Rick Palaia

Senior Director @ Rippling | Passionate Dad of 2

Austin, Texas, United States

About

Creativity is a powerful catalyst for change - especially when it empowers people to solve their own challenges. Throughout my career, I’ve made it my mission to help customers unlock that potential by combining deep data insights with innovative solutions that drive meaningful results. This passion naturally aligns with the world of #NoCode development, where anyone can build the tools they need. Today, I channel that same mindset at SmartSuite, the ultimate work management platform, where I focus on driving revenue growth and the success of our customers. My goal is simple: to equip teams with the freedom, flexibility and technology they need to create, innovate and thrive. It's not about the destination - it's about the journey. I've been fortunate enough to have an amazing one so far... Philly --> NYC --> Melbourne --> Sydney --> Austin

Experience

  • Senior Director, Rippling Spend Post-Sales at Rippling
    Jan 2026 - Present · 7 mos

    Overseeing the post-sales experience for Rippling's Spend customers (rippling.com/rippling-spend). Rippling Spend elevates financial operations by unifying corporate cards, expense management and procurement within a single platform, delivering real-time spend control, automated workflows and complete visibility that helps finance teams operate faster, smarter and with greater precision.

  • Executive Member at Pavilion
    Jun 2021 - Present · 5 yrs 2 mos

    Revenue Collective is a private membership organization for commercial growth operators, where Members can openly discuss business critical issues with the comfort of privacy and confidentiality.

  • Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at SmartSuite
    Feb 2023 - Jan 2026 · 3 yrs

    SmartSuite is transforming how organizations get work done by providing a collaborative Work Management platform that enables teams to plan, track and manage workflows - whether it be a project, an ongoing process, or routine everyday tasks. SmartSuite helps coordinate people and work across all levels of an organization to ensure that team members have the information they need to accomplish the work that matters most. Team members can create the perfect workflow in minutes or choose from over 200 industry-leading templates that can be quickly tailored to their exact needs. From simple to complex and everything in between, we have you covered! Our mission is to provide a work management platform that unites the essential elements that are used in getting work done: databases, spreadsheets, documents, collaboration tools, file management products, and automation capabilities — into one platform. Highlights - 35x'ed ARR - 78x'ed average ACV

  • Senior Sales Manager, Commercial Growth at Airtable
    Nov 2021 - Dec 2022 · 1 yr 2 mos

    #1 quota attainment achieving enterprise team across all segments, including ESB, Commercial, Large, and Strategic teams, quarterly and for the full financial year 2023. On track for President's Club (top 5% of Customer Engagement org). Airtable is a highly customizable no-code app platform that enables teams to design their own applications to run their processes and workflows. What’s unique is that AT empowers the people who know the business best to design flexible, scalable applications that work exactly the way their teams need them to, when they need them.

  • Head Of Sales at HiredScore
    Feb 2021 - Dec 2021 · 11 mos

    HiredScore is an AI suite of solutions that delivers deeply integrated hiring efficiencies to help F500 organizations adapt for the future of work. Every company in the world benefits from compliant and bias-free candidate scoring for active applicants and automated sourcing of passive candidates from existing ATS, CRM, HCM, VMS and other internal systems. HiredScore also offers a first-of-its-kind Diversity AI Module that is on the bleeding edge of innovation. A fully bespoke offering that enables enterprise organizations to truly move the needle on their organizational diversity goals. I led the new business Sales motion, including the BDR, AE and Channel / Partner sales teams.