Namrata Caveney spent eight years at Tesla before joining Abnormal. When she started looking for what came next, she carried one rule with her: any company she moved to had to share the same kind of mission, one built around making things better, not just bigger. She found that at Abnormal. What she didn't expect was how much of her own growth would come from building things for other people, whether that meant a program reaching dozens of colleagues or one person she helped along the way.
A Small Idea With a Big Turnout
Abnormal is remote first, which Namrata is genuinely grateful for, but it comes with a tradeoff. The women across GTM rarely get the chance to actually meet each other, let alone the people in other orgs doing similar work. When Sales Kickoff (SKO) rolled around, she saw an opening to change that.
The idea started small. She began gauging interest to see what kind of event would actually get people together and talking. "We gathered feedback and determined that a panel and breakfast situation would be the most valuable," she said. Namrata and her collaborators assumed they'd be self-funding it themselves, and hoped that maybe 20 people would show up.
That assumption didn't last long. Namrata signed on Chief Financial Officer Lisa Banks, Area Vice President of Sales Jennie O'Brien, and VP of Global Alliances Stephanie Goodman as panel speakers. Once the lineup was set, the idea earned real backing: budget, event support, and an official spot on the SKO schedule.
"We were nervous at first but so excited," Namrata said. "We ended up having a full room and an official spot on the SKO schedule. It was very well received, and we cannot wait to do it again next year."
"Asking people to show up to something earlier than they have to be there on the first day of SKO is a BIG ASK. And people showed up for it. That meant the world."
From One Room to a Real Program
The feedback didn't stop when the breakfast ended. Namrata and her collaborators ran a wider survey across GTM afterward, hoping to understand what else the group needed. Three words kept showing up in the responses: advice, community, mentorship.
"It was a no brainer for us," she said. "There's so much tenure and talent here at Abnormal, we can all learn something from everyone who works here."
Senior Mid-Market Account Executive Janine Denney-Mazili had run a mentorship program at her previous company, Okta, and offered to rebuild it here. Working alongside Senior SDR Manager Lauren Perry, she gathered input from everyone interested in participating, both as mentors and mentees, asking each person what they hoped to get out of the experience. From there, they used AI to help match people based on the responses they collected. What had started as a breakfast panel had quietly become real infrastructure, a program other people could now opt into on their own.
Where the Work Gets Personal
Namrata's instinct to invest in other people doesn't only show up at scale. It shows up at the individual level too, in moments most people never see. Recently, that meant prepping a colleague for an interview where the outcome was entirely out of her hands.
That meant working through mock interview questions together, building talking points tied to the role's specific KPIs, and walking through what to do in the hours before and after the conversation itself. It also meant being honest with them about where they were falling short, even when that felt uncomfortable to say out loud.
"It can sometimes be uncomfortable to give critical feedback, but it's important to do that," she said.
"Feedback is a sign of respect in my opinion. It's not given to criticize, but to improve."
Namrata traces that belief back to her own career, where she's had leaders who invested in her the same way. Now she looks for chances to do that for people earlier in their careers, the same way it was once done for her.
"It's a really proud and fulfilling feeling to have an impact on someone else's career growth and development," she said.
How She Shows Up for the Work
Namrata's day to day as an Account Executive runs on the same instinct to prepare well, and AI has become part of how she does that.
"The volume and quality of AI enablement we have here is bar none," she said, noting that conversations with people at other companies across Silicon Valley make the gap obvious to her. "We're very lucky to be encouraged to use AI to work effectively." She uses it to stay organized, prep for meetings, and catch blind spots before a conversation even starts.
"I love to ask it 'what else should I be considering going into this conversation?' as if it's a human."
Ask Namrata what's kept her here, and the answer comes down to the people and the mission: protecting people from threats that keep getting more sophisticated, alongside a team she believes in.
"The people here are genuine, talented, and inspiring," she said. "I couldn't imagine working anywhere else."
For anyone weighing a sales career at Abnormal, Namrata is straightforward about what the job takes, and just as clear about what it gives back.
"It's tough, but rewarding. If you want to work at a company that encourages growth, creativity, and new heights, Abnormal is your place."
For Namrata, the panel and the program were never really the point. She just keeps looking for ways to invest in the people around her, whether that means building something dozens of people can use or helping one colleague prepare for a single conversation.
