Kimberly Cobb

Enterprise Systems & AI Architect | Salesforce Certified Platform Data Architect | Agentforce Specialist | Data Governance & Resilience

Irvine, CA

LinkedIn | Trailblazer Profile

"I've sat on both sides of the technology decision: helping customers choose a solution, and being accountable for what happens after they buy it. The part I keep coming back to is helping people do something they couldn't do before."

Summary

I've sat on both sides of the technology decision: helping customers choose a solution, and being accountable for what happens after they buy it.

I've also been the customer who needed help.

During Salesforce's 2019 Permageddon incident, OwnBackup Support walked me through my first restore. I had fought for a backup strategy. I still had to learn how to use it.

Later, as a founding Technical Account Manager at OwnBackup, I built the recovery exercises and teaching resources I had needed as a customer. We deliberately broke things in sandboxes so people could practice putting them back together.

I wanted customers to leave knowing what to do, with the confidence to do it themselves. That same purpose runs through my work as an enterprise systems and AI architect. Across 20+ years in the Salesforce ecosystem, I've worked in technical pre-sales, customer advisory, CRM leadership, and hands-on delivery.

At BetterUp, I led the customer side of a completed Agentforce and Data Cloud proof of concept, built a Salesforce-connected Custom GPT prototype, and served as an Architecture Review Board approver. I helped shape the roadmap and brought priorities, feasibility, and delivery risk to executive SteerCo each week.

At Talkdesk, I led the CRM team through a complex quote-to-cash migration across Salesforce CPQ, Zuora, NetSuite, and Boomi. I cared about the people doing the work as much as the systems they were responsible for.

I'm drawn to AI for what it can help people do. I want to understand the data, access, integrations, and recovery plan it takes to make that promise hold up.

I founded Trailhead Tuesdays and lead the Orange County Salesforce Developer Group. In 2026, I co-facilitated a Salesforce Recovery War Room, bringing what I'd learned back to the community.

The part I keep coming back to is helping people do something they couldn't do before.

Let's connect if you're looking for an architect who will get into the details with your team, ask the difficult questions, and help turn the answers into something useful.

Certifications

Salesforce Certified Platform Data Architect

Jul 2026

Salesforce Certified Agentforce Specialist

Jul 2025

Salesforce Certified Platform Foundations

Jan 2024

Salesforce Certified Platform Administrator

Feb 2020

Salesforce Certified AI Associate

Earned Jan 2024; credential retired Feb 2026

Trailhead

Agentblazer Legend (2025 and 2026); All Star Ranger; 51 Superbadges

Skills

Architecture & Data

Solution Architecture, Data Architecture, Data Modeling, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data Quality, Data Migration, Salesforce Platform

AI & Delivery

Proofs of Concept, Custom GPT Prototyping, Customer Discovery, Solution Engineering, Technical Product Ownership, Product Roadmapping, Architecture Governance, Release Management

Security & Resilience

Salesforce Security, Salesforce Shield, Identity and Access Management, SSO/SAML, OAuth, Backup and Recovery, Disaster Recovery, Data Archiving

Platforms & Tools

Salesforce, Agentforce, Data 360 (Data Cloud), Salesforce CPQ, Snowflake, Boomi, Zuora, NetSuite, Slack, Azure Active Directory, OwnBackup

BetterUp — Technical Product Owner, Go-To-Market Systems

Jan 2025 – Jul 2025

Contract engagement through High Trail / Ascen Workforce, LLC.

I brought clarity to competing priorities and helped teams move forward together, translating business needs into technical decisions, shaping a shared roadmap, and staying hands-on through delivery.

  • Led the customer side of a completed Agentforce and Data Cloud (Data 360) proof of concept as Business Owner and Solution Owner. Partnered with Salesforce sellers and Solution Engineers on use cases, demos, sandbox evaluation, and validation.
  • Built a Salesforce-connected Custom GPT prototype in a development sandbox. Evaluated knowledge-management tools and options within already-licensed Slack products.
  • Led discovery across 13+ business functions. Presented priorities, feasibility, risks, and tradeoffs to executive SteerCo weekly. Kept stakeholders aligned through roadmap documentation and a newsletter.
  • Served as an Architecture Review Board approver and facilitated reviews with CISO and SVP stakeholders. Helped establish design reviews, change requests, sandbox boundaries, and deployment rules.
  • Examined data skew, record locking, automation, and integration dependencies to inform design decisions. Partnered on Salesforce-to-Snowflake integration and improved account, contact, and hierarchy data quality.
  • Configured SSO and OAuth controls, established backup controls, and standardized integration accounts, credentials, and error alerting.
  • Contributed to a team license optimization and renewal effort that delivered approximately $1M in annual savings, with leadership recognition for the shared result.

Talkdesk — Director, CRM - Enterprise Applications

Apr 2023 – Oct 2023

I led the administrators, developers, and implementation partners responsible for Salesforce and related enterprise applications. During a complex transformation, I worked to give the team clear priorities and protect their focus on critical work.

  • Led CRM cutover planning and hands-on Salesforce changes for a quote-to-cash migration spanning Salesforce CPQ, Zuora, NetSuite, and Boomi. Contributed to QA, reconciliation, and validation across more than 1.1 million quote-to-cash records.
  • Served as CRM escalation lead for customer provisioning, coordinating Engineering, Finance, Billing, and Deal Desk to resolve issues across systems.
  • Required documented InfoSec review before vendor integrations entered production, enforced release controls, and advanced Salesforce Shield readiness.

