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Simone Severino CSC

I’m a sales leader, coach, and builder of people.

For over 25 years, I’ve rolled up my sleeves to lead high-performing sales teams across North America, close multimillion-dollar deals, and mentor BDRs into confident closers. I don’t just hit targets, I build cultures rooted in trust, empathy, and results.

At GDI, we didn’t win big by chasing RFPs, we built real relationships. That’s how we landed seven-figure contracts. At CFIB, I helped small business owners grow across every sector through consultative sales and consistent follow-through. And most recently, I led sales training and enablement at a North American SaaS startup, building scalable onboarding systems, boosting conversions by 30%, and coaching remote reps with heart and data.

I’ve worked in startups, trained teams from scratch, and aligned sales with marketing to build real momentum. I’m Salesforce-savvy, strategy-driven, and obsessed with making people feel seen and supported while helping them outperform what they thought was possible.

What drives me? Helping good people do great things, whether it’s a young rep finding their voice or a business expanding because we asked the right questions.

Let’s connect if you believe in leading with empathy, closing with confidence, and building something that matters.  Sales Leader | BDR Coach | Culture-Builder | SaaS & Startup Growth

Kathy Obad

I grew up with that line rattling around in my head: no one is coming to save you.

It always sounded like tough love, Balkan style. Pull up your socks. Figure it out. Keep moving. You’ll save yourself and you’ll be just fine. There’s truth in that. There’s strength in learning how to stand on your own two feet.

But life has a way of softening the edges of our beliefs if we let it.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that while no one may be coming to rescue us in a dramatic, movie-ending kind of way, people save each other all the time. Quietly. 

Accidentally. Without even knowing they did. A door held open when your hands are full. A stranger’s smile on a day that felt heavy for no clear reason. A dog pressing its head into your chest like it knows something you don’t, and a community of like-minded people on LinkedIn who show up quietly with every like, every comment, every “I see you” when I didn’t even know I needed it.

These moments don’t change your life in one sweeping motion. They shift it just enough to help you breathe again. Just enough to remind you to keep going.

Those seemingly small acts carry energy. They give us hope. They give us lift. Sometimes they give us wings when we didn’t even know we were grounded. We are not as alone as our hardest days try to convince us we are. We are borrowing light from each other constantly, even when we don’t have words for it.

So as we walk into 2026, I want you to remember this: if you can’t find a smile, share one. If you’re running low on hope, lean into the kindness around you. And if you have a little extra love in you, put it out there. It always finds its way back.

I’m grateful for the people who’ve walked alongside me, knowingly or not.

Wishing you nothing but health, joy, and the kind of gentle moments that save you in ways you never saw coming.

Happy New Year!

Katica (Kathy) Obad

Sales Manager | Building and Leading High-Performing Teams | Exceeding Sales Goals in SaaS and B2B Environments

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We were cliff jumping in Croatia this summer.
Beautiful water. Big laughs. Massive rips in my son Ivan’s swim trunks, commemorating the experience.

Not long after, Ivan’s favourite jeans faced a similar fate. Torn apart through
adventure.

So, when Christmas rolled around, the gift felt obvious:
New swimming trunks.
New jeans.

Christmas morning, he opened these gifts, smiled, and thanked me.
Later, he came back and said, “Mom, my old jeans and my old trunks are still okay. They just need some love. Some fixing. What if we return these and fix what I already have? We can spend time together. You can teach me how to sew. And we can save the money for future trips.”

I was humbled.

He was right.

I grew up with immigrant parents. Nothing was thrown away. Everything was fixed. Zippers. Buttons. Shoes. Hemlines. If something broke, you didn’t replace it. You figured it out. Somewhere along the way, I lost that part of myself. Convenience crept in quietly. Buying became easier than fixing. Replacing easier than repairing.

So, we took an old pair of jeans and cut them up into pieces.
We took the ripped pair and reinforced the weak spots.
We took the swimming trunks and ran a zigzag stitch all the way down the back, again and again, turning shredded fabric into intentional stripes. 

They were better than new.
We put the returned money into his bank account.
Future trips. Future memories.

Wow.

He reminded me that the easy way isn’t always the best way. Buying would have been faster. Quieter. Done. But fixing gave us something else. Time. Laughter. A shared skill. A moment that will outlive any pair of jeans.

While I’ve been resting and healing from surgery, I’ve had time to sit with this idea of fast and convenient versus slow and intentional.

And now I see it everywhere.

In business, we chase new clients because it feels easier than reaching out to old ones. In health, fast food is easy, while planning and cooking take effort. And in life, in general, we replace. We upgrade. We move on, because it’s convenient. Because it’s faster. Because fixing asks us to stay.

