New Astrica CEO On Building A Women-Led Business, Going All In On ServiceNow

‘We’re not trying to do everything and be a jack of all trades. There’s so much growth and so much opportunity with ServiceNow now. And even in the past few years, when I wasn’t fully focused on ServiceNow, I lived in that world. Literally, I found that I kept turning my clients to ServiceNow,’ Astrica CEO Vicky Papa tells CRN.

Since its founding just two years ago, Boston-based solution provider Astrica has already undergone two major transformations. It has become a ServiceNow-focused partner and has become a women-led business.

And now it has hired Vicky Papa as its new CEO.

Papa, in an exclusive discussion with CRN, said she is completely on board with the decision Astrica made to focus exclusively on services around the ServiceNow ecosystem.

“What I saw in last few years is that ServiceNow has really enhanced their product road map,” she said. “I mean, every year it looks completely different to me. And I think it’s because they’re just investing in the right places. They’re growing their TAM [total addressable market] by being industry-focused. They’re aligning with more with AI. And that’s really bringing user experience, which is been a big part of my career, to the forefront of what they’re doing.”

Papa’s experience in custom software and AI is a big plus for Astrica, she said.

“When it comes to actually building out the workflows, there’s a lot of opportunity for us to be able to go in and say, ‘Hey, how can we use very specific tools to accelerate what we’re doing and to save our clients some money and do it faster and better?’” she said.

Papa also said the move by Astrica to be a women-led company presents opportunities that may not be available to other solution providers.

“Having diversity in technology generally makes your products better, especially when you’re looking at personas that you’re trying to serve if you’re trying to do employee workflows or customer-facing workflows,” she said. “Technology has predominantly been dominated by men for such a long time. It’s really fun for me to be part of a company that really values diversity, really values inclusion.”

Here is more from CRN's interview with Papa.

You just joined Astrica. How old is Astrica itself?

Astrica has been going for about a year and a half. Before, it was bifurcated. Half of it was focused on ServiceNow, and the other half was focused on UiPath. And we decided to just do a strong push on ServiceNow. We changed leadership, changed some of the structure of the teams, and have been repositioning ourselves with some of our existing clients. And we’re now going to market as 100 percent ServiceNow- focused. So it’s pretty exciting.

Why 100 percent ServiceNow-focused? Does that expand or limit your market?

There’s something to be said about being specialized. In my mind, it really comes down to my background and what I was doing in the past. As a career consultant, I’ve lived in two different worlds. I’ve lived in the digital agency world where everything was really design- and user-experience-focused. And I’ve lived in digital transformation, where I’ve worked as an SI [systems integrator] as well as doing custom software development. I’ve gotten really deep into building products for people. And it’s really interesting because I feel like it’s not necessarily about building anything. It’s not about building products. It’s about building the right product. And what I saw in the last few years is that ServiceNow has really enhanced their product road map. I mean, every year it looks completely different to me. And I think it’s because they’re just investing in the right places. They’re growing their TAM [total addressable market] by being industry-focused. They’re aligning with more with AI. And that’s really bringing user experience, which has been a big part of my career, to the forefront of what they’re doing. And so when I started looking at ServiceNow, I saw them growing consistently 20 percent year over year. Their partner space is continuing to expand.

We’re not trying to do everything and be a jack of all trades. There’s so much growth and so much opportunity with ServiceNow now. And even in the past few years, when I wasn’t fully focused on ServiceNow, I lived in that world. Literally, I found that I kept turning my clients to ServiceNow. They would say they, ‘I’ve got a problem, I’ve got this thing that I want to solve.’ And I felt ServiceNow was really meeting their needs in terms of that experience without creating the really large overhead and operating costs of doing something custom or having to completely customize it once they implemented it. They actually had a really solid, good product. And the fact that I kept recommending it over and over to my clients told me, ‘Hey, there’s something in this space, and I want to go after it.’ I realized we could build an entire company around ServiceNow and not have to go into other areas.

Was Astrica’s decision to focus on ServiceNow made before you joined?

It was a bit of a joint conversation, actually. I got connected with our VC [venture capital firm] Momentum Equity Partners through [our advisor] Ellen Daley. I’m really grateful to have been able to live in a world where I’ve met a bunch of really great mentors. Ellen Daley was previously CEO of Acorio. And through some amazing circumstances, I was previously at Nexient, which was acquired by NTT. Ellen was at Acorio, which was acquired by NTT. We had some really great conversations. She has been a strong mentor for me along the way. And she introduced me to a lot of other folks. You asked about Astrica is and whether it should be 100 percent ServiceNow-focused. Ellen and I came to the same conclusion around the same time that the partner ecosystem had a lot of opportunity for us. So why limit ourselves or try to do too much? That's how we ended up where we are.

Is Astrica 100 percent owned by Momentum Equity Partners?

I’m technically an owner, too. We’ve got a couple of other folks who are also owners. But yes, we are funded by Momentum Equity Partners. So we got really lucky there. They also previously funded Acorio. So they were very excited to get back into a space that they had seen success in before.

Did Astrica get any funding from ServiceNow?

