London Inc. Winter 2023 - 24

1 10 Minutes With0 Minutes With
STARRING ROLE
Xiomara Carrillo, chief sales officer at StarTech.com,
chats about the benefits of volunteering, decisionmaking
and the product side of hybrid work wo
chats a
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d t e p od
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XIOMARA CARRILLO IS a two-decade veteran with
StarTech.com and recently was named chief sales officer. A
native of Costa Rica, she has lived and worked around the
globe. She came to Canada in 1992, earned finance and masters
degrees at Université de Sherbrooke and became a Canadian
citizen. She then completed a six-month MBA program in France.
Carrillo began with StarTech.com in 2003. Two years later,
she moved to Britain to oversee the company's expansion
within Europe and later Asia and Latin America. She returned
to London in 2016. She and husband Darren Hanton have two
Bernadoodles, Luna and Oliver. Their youngest son, James, still
lives with them too.
They enjoy canoeing and camping in Northern Ontario and
are avid cross-country skiers.
Congratulations on your recent appointment
as chief sales officer. Do you view that as the
culmination of your 20-year career with StarTech.
com? It has been a privilege to work for such an
amazing company that grew from a small business
Congratulat ons on ou rec
ce
ppoi
founded in London to become an international success
story. There is a lot of great talent in the company, and
coming through the ranks has provided me with the
experience and knowledge to keep building on our
success globally. When I started, we were mainly doing
business in Canada and the United States. Now we
have operations in 26 countries around the globe and
about 450 employees, half of whom work in London.
You've lived, studied, volunteered and worked
all around the world. One of your earliest
volunteer positions was aid worker for five
years with the Red Cross/Red Crescent in Costa
Rica. What are your most vivid memories from
that experience? Being part of the Red Cross
provided me with the fundamentals of leadership,
intertwined with a compassionate outlook. One of my
most vivid experiences was the simulation of a rescue
in the tropical jungle where we spent the day looking
for survivors. It certainly put a number of different
skills to test such as quick thinking, prioritization,
resilience and the ability to think outside of the box.
24 | londonincmagazine.ca | WINTER 2023
You moved from vice-president, global channel
sales to chief sales officer. How is your new job
different? The most significant difference is being
involved in key strategic decisions at an early stage. It
is rewarding to both build and execute strategies that
impact the company's growth trajectory. Our firm has
been named one of Canada's Best Managed Companies
by Deloitte for 12 consecutive years, and I'm very proud
to be part of a leadership team with such a successful
d fr
track record.
In London, StarTech.com is something of a
household name, but I imagine most customers
around the world do not know the gizmo they
found on Amazon to solve their tech problem
is a StarTech.com product. Does that matter?
Our target market is IT professionals who need
connectivity products to enable business technology
solutions. Although we are not necessarily a household
name with consumers, we are quite well known in the
IT industry due to the quality of our products, which
perform at a higher level than consumer brands, as
well as our expertise. Last year, we sold more than 24
million products around the globe and although consumers
can order our products through Amazon and
other resellers, the majority of our products are used
in business environments. Over 80 per cent of Fortune
http://www.StarTech.com http://www.StarTech.com http://www.StarTech.com http://www.StarTech.com http://www.StarTech.com http://www.londonincmagazine.ca
London Inc. Winter 2023

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