At Full Speed with Jeanne Rotenberry

Andrea.zils

Jeanne Rotenberry, Senior Executive Assistant to the CEO, is freshly back from her family vacation in Hawaii and ready to tell us all about what it is like to run the day-to-day Office of the CEO. She explains, “In this role, you wear a lot of hats, and no two days are the same. From scheduling meetings, coordinating travel, and board responsibilities, supporting senior leaders is mainly about putting your hands into everything, figuring things out, and constantly finding ways to improve things.” 

As you may have already guessed, Jeanne is a rock star multitasker, and at one and a half months into the job, she is just getting started. On her second week at Anaplan, she flew to Vegas to attend Hub 18, where she was blown away by the passion and energy of our customers. “How many people get to say their onboarding was Hub?” she laughs. “It was an incredible event. I loved witnessing the work that went into putting together the keynotes and enjoyed listening to our customers speak about their journey with Anaplan. I learned so much about what we do just by listening to Frank and Sampath speak during their session.” 

Back from Hub, Jeanne jumped right into AnaplanGO, which she also loved since it gave her a great insight into our culture, especially our Customer First focus. “I love that Anaplan is customer centric because they’re the reason why we’re here. We have an open, authentic, inclusive, collaborative, and creative environment, and I find that amazing. People here are extremely talented, and everyone is encouraged to speak up and share their opinion, which leads to our ability to GSD.” 

Outside of work, Morgan, 12, and Alexa, 9, keep Mom busy as well. Jeanne jokes that her second full time job is being a “mommy chauffeur,” driving her daughters around to cheerleading practices, theater rehearsals, and everything in between. “They are two super active girls who love what they do, which is so important. I strongly believe that if you don’t love what you’re doing, then it’s not worth doing anymore, and it’s time for a change.” 

Jeanne’s “love what you do and do what you love” approach to life is inspiring, and she has more advice for new employees at Anaplan wishing to be successful. “If you want to instill change, you need to lead by example. You cannot simply say ‘This should be done this way.’ You have to get up and do it for others to follow.” Her second piece of advice is about something a lot of people fear: change. “To be successful, you need to have a flexible mind. Change is inevitable and being adaptable is the most useful tool you can arm yourself with. Start by being flexible in your mindset and in your approach, and the rest will follow.” 

Speaking of change, if there’s one thing Jeanne is not afraid of, it’s switching up her hair color. “Yes, I have blue hair. Individuality should be celebrated, and there’s always a way to make it work in any environment. I’m thinking of going purple next, my husband is going pink for the summer!”