# Goke Pelemo > On Customer Success, Product Management, and other adventures --- ## Pages - [Privacy Policy](https://gokepelemo.com/privacy-policy/): Who we are Suggested text: Our website address is: https://gokepelemo. com. Comments Suggested text: When visitors leave comments on the... - [Professional Profile](https://gokepelemo.com/professional-profile/): Summary I am a Customer Success professional with over 14 years of experience in the technology industry. My expertise lies... - [Music](https://gokepelemo.com/music/): I listen to music from various genres. I admire a clever use of words or instruments to express complex ideas,... - [Books](https://gokepelemo.com/books/): Currently Reading Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief by Jordan B. Peterson tagged: spirituality, human-behavior, and currently-reading Share book... - [About Me](https://gokepelemo.com/about-me/): name: Goke Pelemo email: goke. pelemo@gmail. com url: gokepelemo. com gender: male pronouns: he/him location: Austin, Texas description: | Caveat:... --- ## Posts - [Much Ado about Upskilling](https://gokepelemo.com/much-ado-about-upskilling/): Upskilling has become a crucial aspect of my professional development lately, especially in the rapidly evolving tech industry. The pace... - [Pursuing a New Mission](https://gokepelemo.com/pursuing-a-new-mission/): As I mentioned on my last post, one of the books that I read recently and has informed my approach... - [The Long Hiatus](https://gokepelemo.com/the-long-hiatus/): In the last couple of years, I’ve taken a break from blogging. That was for several reasons, but most notably... --- # # Detailed Content ## Pages - Published: 2023-07-15 - Modified: 2023-07-15 - URL: https://gokepelemo.com/privacy-policy/ Who we are Suggested text: Our website address is: https://gokepelemo. com. Comments Suggested text: When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic. com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment. Media Suggested text: If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website. Cookies Suggested text: If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year. If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser. When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two... --- - Published: 2023-06-19 - Modified: 2025-06-21 - URL: https://gokepelemo.com/professional-profile/ Summary I am a Customer Success professional with over 14 years of experience in the technology industry. My expertise lies in managing professional relationships with strategic customers, running implementation projects to improve customer retention, and nurturing revenue growth opportunities. Additionally, I have successfully led technical support teams. Experience Senior Technical Account Manager PayPal | May 2025 - Present Senior Customer Success Manager DigitalOcean | September 2024 - April 2025 Focused on customers' onboarding during the first few months of their journey: Maintaining strong customer relationships to understand their business needs and desired outcomes. Empowering internal teams to deliver exceptional service to some of our strategic customers. Implementing proactive engagement strategies to prevent support issues and foster loyalty. Analyzing customer metrics to align our offerings with their goals and ensure successful outcomes. Software Engineering Immersive Fellow General Assembly | August 2023 - November 2023 Completed a full-stack software engineering course. Learned to use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Node, MongoDB, Express, SQL and Python on personal and team programming projects. Planned, wrote, tested, deployed and launched two full-stack applications. Integrated third-party APls into websites and applications. Technical Account Manager Platform. sh | August 2020 - June 2023 Led the implementation of Totango for the Customer Success team. Onboarded and was the dedicated account manager for strategic accounts. Was the technical point of contact and advocate for assigned customers during implementation. Facilitated product training and demos for new customers and agencies on our platform. Project setup, configuration, and consulting for software integration with our... --- - Published: 2023-06-19 - Modified: 2025-04-01 - URL: https://gokepelemo.com/music/ I listen to music from various genres. I admire a clever use of words or instruments to express complex ideas, even if trivial. I am usually listening to music in my free time, and I use that opportunity to curate playlists that are themed by moods or scenes. Here are a few playlists that I have created on Spotify. Sub-Saharan Stripes: Brine https://open. spotify. com/playlist/174wDFfVL8WLx6GLMfwr1Y Sub-Saharan Stripes: Ocean Drive https://open. spotify. com/playlist/4NfNHTFZt3Tg2tS4hpaERD Sub-Saharan Stripes: A Musical https://open. spotify. com/playlist/1CXfGlM4HtSrqojq8PhH0P Sub-Saharan Stripes: https://open. spotify. com/playlist/7alHsPEcYvRimY7nc1knIO Sub-Saharan Stripes: https://open. spotify. com/playlist/6lxQs7Z6eTzLIYH1YbUrhZ --- - Published: 2023-06-18 - Modified: 2024-12-17 - URL: https://gokepelemo.com/books/ ReadingNextRead Currently Reading Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief by Jordan B. Peterson tagged: spirituality, human-behavior, and currently-reading Share book reviews and ratings with Goke, and even join a book club on Goodreads. Reading Next The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee tagged: to-read The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business by Erin Meyer tagged: to-read More Reflections on the Meaning of Life by David Friend tagged: to-read Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by Jake Knapp tagged: to-read Thinking in Systems by Donella H. Meadows tagged: to-read and practical-guides Share book reviews and ratings with Goke, and even join a book club on Goodreads. Recently Read Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell by Eric Schmidt Loved: How to Rethink Marketing for Tech Products by Martina Lauchengco tagged: product Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception by Claudia Hammond Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins DEI Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right by Lily Zheng Share book reviews and ratings with Goke, and even join a book club on Goodreads. --- - Published: 2016-08-03 - Modified: 2024-12-17 - URL: https://gokepelemo.com/about-me/ name: Goke Pelemo email: goke. pelemo@gmail. com url: gokepelemo. com gender: male pronouns: he/him location: Austin, Texas description: | Caveat: I intentionally make good jokes that I have found in my life a part of my narrative. If you catch a good one, or not, you can ask me in person. It is tedious to write about myself, so I am going to play a fictional game called "If I were to describe myself... " As a flavor, I would be sweet and sour. Like sour gummy bears or Chick-Fil-A's freshly squeezed lemonade. As a meal, I would be the spicy Thai jungle curry with squid or shrimp from Madam Mam's. As a piece of chocolate, I would be Richart's Madagascar chocolate ganache, or the Lavender ganache. Pretty taesty. As a bottle of liquor, I would be Buffalo Trace's Kentucky straight bourbon. Quite possibly the best meal that I have had in my life was a Thai dish. At the time, a whole red snapper with the Thai 3-flavor sauce from Thai Tradition in Wichita, Kansas. As you can tell, I have a fascination for good consumer brands. places: - Lagos, Nigeria - Wichita, Kansas - Dallas Metro, Texas - Austin, Texas --- --- ## Posts - Published: 2023-07-04 - Modified: 2025-06-21 - URL: https://gokepelemo.com/much-ado-about-upskilling/ - Categories: Customer Success, Philosophy, Technology - Tags: Mental Models, Team Learning Upskilling has become a crucial aspect of my professional development lately, especially in the rapidly evolving tech industry. The pace of change necessitates everyone, regardless of their position, to have the resources to adapt quickly to new technologies. As industries become increasingly tech-adjacent, professionals find new paths to leverage their domain expertise in technology-related roles. The goal of upskilling isn't necessarily to become an expert overnight, but to gain enough knowledge to engage meaningfully with practitioners, developers, operations experts, and software architects. Here are some resources that were helpful to me. Technical Skills Udemy Cloud Computing with Amazon Web Services by Karan Brar Ultimate AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner by Stephane Maarek AWS Certified Solutions Architect 2020 by Ryan Kroonenburg Learn Cloud Computing with AWS by Eduonix Learning Solutions Linux Foundation Introduction to GitOps Containers Fundamentals Kubernetes Fundamentals Service Mesh Fundamentals Cloud Native Logging with Fluentd and Fluent Bit Monitoring Systems and Services with Prometheus Managing Kubernetes Applications with Helm The Linux Foundation's courses and membership provide invaluable resources for professional growth. They include discounted access to conferences and updates on open-source software. Their offerings range from introductory Linux courses to advanced Linux Platform Development. Cisco Networking Academy CCNA - Introduction to Networks Soft Skills Development While practice is paramount for soft skills, the books I have read and a course that I recently took offer valuable mental models and tactics. As a Customer Success professional, I've found these resources particularly useful: "Leadership Philosophy Training" by John C. Maxwell "Engineering Management... --- - Published: 2023-06-21 - Modified: 2023-07-30 - URL: https://gokepelemo.com/pursuing-a-new-mission/ - Categories: Personal, Technology - Tags: Books, Personal Mastery As I mentioned on my last post, one of the books that I read recently and has informed my approach to life is Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio. There are a few bits from the book that I occasionally share on Raffiapalm, and one that resonates very well with me is embedded below this post. I'll expatiate on each of the points and how they are relevant to me. You can make your work and passion one and the same: One of the things that I spend most of my time doing is tinkering. I pick up a device, software, a piece of magic box, a mechanical turk (hah! ) and I start to unravel it. The saying that a well made piece of technology feels like magic when it is experienced by the end user is a bit of a farce from my perspective. It's little wonder that most of my time working has been getting familiar with products by tearing them apart, putting them back together, and showing people what I found. I do that in more structured ways professionally but the idea is the same. You can struggle well with others on your common mission to produce the previously mentioned rewards: It's easy to get along with others when things are going well. The first part is perhaps more important; defining a mission with them so that the struggle feels worthwhile. This continues to be an area of growth for me, but incredibly profound. You... --- - Published: 2023-06-19 - Modified: 2023-07-15 - URL: https://gokepelemo.com/the-long-hiatus/ - Categories: Personal, Philosophy In the last couple of years, I’ve taken a break from blogging. That was for several reasons, but most notably because I was going through some life changes and decided that stepping away could give me a better perspective to how I want to approach life and work moving forward. A few things that I was deeply inspired by shortly before I stopped blogging were some books that I read and events that occurred in my life. Needless to say, books are going to be a major staple as I start to blog again and focus on the next steps for my career. The relevant events to this blog post that occurred include: Time at Product School Reading Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio Reading The Mental Models 1/2/3 by Shane Parrish, Rhiannon Beaubien et al Re-reading The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge Other things happened in my personal and professional life, most which are not are not relevant to the purpose of this blog, but I will be discussing some of them in subsequent posts. Since I’m keeping it focused on the philosophies behind my professional concerns, I don’t need to go into too much detail. I have chosen the framework from The Fifth Discipline as a viable backbone for writing since most organizations follow a similar framework for building teams that learn and evolve as technology changes. The framework includes five items: Personal mastery Building shared vision Mental models Team learning Systems thinking Peter Senge has definitions... --- ---