Employee Spotlight: Himali Shah – Solution Architect

If you have ever been in the fusionSpan office, you have probably seen (and heard!) Himali working. One of fusionSpan’s most dedicated team members, Himali is working around the clock to fulfill the needs of her clients. Serving as one of our Salesforce Solution Architects, Himali primarily works on implementations, support, and products within the Salesforce ecosystem.

We recently sat down with Himali to learn more about her past and present, as well as seeing where the future will take her. See what makes Himali one of the industry’s top CRM Analysts.

How Did Your Previous Roles Help You Prepare For Your Time Here at fusionSpan?

As an International Relations major, Himali did not originally come from a technology background. In fact, she joked that she “couldn’t tell you what an integration, SSO, or API call was before joining the team here.” Before coming to fusionSpan, Himali served as a jack of all trades at Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA). Initially starting off in administration, she worked her way up through various departments. Eventually, Himali transitioned into the membership department at the association, where she found her current love for CRM work.

Himali said that “Having association experience helped a lot, I am not an expert in Fonteva and Salesforce, but at SEPA I was allowed to grow and learn because I played a role in every single department.”

Her time at SEPA allowed her to learn so many things about the membership process, as well as how associations operate. Himali was able to see firsthand the mission and goals of an association, the marketing efforts, and even pain points from members. In fact, Himali said: “Whenever I’m working with a new client, I don’t feel like I’m working for fusionSpan. I feel like I am at that association trying to help them solve their problems.”

What Are Some Of Your Favorite Responsibilities of Your Role?

As a Salesforce Solution Architect, Himali’s main role is to ensure anything fusionSpan delivers is optimized and scalable for growth. Her daily responsibilities entail solving problems – this often requires learning about different associations and how each one works. Himali said one of the tasks she enjoys most is “putting on a detective hat” and hearing different issues from a customer through discovery.

She said “Growing up, I asked a lot of questions and used to get in trouble for it. Here, it is encouraged and part of my job. That’s cool.”

Hima also does large-scale implementations, as well as work on Salesforce products/accelerators. Recently, she even got to work on the roster Membership Power Pack (MPP) product for client-facing release.

She loves helping a customer make it easier for their members to join and update data during renewals, as she. explained “my favorite projects are not just developing technologies and stuff – we are consultants. It’s never about the technology, it’s also about the business and the processes.”

What Does Your Future Hold with fusionSpan?

Even though she has already grown so much at fusionSpan, Himali is always looking to improve both her personal skill-set and the Salesforce department as a whole.

She said that one of her upcoming goals is to become Certified Association Executive (CAE) certified, (and is actually looking for a study buddy)! Himali said that she “would like to become more involved in the tech and association sector,” and sees the CAE certification as a logical step in that direction.

In terms of fusionSpan, Himali wants to continue building the team, saying she “wants to build new detectives to go out into associations and help their business, processes, and technology.”