We did not. That’s a great question. I’m not sure if we even went and asked, or if it was even on the table. But it was one of those things where we saw a ton of opportunity, and Momentum was very excited to fund us. And we got off to the races.

Astrica in its marketing emphasizes that it is a women-led business. What does that mean for the company?

Nancy Selldorff is really heavily involved. She’s a part of the MEP [Momentum Equity Partners] family and is heavily involved in Astrica. So there’s Nancy, Ellen and myself, and then my leadership team skews very heavily toward women. It’s pretty cool. It’s actually one of the first opportunities I've ever had to be a part of a company that is majority women-led. And I think that’s a huge differentiator for us. It’s also fun for me. I’m actually a new mom. I just had a baby in January. So it’s super fun for me to be in an environment where, I mean, I've been in tech, I’ve been a career consultant my entire life. And I don’t think I’ve ever had so many women around me in such strong leadership roles.

What are the advantages of presenting the company as a woman-led business?

What I've been seeing the last few years is folks are looking to have diversity in technology. And I think having diversity in technology generally makes your products better, especially when you’re looking at personas that you’re trying to serve if you’re trying to do employee workflows or customer-facing workflows. Technology has predominantly been dominated by men for such a long time. It’s fun for me to be part of a company that really values diversity, really values inclusion. And that’s something I haven’t always seen at many companies, being in tech my entire career. But it’s definitely at the forefront now. And it is really very much at Astrica. I can’t tell you enough how excited I am to be part of a women-led company. And a lot of our clients are looking at this as well. One of the questions we get all the time, whenever I start talking to new customers, especially large enterprises, is about our diversity. They actually ask about what initiatives we have. It’s one of those things where I can now not say, ‘Hey, I’m one woman out of a bunch of males, the only minority in this group.’ Now I can say, ‘Hey, that’s something we really, really value. It’s a part of our DNA. And it’s something we use to make our products better.’

What are your strategic priorities for 2024?

Growth. Growth, not only in our client base but also in our partnership with ServiceNow. I think ServiceNow has really doubled down on their industry focus. We actually specifically launched Astrica to focus on financial services, health care, public services, public sector, and specifically to use AI to improve customer and employee workflows. And so a big part of that is figuring out how we can work with ServiceNow to double down in those areas. I know that a big part of their strategic initiatives is going more industry-focused. And so that’s where we want to be. We want to meet them there. That's where the growth is going to be. That’s where we want to go.

My biggest focus areas are obviously growing my team and growing a stronger foundation for the upcoming years. AI is at the forefront of that, and how we can infuse AI into our methodology and use that as an accelerator, especially when it comes to helping with our clients’ implementations. How can we turn that into rapid development, improve quality, provide better privacy? And how do we actually bring the analysis platform with GenAI capabilities to our clients? That entire strategy is at the core of what we do. And we’re really focusing on that as a part of our strategic initiatives because I feel like AI is progressing so quickly you have to stay on top of it. And it’s exciting for me because I came from a slightly larger organization, and sometimes it’s hard to move slightly larger organizations to be more progressive in their approach or methodology. But here, we’re fast, we’re nimble, and we can move with the market. And so I do think that’ll be a big differentiator for us, fingers crossed.

How many people does Astrica have right now?

We have about 10 [employees]. And we’re hoping to hit 30 to 40 by the end of the year. So some slow but steady targeted growth. We have been blessed because there are tons of opportunities and tons of clients who are coming to us who have said the people they had been using have been consolidated into larger global systems integrators. We’ve seen that Thirdera was acquired by Cognizant, NewRocket switched to another private equity company, Glidefast was acquired. A lot of these companies have been acquired into much larger organizations, and it’s actually led to clients asking us to get back into the game and to come and say, ‘Hey, we want a company that is focused on ServiceNow. And that’s our biggest priority. We know we’re going to get the top talent, high quality, a company that’s willing to move a little bit faster with AI.’ Those are the things we’re hearing out in the market, and the reason we said, ‘Let’s do this.’

Does Astrica have an acquisition strategy, maybe looking at acquiring other ServiceNow-focused businesses?

At this point, we have not considered acquiring other folks because we do think that we'’l be able to serve our existing clients and our prospects with the capabilities that we can offer in-house. But of course, we’re never going to close the door to that. So I think that as we continue to grow, that probably will be part of our strategy.

What kind of in-house AI skill sets has Astrica developed in terms of your own personnel understanding and knowing AI and not just depending on, say, ServiceNow, to bring AI expertise?

I come from a custom software background where we were building products for other folks. We were building ServiceNow equivalents and AI capabilities with them. And so AI and machine learning are things I’ve been really comfortable with and been doing for a while, especially as an accelerator. And I see it as almost two problems. In-house, we want to develop accelerators for clients in terms of how we write test scripts, how we validate test cases, how we even write user stories, and how we use AI as an accelerator, especially in our approach. In a lot of ways, ServiceNow is a lot of configuration. But when it comes to actually building out the workflows, there’s a lot of opportunity for us to be able to go in and say, ‘Hey, how can we use very specific tools to accelerate what we’re doing and to save our clients some money and do it faster and better.’ That’s where we’re really trying to stay focused.