OwnBackup — Senior Technical Account Manager

Jul 2021 – Feb 2023

I worked alongside enterprise Salesforce customers and Centers of Excellence on recovery readiness and architectural decisions. My aim was to help people understand their options and become confident using the tools their businesses depended on.

  • Partnered with Solution Engineers and account teams on pre- and post-sale discovery, presentations, and demonstrations. Assessed data models, integration dependencies, and platform limits against customer recovery objectives.
  • Guided customer-executed recovery after a failed Salesforce deployment, identified dependencies across tools, and coordinated partner vendors through completed restoration.
  • Helped customer teams practice restoration in sandboxes and test archive policies, building their ability to use the tools with confidence.
  • Guided enterprise SSO configuration with customer security teams. Advised on customer-managed encryption and key management, tested functionality, and authored configuration guidance for TAMs and Solution Engineers.
  • Translated customer requirements into Product and Engineering feedback. Contributed customer advocacy and demonstrations to an Export-to-Snowflake hackathon prototype.

OwnBackup — Technical Account Manager

Mar 2020 – Jul 2021

I joined OwnBackup after being a customer who had needed help with recovery. As a founding Technical Account Manager, I helped build the customer guidance and practical learning resources I had needed myself.

  • Developed disaster-recovery readiness curricula, process documentation, and training videos around business continuity, recovery time objectives, and recovery point objectives.
  • Created Restore Readiness Exercises in which customers diagnosed simulated data loss or corruption, planned recovery, and validated results in sandboxes. Built reusable demonstrations and archive-policy guidance.
  • Recruited, hired, trained, and mentored Technical Account Managers. Founded Trailhead Tuesdays, an internal Salesforce learning program.

CoreVest Finance — Salesforce Administrator

Aug 2018 – Mar 2020

At CoreVest, I learned firsthand what it takes to recover a Salesforce environment when the business is counting on it.

I had advocated for a backup strategy. When Permageddon hit in May 2019, I worked with OwnBackup Support to restore profiles and permissions and help the business recover.

  • Administered Salesforce for a real estate investment lender, including production and sandbox environments, data and metadata backups, and Azure Active Directory SSO/SAML.
  • Secured executive support for OwnBackup and established backup and recovery across production and sandboxes.
  • Used backup comparisons, change alerts, and metadata analysis to investigate data loss, recover merged or corrupted records, and troubleshoot production issues.
  • Diagnosed an incident that halted lending term-sheet generation and coordinated recovery with the backup vendor.
  • Rolled out OwnBackup Archiver, evaluating storage, retention requirements, and Salesforce document access. Established archive policies and helped users adopt the solution.
  • Partnered with OwnBackup on custom functionality for archive-status reporting and customer portal access to archived loan documents.

OwnBackup invited me to share this customer story at its sales kickoff, bringing the customer's perspective on earning executive support, recovering under pressure, and making the technology work in practice. That experience became the foundation for my later work helping enterprise customers prepare for recovery.

Earlier Experience

Sales Engineer, LendFoundry

Jun 2017 – Jan 2018

Client discovery, technical presentations, proposals, and solution scoping including Salesforce opportunities.

Founder, Chief Operating Officer, Vertex Technologies, Inc.

Sep 2015 – May 2017

Founded U.S. entity of an international equipment business; led operations, logistics, and HR.

Territory Manager, Helixstorm

Nov 2014 – Sep 2015

Consultative sales of hyperconverged infrastructure and enterprise technology.

Territory Manager, Southwest, GTC Systems

Sep 2013 – Nov 2014

Managed 17-account pipeline; quotes and technical escalations for virtualization and backup.

Vice President, Rugged Cloud

Sep 2012 – Sep 2013

VP of a small family technology startup.

Salesforce.com Administrator, Partners In Leadership

Jun 2001 – Oct 2012

Grew from sales support into Salesforce admin; supported three bestselling book launches.

Honors, Awards & Community

Honors and Awards

  • OwnBackup Outstanding Customer Service Award (Q3 2020); OwnBackup Values Award (H2 2020)
  • County of Orange Certificate of Recognition (Mar 2026), for community leadership and service following a Women Making a Difference Award nomination

Community Leadership and Engagement

Community Group Leader, Salesforce Developer Group Orange County | Aug 2024 – Present

Mentor members in technical learning and certification.

Invited Participant, Dreamforce CxO Roundtable | Sep 2026

Contributed enterprise systems, customer advisory, and practitioner perspectives to a small-group discussion with Salesforce executives.

Invited Participant, Dreamforce Main Keynote Focus Group | 2025 and 2026

Reviewed the Dreamforce main keynote with Salesforce executive leadership, providing practitioner feedback on clarity and messaging.

Community Volunteer and Event Organizer, SoCal Dreamin' | Apr 2024 – Aug 2025

Supported planning, event delivery, and community engagement in 2024 and 2025.

Education

Coursework, Mt. San Jacinto College

Have a complex problem worth solving?

Let's talk.

I've sat on both sides of the technology decision: helping customers choose a solution and being accountable for making it work.

That experience shapes how I approach enterprise systems, data, and AI. I ask questions, get into the details, and help executives and engineers understand what it will take to move forward.

If you're looking for an architect who can connect business priorities with the systems and people responsible for delivering them, I'd welcome a conversation.

Tell me what you're trying to make possible.

Connect on LinkedIn