Microsoft Executive Sophia Velastegui Joins BlackLine’s Board Of Directors

By Amit Chowdhry ● Mar 19, 2020
  • BlackLine has announced that Microsoft executive Sophia Velastegui joined the company’s board of directors. These are the details.

BlackLine has announced that Microsoft executive Sophia Velastegui joined the company’s board of directors. This brings the number of female directors on BlackLine’s board to three. At Microsoft, Velastegui is currently the chief technology officer for Operation Applications at Microsoft. And she will be drawing on her 20+ years of experience at Microsoft, Google, and Apple to help BlackLine maintain its leadership position and guide the company through its next phase of growth.

What does BlackLine do? BlackLine cloud-based solutions and market-leading customer service help companies move to modern accounting by unifying their data and processes, automating repetitive work, and driving accountability through visibility. And BlackLine provides solutions for financial close management, accounting automation, and intercompany governance, helping large enterprises and midsize companies across all industries do accounting work better, faster, and more control. BlackLine has over 3,000 customers who use the service to close faster with complete and accurate results.

Before Microsoft, Velastegui served as Doppler Lab’s chief product officer where she defined a new product category and created the first “smart” earbuds. Prior to  Doppler, Velastegui headed Google/Nest’s Silicon and Architecture Roadmap team where she scaled the organization from startup to growth business unit after the Google acquisition. And Velastegui also worked at Apple where she led the Platform Architecture “Think Tank” Program, utilizing AI and machine learning across all of Apple’s advanced technology platforms. Before Apple, Velastegui held a variety of technology and product development roles at ETM and Applied Materials.

Along with her extensive professional experience, Velastegui served on Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering and Create X incubator boards. And she previously served on the board of Elwyn.org, a non-profit servicing children and adults with disabilities.

Velastegui holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. And she also completed executive education programs at Stanford Law School and Harvard Business School.

Key Quotes:

“I find BlackLine truly inspiring because of the leadership team’s unwavering focus on innovation, collaboration and customer success – all of which has resulted in BlackLine emerging as the leader in modern accounting. I am very excited to have been nominated to join the board and to contribute to the continued growth of this extraordinary company.”

-Sophia Velastegui

“Sophia has an incredible technology background and is recognized as one of the foremost engineers in the field. She’ll bring experience and knowledge to our board and will help ensure that BlackLine utilizes the latest AI, machine learnings and other predictive and emerging technologies to continue to innovate and serve our customers. And, she shares my passion, advocating for diversity in technology and leadership.”

-BlackLine CEO Therese Tucker