CEO
Lauren is the CEO of Clara Partners, a Salesforce consultancy specialising in the not-for-profit sector. With a team whose experience spans fundraising, marketing, operations and consulting, Clara Partners helps organisations bridge the gap between complex technology and the day-to-day realities of running a nonprofit. Lauren is passionate about delivering practical, donor-focused Salesforce solutions that reflect the unique needs of purpose-driven organisations and create lasting value for the communities they serve.
"Maximizing the ROI of technology transformation demands a shift in mindset: doing less, doing it better, and ruthlessly proving its worth. To achieve this, organisations must align their two most valuable assets, their strategy and their people, across the entire project lifecycle. This session offers a comprehensive look at the four stages of engagement: Sales, Discovery, Build, and Business as Usual. Led by four industry experts, each presenting a 5-to-8-minute targeted brief, we will explore prioritisation frameworks, successful intervention stories, and value-measurement methodologies. The session concludes with a comprehensive storyboard illustrating how the roles of strategy and people must adapt over time to guarantee successful, high-value delivery. What will attendees learn? - The Power of 'No': Practical prioritisation frameworks to stop low-value work before it starts. - Lifecycle Adaptability: Understanding how the roles of strategy and people shift from pitch to BAU. - Proving the Point: Methods for measuring and demonstrating tangible business value to stakeholders."
In a lot of for-purpose organisations, the Salesforce admin sits three or four layers below the decisions that shape the platform. Requests arrive, get built, and the system slowly drifts away from anything resembling a strategy. The fix is rarely a different person. It is a different role. Lauren Stewart and Sarah Bonelli look at what changes when a system administrator becomes a product owner. Not the job title, but the actual shift: from processing requests to assessing their impact, from reacting to prioritising, from being told what the organisation needs to being in the room when that gets decided and driving that decision. Drawing on their own experience inside nonprofit organisations, Lauren and Sarah will cover what the product owner role looks like in practice, the skills and habits admins can start building now, and what managers and leadership teams need to change so that role can exist. Admins will leave with a clear sense of how to grow into this. Managers will leave seeing the role differently.