As the year closes, maybe this is a moment to pause and ask:
Where have I chosen easy when fixing might have mattered more?
Where could I slow down instead of replacing?
Where could I stay a little longer and try to repair what’s already here?

Not everything needs to be new.
Not everything needs to be fast.

Some of the best things in life just need a little patience, a little care, and a zigzag stitch down the back.

And sometimes, the greatest lessons come from our kids, quietly reminding us of who we used to be.

The video is little T and Ivan cliff jumping.
The shredded trunks will make a return this summer. 

#MALABUŽABEACHCROATIA 

#Leadership #TheHealthHaven

I’ve been teaching my youngest how to drive.

And wow. It’s wild how much we forget once something becomes second nature.

We’ve been driving for years. We don’t think about how we reverse, parallel park, signal, shoulder check. Our hands just move. Our feet know what to do. Autopilot takes over.

And if I’m honest, sometimes shortcuts sneak in. Rules bend. Not because we’re careless, but because we’re comfortable.

Watching her drive brought me back to that version of myself who was laser-focused. Every move intentional. Every decision under a microscope. Polished. Present. Trying to do it right because someone was watching.

It made me think about leadership.
The best leaders don’t operate on autopilot.
They don’t rely on what worked twenty years ago. They don’t coach from behind a desk or disappear to the golf course while the world changes around them.

They roll up their sleeves.
They sit in the discomfort.
They pick up the phone.
They make the call. The COLD CALL!!
They get into the work.

Because if you’re not willing to do the thing today, how can you teach someone else to do it well?

Business changes. Markets shift. People change. And leadership that stays relevant is lived, not delegated.

There’s something powerful about getting back into the driver’s seat. Feeling the road again. Paying attention. Leading from inside the work instead of above it.

Sometimes growth isn’t about learning something new.

It’s about getting polished again. 

#Leadership #LeadershipDevelopment #BusinessLeadership #SalesLeadership #LeadFromTheFront

North America is currently battling an internal war.

A battle fought in minds, bodies, homes, and relationships.

A subtle battle, visible only to a keen eye:

Drinking. Binge eating. Scrolling. Working nonstop. Staying busy so there’s no space to feel.

Not because people are weak.
Because they’re trying to survive something they can’t see.

That’s the hardest part about this enemy.

You can’t X-ray it.
You can’t point to it on a screen.
There’s no single moment where it shows up and announces itself.

It just wears people down.

If this is this generation’s war, then connection is the resistance.

Honesty is the armor.

Community is how people survive it.

That’s why today matters.

We take a moment today.

Not to check a box, but to really see what’s happening around us.

And then we take another moment tomorrow.
And the next day.

Because we’re in this NOW.

We beat this by standing together.
By raising awareness.
By raising funds.
By making help easier to reach.
By taking mental health as seriously as we take any other crisis.

What could be more important?

So today, let’s talk.
Let’s listen.
Let’s stay.

Because this isn’t just a conversation.

It’s the work of our time.

#BellLetsTalk #mentalhealth 

“Taking a moment for mental health.” 2026

Taking a moment won’t fix everything, but it’s a step in the right direction.

I’ve noticed something strange over the years.
When things start breaking at scale, the instinct leadership has is usually the same.

Speed up. Add pressure. Push harder.

That instinct feels productive.
It’s also usually wrong.

If everything only works when people overextend, the system is broken, not the workforce.

#Leadership
#LeadershipDevelopment
#BusinessLeadership
#WorkplaceCulture
#FutureOfWork
#HR

I get it.

The numbers aren’t jaw-dropping.
It was December 23 to 30.

Holidays. Family. Food. Life.
Engagement was down 43%.
Totally fair.

But then I actually looked at the numbers.

Over 70% of the people who clicked on my profile last week did not come from a post I wrote.
Not a story I shared.
Not a “thought leadership” moment.

They came from comments.

Comments I left on other people’s posts.

That’s 7,621 people in one week who clicked my profile because something I said in a conversation made them pause. Or think. Or feel seen.

Let that land for a second.

This platform doesn’t reward noise.
It rewards presence.
You don’t need to post every day.
You don’t need perfectly curated content.
You don’t need to chase the algorithm.
People are here for the conversations.

For the perspective.
For the humanity between the lines.

LinkedIn is not a stage.
It’s a dinner table.

And if you’re not sitting in the comments somewhere, listening, responding, adding something real. Why not?

Communication is the currency here.
Always has been.

The magic isn’t in broadcasting.
It’s in engaging.

People didn’t follow the post. They followed the voice.

#Leadership #HumanResources #HR #Networking

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The Battle

Simone Severino CSC

Kathy Obad

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taplio

The Battle

Simone Severino CSC

Kathy Obad

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Kathy Obad's LinkedIn Performance

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