Meet Our Experts

2017 Tan Alex Port

Alex Tan, VP of Sales and Operations APAC

Alex Tan, our VP of Sales and Operations in the APAC region, is an experienced professional with a vast background in the hospitality and travel industry. From working for tourist attractions to moving on to leadership roles in hotels, travel solutions providers, TMC, and OTAs, Alex brings an insightful and complex expertise to our team. In his current position at TrustYou, Alex works with a group of highly committed and passionate people across the APAC region to execute our objectives and deliver results to both the company and the clients.

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Alex believes that at its core, hospitality is all about people and creating a memorable and immersive experience. The fact that there is no “one-size-fits-all” strategy for approaching travel is what makes the industry interesting for Alex. What sets him aside is his ability to observe and learn from TrustYou’s sophisticated and creative clients how they make the most from the feedback solutions. Combining both – the best feedback system and learning from creative users makes Alex an expert. He truly believes that the company is an enabler – the feedback solutions that we provide enable hotels/restaurants to understand their guests better in order to deliver that memorable and immersive experience. Alex says that he feels like he plays a part in making travel better and to him, that’s something powerful and meaningful.

Our dedicated VP always strives to find a win-win solution and to make the time spent with him be a worthwhile investment for the clients. Alex also believes that TrustYou’s feedback solutions take the guesswork out of the process of understanding customers’ needs and turn them into actionable data based on facts and figures. He describes himself as a passionate and driven person, whose conscientiousness translates positively into his work life.

Alex was born in beautiful Malaysia but has been living in Singapore for the last 30 years. He is fluent in English, Malay, and Chinese and is happiest when he gets to spend time with his family. His most important achievement was watching his daughter grow and turn into a young lady and he says his number one weakness is seeing her cry. Growing up, Alex wanted to become a lawyer, but we can consider ourselves lucky that he changed directions and ended up joining our team.

Alex Tan

VP of Sales and Operations APAC
Katiane Di Schiavi

Katiane Di Schiavi, Director of Client Success

Katiane Di Schiavi is TrustYou’s Director of Client Success, with more than 10 years of experience in the SaaS business. She has a Product and Project Management background and has previously worked as a team lead, consultant, and individual contributor at both large, international companies as well as lean, agile startups. Katiane currently leads a team of technical experts and passionate customer consultants. Her biggest goal at TrustYou is to foster a company-wide customer-centric mindset.

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Kati, as her colleagues call her, describes herself as a self-driven and ambitious person, who is also a writer and speaker at heart. She loves working within the hospitality industry because of its personal touch and customer-centric approach and because she gets the chance to interact with passionate hoteliers who care deeply about their guests’ experience and well-being. Working with and for people is something that Kati values and enjoys.

As a customer success expert, Kati believes that her strongest suit is her ability to listen to what customers have to say during their entire lifecycle with TrustYou, from pre-sales consulting to onboarding and up to user engagement. This is also one of the reasons why Katiane believes that TrustYou is THE feedback solution that hoteliers should embrace: besides the extensive features, capabilities, and integrations, clients also benefit from constant support, consulting, and guidance.

She takes pride in the company’s extensive insights into our clients’ processes, preferences, pain points, and business goals. Katiane describes TrustYou as a workplace full of energy and friendly people, where testing and failing are accepted as part of the journey and new ideas are always encouraged.

As a part of her job but not only, Kati likes to keep up with the latest newsletters curated by people in tech and the hospitality industry. She also enjoys reading about leadership and was deeply impressed by Michelle Obama’s biography, given the idea that she represents and her vision on a brighter future.

Our Director of Client Success considers moving to Germany 10 years ago one of the best decisions of her life and is passionate about writing and sharing industry insights, with a focus on how to listen and delight customers.

Kati grew up in Brazil wanting to be a fiction novelist as a kid and even though her journey guided her towards the client success field, she still enjoys writing in her free time. She speaks Portuguese, English, and German, as well as “Portunol”, a mix of Portuguese and Spanish.

Katiane Di Schiavi

Director of Client Success
Rachel Dowling Director Of Product

Rachel Dowling, VP of Product

Rachel Dowling is TrustYou’s Director of Product Management and a passionate leader of our product and design teams. Before joining TrustYou, Rachel worked at several tech companies in Silicon Valley, where she honed her product and strategy skills in a complex tech landscape. She holds degrees from Stanford and Oxford. Rachel is now focusing her efforts on aligning feedback with product developments and she is a firm believer in the idea that good products can only come from listening to feedback.

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Rachel describes herself as a positive and enthusiastic person, who is always looking forward to the future. She likes working in the travel industry because the idea of exploring the world always keeps her happy and curious. She believes that the human element is crucial in hospitality and should stand at the very base of any tech solution.

