Sarah Reilly Engel, Founder
Sarah is the founder of Campsix, a boutique firm launched in 2013. Campsix tailors solutions for female entrepreneurs based on their immediate needs in the critical stage where process, go-to-market strategy and organic growth are key.*
With over 17 years of experience, Sarah has been a part of the ‘start-up’ culture since the infamous dot com era. Venturing cross-country to San Francisco in 2000, Sarah left New York after a 2 year role in Product Marketing and Equity Research at investment firm Donaldson, Lukfin & Jenrette and took on a Research Associate position at Red Herring Magazine, leading startup evaluations, editorial picks for Top Private Companies’ and C-level panels for Venture Market events. When Red Herring folded, Sarah assisted two brilliant women founders at venture backed beauty brand startup, Passport Cosmetics.
In 2002, Sarah landed a covetable Sales position at San Francisco based CRM leader Salesforce.com, and was quickly promoted to manage Customer Success for top Enterprise clients. As one of the first six members of this team, Sarah personally developed Sales and Marketing best practices for C-level executives, led webinars, customer city tours and conducted Business Process Reviews to help clients identify obstacles to success, resulting in recommendations for increased ROI. “This process is one that is invaluable for companies at any stage, simple operational changes can help companies become more profitable and efficient.”
After seven years on the west coast, Sarah was captivated by the buzz of digital advertising and began her migration back to NYC in 2007, where she most notably held positions at native advertising pioneer Vibrant Media and global cloud-based content marketing platform Thismoment. As the first sales hire at Thismoment, the company moved Sarah from New York to Chicago to open the Mid-west office. During this time she developed multi-channel Social Media Strategies for Fortune 500 brands, in addition to managing regional partnerships with agency holding groups and networks including Google, Facebook, and Twitter. “The social media technology landscape was at its peak, with several startups being acquired by large enterprise software companies like Salesforce.com and Oracle.”
Sarah concepted Campsix in 2012, but took on a leadership role at a Chicago based Web and App development startup, who was carving out a niche in the Facebook ecosystem as an Ads API partner. Through her passion for working with early stage companies and entrepreneurs to help develop their vision, build sales and marketing strategies and grow long-term profitability, Campsix was officially launched, in 2013, assisting clients across LA, Portland, New York, San Francisco and Chicago. This initial launch was brief, after Campsix client, Belly, offered Sarah a full-time Executive position, following a month-long consulting project. Belly was funded by Silicon valley venture firm Adreessen Horowitz, and had created a disruptive business model for both mobile apps and loyalty programs. "They were at the 3-year mark, which is a critical phase for a young company. I saw an opportunity to really make an impact from within.” During her tenure at Belly, Sarah managed a team of over 30 Account and Community Managers. While focusing on Belly's small business and enterprise customer base, she built out Merchant Scoring, Customer On-boarding, Parachute Programs, Small Business Workshops, Quarterly Business Reviews, Wellness Visits, Client Resource Center, Enterprise Operations and developed long-term strategies for increasing customer satisfaction. Her notable contributions included achieving record low churn - decreasing over 1.5% per month, and record high Enterprise growth - multiplying Enterprise locations by over 600%.
In 2015, Sarah was offered an Executive leadership role at global fashion technology startup, rewardStyle. She (along with her husband) packed up and relocated from Chicago to Dallas, to manage Publisher and Retail Development in addition to Product Marketing and Content Marketing teams. Leading the vision and strategy for rewardStyle’s US business teams, Sarah took her passion for building data-driven solutions, world-class customer service and scale for the organization, managing over 40 employees across the country. “From Belly to rewardStyle, there was a natural transition that occurred for me, while they are different business models, both companies serve both B2B and B2C clients, and had reached the ‘what next’ phase of their companies’ acceleration." At rewardStyle Sarah utilized her skills in strategy and management to grow profitable territories. "Just give me a whiteboard...I love to dig into questions like, 'How do we monetize this'...or 'How do I create more value to customers', that is what gets me excited everyday.”
"At Campsix, I get to apply the learnings I've gathered from each experience to help founders flourish. Through an iterative process of defining objectives and tackling projects, I am committed to transforming the landscape of women in business, by designing a process that supports each entrepreneur no matter where they are along the continuum."
Along with her active roles within startups, Sarah led workshops at Chicago’s digital accelerator hubs at 1871, including Impact Engine, in addition to instructing students at the Chicago Startup Institute. She has contributed to multiple online publications on Digital Marketing, Social Media, Ad Tech, Startup Strategy, Customer Success and Women in Leadership topics.