Senior Executive Operator | Post-Sales Operating Systems & AI

About Iliyana

If I think about my career, I've always built things that had never existed before. I build the machine first, then run it.

Currently, I lead Customer Health Assurance for EMEA at ServiceNow — a program I built from scratch for the region that delivered $15M in protected revenue, $6M+ in expansion, and 17x ROI on a $1.5M budget in 2025. Before that, I was Chief of Staff to the EMEA President where I built the execution engine that helped scale EMEA toward $3B in revenue. That model was later adopted globally by the Chief Commercial Officer.

My real power is working in ambiguity, aligning executives, and actually getting things done. Not advising. Not strategising. Making it happen.

I write about AI, Customer Health, and the future of post-sales operating models. I speak at events across Europe and beyond. And I believe CS stops being a reactive cost centre the moment you design it properly.

Six countries. Five languages. Always building what didn't exist yet.

Inbound PR: The PR Agency's Manual to Transforming Your Business with Inbound

The way we make decisions has fundamentally changed. We’ve become a lot more sophisticated and we feel empowered to go online, do our research, tweet at companies, and demand answers to our problems through the content we find. We don’t want to be marketed at; we want the freedom to choose based on our own online experiences. Content is the name of the buying game today. Enter Inbound PR, where content meets measurement and helps PR people show the real ROI of their efforts in the new digital era. This book will help readers:

Build brand awareness
Generate leads
Nurture and close them as customers
Track the ROI of all these activities

Money Mastering: The Simplest, Yet Most Important Money Management Tips You Should Have Been Taught at School

No one teaches us what to do with money. As we enter adulthood, we're left to figure out how to manage our finances. Many end up making multiple mistakes because they were never taught how to do this better. Money Mastering was written for the ordinary person who wants to live a life where you control your money instead of them controlling you. It provides clear guidance and practical, easy-to-apply tips every day and teaches basic financial literacy. You will learn:

How to set up your money objectives and priorities
How to build a practical system to manage your personal finances
How to create and manage a budget
How to build your emergency fund as a safety net
How to tackle debt
How to start saving, investing and preparing for retirement

Testimonials

Farzana Baduel

Founder and CEO of Curzon PR

Iliyana Stareva's thought leadership and understanding are phenomenal. Inbound PR can shape the way consumers interact with what they see, hear and read, empowering the individual to make well-informed opinions whilst creating interesting substance. Iliyana is at the forefront of the industry and appreciates its depths and power. It's amazing how the optimization of digital functions such as SEO and content-rich online material can build an epicenter of media excitement. With all the international work we do at Curzon, we have found Inbound PR to be the most effective and strategic method of communications. This book, is yet again, another articulate display of Iliyana's expertise and insights and leads the way in educating us all on the power of digital marketing and communications.

Adriano Tagliarina

CEO, Owner of TRIALTA GmbH

Iliyana is a fantastic consultant with intercultural skills. She was one of the most important people on our road to become a learning company in less than 6 months. What did she do? She encouraged us with her positive attitude and her sound expertise in inbound marketing and PR. She gives us confidence in our daily work and makes us feel stronger thorugh her experience. We were and still are happy to work with a professional like Iliyana. Thank you!

Britta Schloemer

Founder & CEO of Thought Leader Systems GmbH

Working with Iliyana is a real pleasure! She is not only distinguished by her great expertise, but also by her absolute willingness to pass it on. Iliyana is one of those people who are only satisfied when the result is perfect. This does not make iteasy - but above all very worthwhile!

Dan Tyre

Director at HubSpot

Iliyana is a delightful overachiever who is a blast to work with. Diligent, smart, insightful, always on the go, Iliyana makes the most boring meeting short & to the point. She has a great sense of humor, understands how to focus on priorities, is a good communicator and is very effective. Her nickname is "The Machine" because of all the great things that she does. A great HubSpotter for many years and a pioneer of the Inbound Revolution.

Gini Dietrich

CEO of Arment Dietrich; founder and author of Spin Sucks

The PR industry is ripe for disruption. It wasn't all that long ago that the web forced us to reinvent ourselves. It's time again. International PR organizations have called for the death of metrics that don't make business sense, such as media impressions and advertising equivalencies. Smart business leaders have called for metrics, as they relate to real organizational growth. We've been able to add tactics, such as owned and shared media that allow us to prove we are an investment, not an expense, and that we do drive revenue. Yet, because we hate numbers, we have a difficult time drawing the correlation between our work and sales numbers. What Iliyana Stareva preaches with Inbound PRwill get us there. Not only is it something we define, highlight, and amplify, it allows for the all-encompassing return-on-investment.

Robbie McFarlane

Team Lead Customer Success at HubSpot

One of the most productive people I've ever met, Iliyana is a wealth of knowledge, ability and ambition. She's an accomplished speaker, thought leader, author and contributor to PR & Inbound consulting. Her determination is infectious, helping to lift the levels of those who interact with her.

Steven Loepfe

Foudner at Storylead

Most recommendations are long. This one's short: My company Storylead would not be moving forward as fast as it is without Iliyana's dedication, drive, and wit. Thank you, Iliyana!

The Latest Posts from Iliyana's Blog

How to Get CSMs to Actually Trust AI Signals

There's a common assumption in CS leadership: CSMs don't act on AI signals because they don't trust them. That's not quite right. In most cases, the signal isn't the problem. The gap is what comes after it. A CSM sees a risk score drop. An alert...

Why AI Adoption Fails Inside Customer Success Teams (And It's Not What You Think)

Every Customer Success leader I know is under pressure to adopt AI. The tools are being deployed. The dashboards are being built. The announcements are being made. And yet — adoption stalls. CSMs quietly ignore the signals. Workarounds emerge....

Retention as a Capital Efficiency Lever in SaaS

Retention is often discussed as a Customer Success metric. It's tracked as a percentage, reviewed in quarterly reports, and used to evaluate the performance of CS teams. When retention improves, it is seen as a positive signal. When it declines, it...

Iliyana Stareva

Building the Post-Sales Operating System, Powered by AI

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