Meet CJ Pakeltis
Hitting a Home Run at RizePoint
CJ Pakeltis knows how to play ball – literally and figuratively. As a baseball player at MacMurray College in Central Illinois, he played outfield and first base but, as he put it, he had an “injury plagued career.” When his injuries sidelined him for good, he served as a student assistant coach, serving as a crucial part of the team for his entire four years of school.
The lessons that he learned in sports – teamwork, dedication, hard work, tenacity, perseverance – have served him well on and off the field.
It’s also why he’s such a successful Director of Business Development at RizePoint.
Starting his sales career
CJ started his sales career right after college graduation with an entry-level position at Collabera, a staffing/managed services company. He began in their account manager program, which provided him with an introduction to sales and the company. In 2019, during his first full year in sales, he made the President’s Club, the prestigious awards trip given to top performing sales professionals in the company.
CJ worked with an account manager, who mentored him and helped him learn more about the program, until he got promoted to the next level, account coordinator, where he worked with larger enterprise clients. His role was to make sure everything was in good standing with the company’s existing accounts. While working as the account coordinator, he worked closely with the organization’s national account manager to open up new business verticals within multiple enterprise accounts. At the time, he was living outside of Chicago.
In 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, he moved to Arizona, where he was still working for Collabera.
He wasn’t actively looking for a new job, but when a friend reached out via LinkedIn to let him know about an open position at RizePoint, he thought why not explore the opportunity. It sounded like a great opportunity with a fantastic company.
“I liked the idea of working for an employee-centric company with a great culture, and that really stood out to me in that very first conversation,” CJ remembered. “I had heard about companies that really care about their employees and that’s what I experienced at RizePoint from the beginning.”
A new job during the pandemic
CJ started at RizePoint in 2021, during the COVID pandemic.
“Transitioning to a new role during the pandemic – and onboarding, training, and working remotely – can be challenging. I couldn’t put faces to names right away. The barrier of not being in person was the biggest challenge,” CJ said, adding that everyone was very nice and helpful, and the entire organization was navigating the pandemic’s challenges together.
“A specific challenge that I faced when transitioning jobs during COVID was not getting to know all of the other RizePoint employees and team members off the bat. On top of switching industries and having to learn new products and lingo, I wasn’t sure who was who within the company,” CJ explained. “I overcame this by trying to schedule meetings with as many people internally as possible, especially the product team and, of course, my sales counterparts. The biggest lesson/insight I gained from that is that collaboration is key. You’re not always going to have the answer right in front of you, but communication and teamwork can make everything come together. This lesson is true in all aspects of business and sales.”
As the Director of Business Development, CJ manages a specific set of target accounts, including food producing, manufacturing, grocery and convenience brands.
“I’m responsible for many different markets. My role is to develop, create, and nurture relationships, and grow my presence as a trusted industry professional,” CJ explained. “When I work with accounts, I make sure they get the most out of the RizePoint solutions.”
“At RizePoint, we tend to focus on the people vs. the product. I always hear prospects and new customers say that when they’ve had contracts with our competitors, they thought they’d get a certain solution from them, but they keep hearing no,” CJ said. “But at RizePoint, we have great solutions and a great structure. We work with our customers and give them the best, customized solutions to meet their individual needs.”
“We work with each customer to deliver custom solutions and custom tailoring,” CJ explained. ”When a customer signs up with us, we have a whole process that includes discovery and design. It’s not just a ‘one size fits all’ solution. We talk to each customer about their challenges and what they need. Once we build it, we talk to them. Do they like it? Do they need changes? We work with them until they’re beyond satisfied.”
Passionate about RizePoint’s solutions, team & culture
CJ is passionate about the solutions that RizePoint offers, their talented team, and the collaborative culture where everyone is willing to lend a hand.
“The culture is great from the top down. Everyone genuinely cares about the employees, they care about your life outside of the job,” CJ said. “I’m comfortable knowing that if something happened in my personal life, that I could take care of it, and that my managers would trust me to get my work done.”
CJ has nothing but wonderful things to say about Kari’s leadership of the company.
“Kari’s great. I’ve reported to her and worked closely with her for years. Her knowledge of the company and the industry is incredible. She’s taught me a ton. Her tech perspective and her product knowledge have been crucial to my learning,” CJ explained. “She taught me how we do it and why we do it, and she’s been instrumental to my first few years here.”
And the positive feelings are mutual, as Kari thinks CJ is an absolute dynamo, who brings great energy and enthusiasm to the RizePoint team.
“CJ is incredibly bright and personable. He’s a hard worker and works tirelessly to solve customers’ problems and make sure he exceeds their expectations. He genuinely wants customers to succeed, and he’s so good about solving their problems,” said Kari Hensien, CEO at RizePoint. “He’s wonderful at working with the customers and developing innovative solutions to meet their needs. They truly like and respect him. They know he’s working hard for them, and they know that he has their back.”
The RizePoint team can take pride in the fact that they do many things well, according to CJ.
“There are other solutions that do one or two things really well, but these competing companies lack in other areas. RizePoint offers a comprehensive solution that does it all well,” CJ said. “RizePoint has a very robust form creation and data collection process. On the back end, our strong reporting capabilities show data collected and analyzed in ways that customers need and want.”
“We follow three key pillars: gather, see, act. We do a great job gathering data that customers need, helping them visualize and see it in an actionable way – not in a manual way. Then we help them act on it by automating their workflows – and that really sets us apart,” he explained.
A family man
When he’s not working, he’s spending time with family and friends.
CJ met the love of his life, Amanda, in 2018. In the past few years, they moved to Arizona, got engaged, got married, and now have a baby boy on the way.
They love to hang out by the pool, cook out, play golf, and enjoy the relaxed Arizona lifestyle. They’re looking forward to welcoming their son in October 2023.