Employee Spotlight: Derek Wright – Practice Director – AI, Cybersecurity & Data, RevsUp

Derek Wright was a high-performing sales leader for 18 years before building and selling his own SaaS company in 2019. Since then, he’s worked with dozens of founders at early stage startups, helping architect high-performing sales teams.

RevsUp, a Recruitment Entrepreneur Company

WHAT DO YOU DO AT REVSUP? I joined RevsUp just over a year ago, after spending 3 years as a solo practitioner, where I worked with seed-stage software startups and helped them build their first sales teams. Today, as an account manager and sales recruiter at RevsUp, I have five, sometimes 10 conversations a day with sales leaders and candidates about their companies and their careers. When you get the right people aligned, everyone wins.

WHAT IS ONE THING YOU WISH PEOPLE KNEW ABOUT YOUR JOB? Good recruiters have a massive impact on the companies they serve, particularly sales recruiters. Attracting the right salespeople to an early-stage tech startup can literally be the difference between success and failure.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT WORKING FOR REVSUP? Being on the cutting edge of the technology revolution we’re living through – I get to work with companies truly changing the world through some amazing innovations – artificial intelligence, blockchain, 3D printing, and so much more.

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING? I’m a big fan of Robin Sharma’s writing on spirituality, stress management, and success, and I’ve worked my way through his collection backward. I’m currently reading The Leader Who Had No Title, but my all-time favorite is Who Will Cry When You Die?

IF YOU COULD MEET ANY HISTORICAL FIGURE, WHOM WOULD THEY BE? Ted Williams, who in 1941 became the last baseball player to hit .400 for an entire season. He could have sat out the final game of the season and preserved that mark at .3995, but instead, he played the game, went 6-for-8, and ended the season at .406. Who has that kind of guts today?

FUN (TRUE) FACT: I’ve been to 26 Rolling Stones concerts across 3 decades.