We are DocuSign: Rola A.

Our “Employee Spotlight” blog series places the spotlight on DocuSign employees based in Australia who tells us about why they decided to join DocuSign, what they do here, what it’s like living and working in Australia, and more.

At DocuSign, we want employees to look back at their time here and say they did the work of their life at DocuSign. This week we sat down with Rola Almalak, APAC Customer Success Manager of Customer Enablement & Adoption, based in Melbourne to learn more about her career.

Are you originally from the Melbourne area?

I am originally from Beirut, Lebanon, I migrated 18 years ago with a plan to study MBA and convince my partner to move back with me to Abu Dhabi where I was working prior to migrating … here I am with 3 kids, a beautiful home and an amazing career in Customer Success at DocuSign. Melbourne is home.

What do you do at DocuSign? 

I lead the Customer Enablement and Adoption for DocuSign APAC customers, managing the Adoption Consulting Team and Customer Success Managers team.  The Adoption Consulting team plays a critical role in setting up our customers for success early in their DocuSign journey and the Customer Success Management team partners with our customers throughout their DocuSign journey to drive product adoption and help them realise the value of their DocuSign investment.

When and why did you decide to pursue a career in Customer Success?

My first customer success role was with DocuSign, I was referred by a friend to join the Melbourne Team. It’s been 4.5 great years with DocuSign, prior to that I filled a lot of IT positions across multiple large organisations, but I am doing the best work of my life at DocuSign. I simply love it!

What excites you most about working at DocuSign APAC?  

  • The people; smart and fun to work with and genuinely care for you, it’s like a family
  • Product innovation; I love the product and I use it a lot in my personal life! I sign all my kids’ excursion forms and last year I signed the building contract of my dream home using DocuSign.
  • DocuSign IMPACT, DocuSign gives the opportunity to give back to the community by volunteering at our preferred not for profit and I always look forward to that like a kid in Disneyland.
  • Work-life integration, when friends ask me how I do it all, I say I work for a great company
  • Career progression

What is the best advice you can give to somebody starting a new job in your department at DocuSign?

Be a quick learner, be curious, ask a lot of questions, and have the customer’s best possible outcome in mind in everything you do. We are only successful when our customers are.

Why should someone consider working at DocuSign and building their career here?

The growth is exponential, and there are great career opportunities across the company. DocuSign invests heavily in learning, I just started an advanced leadership course fully funded by DocuSign.

We operate like one family, last year I was diagnosed with cancer (I’m well now), and the first thing that came to my mind when I heard the diagnosis was my three children and my career, what I didn’t think about was how I will fight and manage the harsh challenge! The APAC leadership and HR team not only assured me that everything will be fine, they made special work arrangements, continuously checked on my treatment progress.

What traits do you most admire in your colleagues at DocuSign?

Everyone is always willing to help and support each other and if they don’t know they will point you in the right direction regardless of geographies. Not to mention everyone is intelligent, nice and fun to work with.

What traits do you think your DocuSign colleagues most admire in you?

That’s a hard question!  it’s not always what we think we are but how others perceive us, so I asked a few colleagues to help answer this one and that’s what they said:

  • “I admire you for your tenacity and determination in getting things done and right!”
  • “Your infectious passion and active contributions to give back to the community, particularly helping those that are in need”
  • "You are so passionate about your work, and it shows in everything you do."
  • "You know your stuff, excellent communicator and business focused."  
  • "From the short time we had together you showed poise and grit."

What is the best project you ever worked on at DocuSign and why?

Partnering with OTIS Foundation and helping them achieve their strategic goals through DocuSign. OTIS provides free holiday retreats to cancer patients and their families, as I have personally used the service and experienced the manual process including printing, scanning and a hospital visit to get all the medical forms signs it wasn’t a pleasant experience and I didn’t want anyone to go through this while they are battling cancer. So I worked with the OTIS foundation on a value assessment and built a business case to show the value of DocuSign and the savings and now they are customers of ours signing up patients through DocuSign.

Tell us something about the city of Melbourne that you love and that others outside of Melbourne might be surprised to hear or not know. 

Melbourne has it all! Beautiful nature, museums, art, music and all year-round action-packed event filled calendar (there’s always something happening in Melbourne). Also, Melbourne is very multicultural and is a diverse city where you can indulge in cuisines from around the world with a modern twist. The people in Melbourne are also very friendly and laid back.

If you were not working at DocuSign and could do anything in the world, what would you be doing/do next? 

I would be volunteering in orphanages around the world, it’s a perfect combination for my love of children and travel. It breaks my heart to see disadvantaged kids, particularly in the education space while we give our kids an abundance of opportunities. DocuSign gives us three volunteering days per year. I use one of those days to serve in an orphanage every year in Beirut and I take my entire family including the little one… one day is not enough, I would love to do more.

If you want to do join DocuSign where you can do the work of your life, visit our careers page.

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