Published: Jan. 14, 2020

In true entrepreneurial spirit, Leeds continues to develop new, cutting-edge ways to leverage Salesforce. Last week, staff members from across Leeds presented the innovative ways the school is currently using the platform at the inaugural Leedsforce conference. These include advancements in enhancing student culture, improving employer engagement and executive experiences, tracking placement and career touchpoints for undergraduates, gathering insights from data and supporting faculty success.

Leeds first started using Salesforce in November of 2012. The school has been an early adopter of their varied products and services, and the company often reaches out to our Salesforce team to test drive the usability of new technologies.

The MC for the day was Joanne Iturbe, Leeds’ Salesforce MVP. Iturbe is also the leader of the Denver Community Group, Salesforce.org’s Inaugural Community Champion Award winner (2019), and chair of Salesfore.org Higher Education Advisory Council. Her team has been instrumental in helping departments around Leeds get up and running—and be highly successful—with the platform.

Erica Kuhl, an esteemed Leeds graduate and active mentor in the Leeds Professional Mentorship Program, who pioneered the Trailblazer Community at Salesforce, provided a dynamic keynote address. She shared insights from her time at the company and how she is translating her knowledge to her own new venture as a consultant. A key takeaway was the way she described her work embodying the Leeds values throughout her career, and how they were a cornerstone for her decisions, interactions and approach to building communities.

Looking ahead, there are many exciting opportunities Leeds is currently exploring to continue improve processes, streamline workflows and apply insights from data to enhance the Leeds experience for all of our community members.

One such project is Leeds 360, a new online community for Leeds students, which will be built on Salesforce’s Community Cloud platform. This community will allow students to view and interact with their own data in an intuitive, efficient and convenient manner; it will include a career data component and will eventually evolve to allow students a 360-degree-view of their Leeds journey.

This inaugural event is an important milestone for Leeds. The school has made incredible strides with the platform, and is poised to be at the forefront of future innovations with the platform, well ahead of other higher education institutions using Salesforce.