Alation Achievers Club: Celebrating Success and Strengthening Relationships

Imagine you’re on the beach, lounging in the sand or splashing in the waves, surrounded by the team with whom you’ve worked tirelessly to achieve something incredible.

That’s Alation Achievers Club.

Alation Achievers Club (or Club, for short) is an annual trip awarded to our sales team members who met quota. Other attendees include the winners of our Alation Values Awards, which celebrate those who have demonstrated living out our four Alation values: Move the ball, build for the long term, listen like you’re wrong, and measure through customer impact. This is one way that we strive to celebrate success company-wide and reward those exemplifying our company culture. These inclusive vacations unite hardworking Alationauts from around the world for four days of celebration in tropical resorts from Puerto Vallarta to Puerto Rico.

However, these trips are more than just a tropical destination. On a deeper level, these experiences allow our Alationauts to build relationships and bring those connections back into the workplace.

Luma Kamel and Nick Haithcock are two such Alationauts. Kamel, business development manager, EMEA, and Haithcock, account executive, have earned multiple trips to Club over the years. These returning vacationers connected with me about their career journeys, their favorite Club memories, and what makes Alation special.

Applying useful skillsets at Alation

As a 2X President's Club Winner, Kamel can certainly be described as motivated. She started out at Alation three and half years ago as a sales development representative, but through her dedication and hustle, she quickly transitioned into a leadership role. “It was something that I had wanted to do for a while,” Kamel explains. “I was exploring skills that I could learn outside of my scope that would be useful for the SDR leadership role, and then the opportunity arose.”

Haithcock’s path to Alation came from the customer side. “I was actually a customer of Alation,” reveals Haithcock. “I had a great experience with Alation and saw the value it brought to us long term. That was enough to sell me on Alation being something that people would find a lot of value in.”

As Haithcock transitioned from Alation customer to official champion, he gained an invaluable understanding of the challenges organizations face in data, which enabled him to effectively sell Alation's value externally. “On the sales side, it's always hard to really understand how an organization works,” Haithcock states. “You have to think about, ‘What matters in an organization? What are the pain points they have that we can solve?’ That consultant mindset has been a huge help rather than just someone selling a piece of software.”

Culture of collaboration

The duo credit a culture of helpfulness as being a key catalyst for success. And the opportunity to help customers solve critical business problems with data inspires Haithcock and Kamel to keep climbing. “What's always culturally kept me excited to be here and engage with people on a daily basis is that everyone's always got an idea,” shares Haithcock. “You don't feel like you're always having to go sell on an island, and that's not always normally the case. That's a huge benefit of being with the Alation team.”

Another big benefit of being at Alation? No big egos. “With many sales-led companies, you get a lot of big egos,” reveals Kamel. “People don't really want to help each other and are competing with each other. And I don't see that at Alation.”

Instead, our sales team cheer each other on and fuels their success by uplifting others. “You have people who are willing to work with each other, who want to help out each other, and who strive to see others succeed,” Kamel states. “I think that's quite a special culture to have.”

The power of Club: rewarding relationships

With all this collaboration and dedication comes the ultimate reward: Club trips!

From Puerto Rico to Puerto Vallarta to Cabo, Club provides our winners numerous opportunities to connect with colleagues on a personal level. “Club was just such a nice group of people that you get to know and develop a better relationship with because you've met them in person,” says Kamel. “It’s just a great recognition and reward for all the hard work we’re doing.”

Haithcock has been fortunate enough to stamp his Club passport three times since joining Alation. He echoes Kamel’s sentiment, sharing, “My favorite part of Club is deepening the relationships I have with everyone, which indirectly deepens our working relationship as well. You’re able to get out of the normal course of daily action and spend time with a lot of different people.”

Our Alationauts at Alation Achievers Club 2024

Lasting Club memories

What’s one Club memory these two remember fondly? For Luma, it was a boat ride and some fun dinners. “Last year, we did a boat trip to an island and that was amazing. This year, I took time to relax and recharge. I got to know people at our dinners and get to know them outside of work.”

With a stint as a sales engineer at Alation, Haithcock remembers the times he cheered on his fellow colleagues who made it to Club and explains how it felt to accomplish it himself.

“In those couple of years of being a sales engineer, I loved seeing whoever I was paired with getting to go to Club. Then being able to do it last year when I changed roles definitely meant a lot to me. It obviously couldn't have happened without the support of everyone.”

Luma Kamel, Cleo Haynal, Ashleigh Hamilton, and Luisa Ruiz at an Alation Achievers Club dinner

Join Alation

Think you have what it takes to make it to Club? Come join our sales team! Check out our open roles, including Enterprise Account Executive positions in New York, South East, and San Francisco.

Learn more about our Alation sales culture on our webinar, “Closing Deals and Growing Your Careers: Mastering Sales Success at Alation” on May 23 at 9:00am PT/12:00pm ET. Two account executives at Alation will give you a deep dive into what it’s like working at Alation, and how they keep closing deals.