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Meet Jacqueline
Jacqueline Menzel, known to most as Jackie, is a Munich based fractional sales enablement leader and advisor. With a career spanning more than three decades across Europe and North America, she supports technology and SaaS organizations by helping sales teams work with greater clarity, confidence, and sustainability.
The quiet strength behind the confidence
Jackie does not introduce herself with a list of achievements. She tends to speak instead about people. About curiosity. About health. About staying human in environments that often forget how. There is an ease to her presence that comes from having seen enough change to no longer fear it. Her optimism is real, but it is not naïve. It has been tested by geography, by gender, by illness, and by a professional world that does not always reward patience or empathy.
What drives her today is not momentum for its own sake, but meaning. The belief that experience only matters if it is shared. That results count most when they are achieved without burning people out along the way.
Growing up with limits and imagining beyond them
Jackie was born in the former East Germany, in a system where opportunity was defined early and tightly. Career paths were limited, travel was restricted, and higher education was not equally accessible. She began her working life as a secretary, not because it was her dream, but because it was possible.
Then Germany reunified, and with it came both uncertainty and possibility. For Jackie, that moment marked a personal line in the sand. Success, she decided, would no longer be something prescribed. It would be something she defined for herself. Building a solid career became not just an ambition, but a form of agency.
An early move to Canada expanded her world in ways she could not have planned. It was there that she encountered a different relationship with work and ambition. She worked for large American companies and for leaders who were unapologetic about results. The pace was faster. Expectations were clearer. Accountability was personal.
One particular manager left a lasting imprint. He ran a successful real estate business, and profit was openly at the center of his work. Watching him taught Jackie something foundational about discipline and ownership. As she puts it,
“That experience taught me how discipline, hard work, and self confidence directly influence outcomes.”
It was not about money alone. It was about understanding the mechanics behind success and realizing that confidence is often built through action rather than bestowed by permission.
Finding her place in sales and staying there
When Jackie returned to Germany in 1996, she entered the technology sector through sales back office roles. It was practical. It was stable. It made sense on paper. But it did not take long for her to realize that her energy was better suited closer to the customer.
In 1999, she moved into direct sales. The shift felt immediate and natural. She enjoyed the pace, the constant learning, and the problem solving that came with working across industries. Sales was not just about persuasion for her. It was about understanding how organizations work and how they struggle.
Over time, her career evolved from direct sales into services sales, and eventually into sales enablement. Leadership roles followed. So did responsibility for teams spread across countries, cultures, and time zones.
This evolution was not without friction. Jackie did not have a formal academic degree, a gap rooted in her East German upbringing. In some hiring processes, that absence raised questions. In parallel, she was building a leadership career in a male dominated technology industry, where credibility was often assumed rather than earned.
She met both challenges the same way. By focusing relentlessly on delivery. By preparing thoroughly. By going beyond what was expected. Results became her language. Experience became her credential.
Over time, the doubts faded. Not because the system changed, but because her track record spoke clearly enough to make them irrelevant.
The shift from momentum to intention
After years in global roles within multinational organizations, Jackie reached a point where the next step felt obvious. Not upward, but inward. In 2023, following a well deserved sabbatical, she launched her own business as a fractional sales advisor and enablement leader.
The decision was less a leap than a synthesis. An opportunity to apply everything she had learned in a more intentional way. To work with organizations at different stages of maturity. To focus not just on strategy, but on execution that people could actually sustain.
Then came an unexpected interruption. A health crisis in 2024 forced a pause she had not planned for. For someone accustomed to momentum, it was confronting. For someone as reflective as Jackie, it was also clarifying.
She emerged with a sharper understanding of effectiveness versus busyness, and with a renewed commitment to health as a non negotiable foundation for performance.
“Being busy is not effectiveness, and prioritizing health is what makes a long career possible,”
This realization did not pull her away from her work. It reshaped how she does it.
Turning experience into clarity for others
Today, Jackie’s work centers on helping individuals and teams move from good ideas to execution. She partners with organizations to improve sales productivity, scale enablement practices, and develop resilient teams that can adapt as markets and technologies evolve.
What distinguishes her approach is not a framework or a toolset. It is her ability to translate change into practical and human ways of working. She understands the evolution of sales, including the growing role of AI, but she never loses sight of the people expected to make those systems work.
Mentoring and coaching sit at the heart of her practice. She is driven by sharing knowledge, by helping others see possibilities they might overlook in themselves. Her clients often describe feeling clearer and more confident after working with her, not because they have been pushed harder, but because things finally make sense.
A strong health first mindset runs through everything she does. She speaks openly about resilience, about reading the signals your body sends, about the cost of ignoring them. This is not a side note to her work. It is part of how she defines sustainable success.
Her impact shows up not just in metrics, but in energy. In teams that collaborate more openly. In leaders who feel less alone. In cultures where results and humanity are not treated as opposing forces.
Looking ahead with curiosity intact
When Jackie talks about the future, she does not outline a rigid plan. What matters more to her is staying curious and staying herself. Continuing to share what she has learned. Continuing to support others in building careers that are both successful and sustainable.
Health remains her first priority, not as a retreat from ambition, but as its enabler. She wants to spread the power of resilience, especially to those who believe they have to sacrifice themselves to succeed.
She is inspired by entrepreneurs who built their own paths and stayed grounded while doing so. People who measure success not only by scale, but by integrity.
Her guiding values are simple and consistently lived. Trust. Respect for people. Respect for health. Discipline in turning experience into results that last.
What remains when the titles fall away
Jackie’s story is not one of overnight transformation. It is the accumulation of choices made with intention. From a secretary in East Germany to a leader guiding international teams. From corporate roles to independent work grounded in purpose. From relentless momentum to conscious sustainability.
Success, for her, is not a destination. It is a way of working and living that allows room for growth, humor, and care. As she reflects,
“Stay human, show respect, help others and stay curious. And look after yourself and read the symptoms of your body. Your soul is talking to you when something is wrong.”
In an industry often defined by speed and pressure, Jackie Menzel stands as proof that depth, resilience, and humanity are not liabilities. They are advantages that last.
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