Beatriz Datangel ’11, a member of the College of Organizational, Computational, and Information Sciences Dean’s Advisory Board, is the Head of Marketing at Resilience, a cyber insurance and security startup based in San Francisco. Over her career, Datangel has moved from data analytics to product management, and now to growth and marketing. Her latest role oversees all the marketing functions at Resilience.
“My role is to broadcast an experience and solution to prospective buyers and partners,” she says. “Whether digital or physical, the message needs to stay consistent. Marketers, especially those who have a unique background like mine, have to be dynamic and agile.”
She credits her success to pragmatism. “Entering the job market in 2011 was tough,” Datangel said. She persevered and worked retail jobs until she found an opening that spoke to her. She found her first job through a cold-email to a startup founder after watching his TED Talk.
“I used the power of networking to connect to this person authentically,” explained Datangel. “I used the same energy to jump up and brainstorm at a whiteboard or present my reports — if I found something interesting, I wanted to show it off to my team and the company.”
She wanted to do more than just compute and report data, which opened her up to product management. “I know data. I often joke that my last name looks like ‘data angel.’ I wanted to go beyond the obvious and add context and relevance.”
Offering that relevance became more important to Datangel. “You need to be able to synthesize the value of the greatest feature of your newly launched product. There are a lot of startups and companies with the same product or competing in the same space — we need to show what makes this product great to give buyers, partners, and investors a reason to choose it. We need to create a human aspect, and humans love a good story, a good experience.”
The thing that gives me the best satisfaction is supporting Simmons graduates.
Now selling cybersecurity insurance, the emphasis on a story is still at the forefront. “We’re selling a pdf, not a platform or a subscription — really, we’re selling a promise. Ransomware and hacking are scary things. The challenge of this story is to avoid using fear as a theme and start building trust.”
While she’s doing it with cyber insurance in her current role, Datangel is no stranger to making a dry product space seem more accessible and important. "Just because the problem is complicated doesn’t mean the solution needs to be. I firmly believe that a company's role is not to convince customers. It's to educate and simplify ways to solve customer problems. After all, we're just humans marketing and selling things to other humans. Make the experience worthwhile."
Datangel is a native of San Francisco and currently resides there after her time at Simmons. “I wanted to get away from California and immerse myself in something new. Boston certainly gave me a run for my money! I was far from home and my family. I knew I had to create a chosen family.” She immersed herself in the rowing team, participated in peer groups, and found non-New Englanders who didn’t travel home for Thanksgiving. All of these groups began to form her “team.”
And she still advocates a team mentality. “Keep in touch with people you resonated with at school. I still talk to my best friends from classes and have asked them for help along the way. Create an advisory network of your peers.”
Addressing the additional isolation many have felt during the pandemic, Datangel emphasizes the people in your life. “Did you have a study group in school? Now, start an interview group. Looking for a job is scary, and it’s okay not to know what you’re going to do next. From my perspective as a hiring manager, I don’t care as much about your degree or where you went to school. I want to know what excites you about this company and this role, and what problems you have thought about that will help this company.”
A final word of advice for students? “Ask for help. Have the strength and confidence to know what you need and ask for it. If you don’t, no one will know what you are struggling with.” Datangel has also mentored students and recent graduates. “Let me be that beacon of light and optimism. All that Simmons alumnae/i want to do is help. The thing that gives me the best satisfaction is supporting Simmons graduates.”