CS YOU is the program that inspired what is now Pulse Impact—Gainsight’s philanthropy programs.
I vividly remember the early days, back in 2020, when we were brainstorming Gainsight’s response to the massive wave of civil unrest and focus on social justice that took the country by storm.
With the Customer Success industry’s massive growth and the momentum to drive inclusion, we saw it as both a social and business imperative to launch a program that supported underrepresented populations within the tech industry, and specifically people of color—while training a diverse group of individuals to enter a quickly growing industry. A win-win!
The stars aligned with ed-tech master, SV Academy. Within a few months, we went from a very early vision to a fully launched program, designed to drive long-term wage growth and create a more diverse and inclusive CS community. We worked hard together to develop a CS bootcamp program with a curriculum based on Gainsight’s vast CS expertise and SV Academy’s focus on social-emotional skills, career readiness, and an important community and mentorship element. We couldn’t have done it without the massive support of the CS community and many partners who sponsored tuition and paid internships for the first 50 grads.
SV Academy has run the program for 20+ cohorts over two years and trained over 250 individuals! ~85% of these individuals have been placed in full time customer success roles, creating a better life for the graduates and their families.
Being part of envisioning and launching this program has been a key highlight of my time at Gainsight, and my career overall - seeing the enormous success of some of the grads keeps inspiring me every day. I know I speak for all of my friends at Gainsight when I say we are incredibly proud to have partnered with SV Academy on this initial program, which has served as the catalyst for more positive change and income expansion for individuals worldwide and made the CS community better and stronger!
We still have a long way to go though - how can you contribute to making the CS community more diverse and inclusive?
