francisco. It was not all rainbows and sunshine for her during the initial phases of the company. For instance, it had minimal expectations for how Silicon Graphics would fare in Germany. However, she went to work on those issues. Then she got caught in teaching Google to speak Catalan using what was then known as “crowdsourcing.” She became captivated, and she learned more and more with each assignment and new companies she was serving. Anna had not started as an engineer, and that is why she had to go back to school, as all the difficulties pointed to the code line as the language foundation. Anna loved team building coming from a strong volleyball background; after joining Cisco, she was matched for a year with a female mentor who worked at AAA, and her journey into global team management began.

Established in 2000, Procore Technologies is currently on a mission to connect everyone in the world of construction on a global platform. The team ensures that one platform can have all people, systems, and data working together in the world of construction. The company’s goal is to make the construction industry easier, safer, and more productive with the use of technology.

Spearheading at the Forefront

As the Vice President, Global at Procore Technologies, Anna wears multiple hats and undertakes various forms. At the forefront, she leads 8 different groups, from Product Flexibility, International Product Management, the Globalization team, Global Market Strategy, Technical Publications, and Customer Education and Certification teams.

Inside the office, Anna invests a lot of time mentoring, brainstorming, setting direction, taking perspectives, talking with co-workers and customers, and even finding time to have lunch. She travels a lot, especially now that the company is expanding globally. She emphasizes that it is all about the team first, aligning with the company’s direction, and having good values as a human.

Recognized as a Laurelled Professional

Besides being an excellent leader, Anna is also a laurelled leader who has been recognized with several awards. For instance, in 2014, she was named employee of the year at NetApp. That was a very big surprise, and she had no idea why she was getting it, as she was just doing her job. 2 years later, a coworker nominated her for a STEM award in the United States; then came Silicon Woman of the Year in 2018, and then people started requesting her to appear on magazine covers non-stop, which became a new thing and sort of odd until Anna dag deep into the % of females that had started companies, started nonprofits to support women or had patents like her. 

Being a highly decorated leader, Anna has emerged as the epitome of female leadership on a global level. She has helped numerous companies scale success globally with her intellect and strategies. She envisions continuing doing so in the upcoming future. To learn more about Anna you can visit her website: www.trulyglobalbusiness.com 

in 2021 Anna received the highest honor by the Catalan Government, La Generalitat, with the Saint Jordi Cross, which is awarded to citizens who have given back to their country at the level of the excellence. She received it because of her influential work in high tech in a male dominated society from the linguistics perspective and diplomacy.

“Take care of yourself first, like they tell us on airplanes. As a leader, you need to show up with a lot of strength, and that means, you are well rested and balanced.”  – Anna Navarro Schlegel