GTM 168: How ZoomInfo Built a $1B RevOps Engine, The Operating Cadence Behind Breakout Growth | Tessa Whittaker
The GTMnow Podcast
Driving AI Adoption: Trials, Hackathons, and Leaderboards
Tessa shares lessons from adoption experiments, internal agent hackathons, and leaderboards to democratize AI creation.
Tessa Whittaker is the VP of Revenue Operations at ZoomInfo, where she leads a 70-person global team powering one of SaaS’s most efficient $1B+ revenue engines. Over the past decade, she’s helped architect the systems, cadence, and AI workflows that underpin how ZoomInfo operates at scale.
Tessa is known as one of the most thoughtful operators in tech, bringing structure, clarity, and rigor to how GTM organizations run. Her work sits at the intersection of data, process, and execution, proving that with the right operating cadence, even the most complex go-to-market systems can move in rhythm.
Discussed in this episode
- Building a personal operating system (Salesforce's V2MOM, Notion, weekly reviews) that maps vision → methods → measurable actions.
- “Operating rhythm” for GTM: the meetings, reviews, and enablement that create predictable execution.
- Color-coding calendars to align time with quarterly KPIs (and fixing misallocation).
- Counterintuitive up-market move: automate down-market so scarce humans focus on enterprise.
- AI intake & prioritization agent: compressing 10–15 hrs of RevOps scoping into one interaction.
- Democratizing creation: org-wide agent “hackathons,” usage leaderboards, and adoption lessons.
- Health OS during sprints: cut alcohol, protect sleep, simplify to sustain output.
- What to buy vs. build; auditing tech stacks; avoiding (and accepting some) agent sprawl.
Episode highlights
00:00 — Systems beat motivation; why cadence creates consistency.
01:36 — RevOps as connective tissue of SaaS; the “invest earlier” regret.
03:58 — From EA to SVP-level ops leader to VP RevOps: the long workback.
06:51 — Why operators obsess over simplifying complexity.
12:24 — Time as the scarcest resource: color-coding calendars to goals.
20:05 — The RevOps operating rhythm at ZoomInfo (and how AI slots in).
21:48 — Going upmarket? Automate downmarket first to free resources.
31:19 — Intake agent: collapsing 10–15 hours of back-and-forth into one interaction.
36:48 — Democratizing creation: internal agent hackathons and a usage leaderboard.
44:30 — The Alchemist and reframing growth: get uncomfortable to keep climbing.
This episode is brought to you by our sponsors
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The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.
Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content.
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