The fact that Rachel is data-driven but always keeps people at the heart of everything is a personal trait that has a positive impact on her day-to-day tasks and responsibilities. She says product management in this industry is all about listening to customers, guests, hoteliers, employers, and employees. This is the main reason why Rachel enjoys her job at TrustYou and she believes that the company delivers THE tool necessary for making better decisions based on solid, hard data, along with actionable insights. Our Director of Product Management loves the TrustYou culture and team; being able to work in a friendly environment is a huge plus of her job.

Rachel is a Philadelphia native and she speaks both English and French. In her time off, she enjoys baking (especially rhubarb pie), swing dancing, running, and relaxing alongside family. She says that moving to Germany was a huge milestone in her life, one that paid off and brought some major opportunities her way.

Rachel grew up wanting to be a ballerina and we can say that she somehow manages to dance around multiple tasks and responsibilities with the grace of one. Her biggest weakness is dark chocolate and she would like to meet Elon Musk in real life, to have a chat about his inspiration and time management.

Rachel Dowling

VP of Product
2020 Sheldon Photo

Sheldon Maniam, Senior Business Development Director APAC

Sheldon Maniam is our Senior Business Development Director in the APAC region and a highly passionate hospitality expert. His contracting role enables Sheldon to build and maintain successful partnerships, based on transparency, knowledge, and trust. He is a firm believer in the power to listen and his motto is “Slow to speak and quick to listen”.

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Sheldon describes himself as a dedicated and optimistic person and he believes the one personal trait that supports his job the most is his passion. He likes working within the hospitality sector because he has an insight view of how the industry is constantly changing and evolving due to technological innovations. Sheldon is passionate about his role in TrustYou because he believes the feedback solutions that we enable empower hoteliers to truly listen to feedback. He saw by himself the positive effects of this action and says that a one-stop-shop solution like the TrustYou platform is the best way of collecting feedback and delivering the best experience to both users and customers.

Born in Malaysia, Sheldon has also lived and worked in Indonesia and now Singapore, so he is closely acquainted with the APAC area and its regional traits. He speaks English, Malay, and Bahasa Indonesia – all of these being a huge plus when interacting with so many different cultures and customer demographics.
In his free time, Sheldon likes to play the drums, the guitar, and the bass so he could basically start a band all by himself, as a one-show-man. But what he enjoys the most is the time spent with his family and he says that becoming a dad was the biggest milestone in his life.

Sheldon wanted to be an entrepreneur growing up and he describes himself as a risk-taker. We asked him if there’s a certain celebrity that he would like to meet and he said Brad Pitt because he would like to know once and for all what is it that his wife “goes crazy about”.

Sheldon Maniam

Senior Business Development Director APAC
2017 Castillo Valerie Port

Valerie Castillo, VP of Marketing

TrustYou’s VP of Marketing, Valerie Castillo, has more than 10 years of experience working in the B2B marketing scene for hospitality SaaS and cloud-based solutions. Valerie has previously worked in product marketing at Cvent, an industry-leading event solutions provider for event planners and hoteliers. She oversees the global marketing department at TrustYou and is a passionate leader, collaborator, and storyteller. She considers feedback to be at the very center of her life, both on a professional and a personal level.

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Valerie believes that effective marketing can only be done when you truly understand the expectations and needs of your audience and this is the exact reason why feedback is crucial to any business. She enjoys working for TrustYou because of the company’s clear, consistent, and innovative path, one that she thinks is leading the way in the industry. She is certain that the company’s customer-centric approach is what contributed to a product that many want to copy.

For our VP of Marketing, the company’s customer service is the ultimate benefit. She has previously worked with technology providers that focus on selling the product and see the purchase as the end of the line. But over the years, Valerie has noticed and contributed to TrustYou’s vision of being not only a provider but a partner and offering support all along the way.

Valerie also appreciates the company’s longevity – being one of the firsts in the business, she is a strong believer that it will continue to be a leading innovator for many years to come. Her path within the company has already brought her many opportunities that she would not have envisioned for herself so early in her career. She has a “TrustYou MBA” that she says is more valuable than anything else she could ask for.

A personal skill that reflects positively in her day-to-day work is Valerie’s empathy. She thinks that in order to work with others and lead a team, empathy is crucial. Valerie was born in Washington DC and is currently living in sunny San Diego. In her free time, she enjoys the company of her close friends and eating great food. Growing up, she dreamt of becoming a Broadway actress and although that dream hasn’t materialized yet, Valerie says she still has time.

Valerie Castillo

VP of Marketing