In an exclusive interview with CanadianSME Small Business Magazine, Liz Klein, Director of Regional Sales at Samsara, shares how the company is revolutionizing fleet management and logistics in Canada. Leading a high-performing sales team, Liz works with some of the nation’s most recognized businesses to enhance operational efficiency, safety, and sustainability. With a deep understanding of Canada’s unique challenges—spanning diverse regulations, extreme weather conditions, and evolving industry needs—Samsara has positioned itself as a trusted technology partner. In this conversation, Liz discusses the power of AI-driven innovation, the importance of building strong customer relationships, and how businesses of all sizes can leverage technology to scale, adapt, and thrive in an ever-changing landscape.
As the Director of Regional Sales at Samsara, Liz leads a high-performing sales team servicing thousands of Canadian customers nationwide. She oversees both the Mid-Market and Commercial segments, working with some of Canada’s most recognized fleet and logistics companies to enhance their operational efficiency and drive important business outcomes.
With extensive experience in the technology industry, Liz has a proven track record of building and scaling successful sales teams from the ground up in Emerging Markets.
You’ve emphasized the importance of building strong relationships in Canada. Can you share more about how you’ve adapted this approach, and how it has contributed to Samsara’s success?
In markets like Canada, our success isn’t just about providing a product, it’s about building genuine partnerships with our clients. We’ve prioritized building local teams across key provinces to deeply understand their unique regional challenges and work closely with our customers to gather direct feedback to build better products. Our customer feedback loop allows us to rapidly develop and deploy new features each year that address the evolving needs of Canadian businesses.
To further strengthen these partnerships and stay close to our customers, we are actively expanding our presence at local events. This includes hosting events in major customer hubs, participating in local association conferences, and showcasing our solutions at larger trade shows. A few months ago, we hosted a Samsara User Group event in Toronto, where we brought our customer community together to share ideas, tackle challenges, and explore how Samsara can make operations even better for our customers. We’ve also hosted events in cities such as Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal, and Vancouver to ensure we’re gathering first hand insights to foster a deeper understanding of our customers’ specific needs and challenges.
As a leader in a male-dominated industry, how does Samsara support and uplift women both within the organization and in the industries it serves? What initiatives or strategies have been most effective?
Samsara is deeply committed to supporting and uplifting women, both internally and across the industries we serve. Internally, our Women of Samsara [WOS] employee resource group provides mentorship programs, leadership opportunities, and essential resources to empower the women who are vital to our success. We also foster an inclusive culture where everyone can bring their whole selves to work. As our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion report highlights, we actively track and report on our progress to ensure a diverse and equitable environment.
Externally, we actively champion women in logistics through partnerships with organizations that promote their advancement. This includes providing scholarships and sponsoring industry events, such as our recent Women in Operations webinar, where we brought together women across different industries for a powerful discussion on leadership, career growth, and the safety innovations shaping their fields. We believe that empowering women is not only the right thing to do, but also essential for driving innovation and long-term success within Samsara and throughout physical operations.
How does your vision for Canada differ from other international markets?
Physical operations organizations across Canada face some very specific challenges that we partner to solve; our country’s vast geography, diverse regulatory landscape across provinces, and varying industry needs from the oil sands in Alberta to the trucking routes in Ontario requires our strategy to adopt a regionalized approach, with dedicated teams in key hubs to provide localized expertise and support.
Our vision for Canada goes beyond simply deploying technology; we aim to be a trusted partner in helping Canadian businesses improve safety, efficiency, and sustainability. This means tailoring our solutions to address specific Canadian challenges, such as extreme weather conditions and remote operations, which differentiates our approach from other international markets.
We’re really excited about the positive outcomes we’ve seen with customers like Sobeys, a top Canadian grocery retailer. They utilize our platform to maintain the integrity of their cold chain, ensuring perishable goods are delivered in optimal condition across their extensive network. In a country with such varied climates and long distances, this is crucial. By deploying our temperature monitoring and real-time tracking solutions, Sobeys has been able to reduce spoilage, improve delivery reliability, and maintain the highest standards of food safety.
Reflecting on Samsara’s decade-long journey, what have been the most significant technological advancements or innovations that have helped the company adapt to changing industry needs in Canada?
Over the past decade, several technological advancements have been crucial. Our AI-powered dash cameras have significantly improved driver safety and retention, a key concern in Canada’s challenging driving conditions and driver shortage. Our recent State of Connected Operations Report: Building for the Next Generation: Workforce Trends in Physical Operations, found that Canadian leaders rank cameras as a top technology for improving recruitment and retention, driven by younger workers’ emphasis on safety.
More recently, we’ve introduced Samsara Intelligence, an expanded suite of AI offerings designed to help our customers in Canada discover insights, automate tasks, and make better decisions. This includes innovations like the Samsara Assistant, a generative AI tool that provides instant answers to complex operational questions, and Intelligent Experiences, which embeds AI-powered insights, recommendations, and actions directly into our applications.
These advancements are not only optimizing operations and improving decision-making, but also helping Canadian businesses in industries like construction to reduce emissions and enhance sustainability. By leveraging data-driven insights to optimize operations, equipment use and vehicle emissions, Samsara is optimizing complex supply chains and building for a more sustainable future for Canadian industries.
As Samsara celebrates its 10th anniversary, what advice would you offer to small and medium-sized businesses looking to scale and innovate in their respective markets? How can they leverage technology to drive growth and sustainability?
My advice to SMBs is to embrace technology strategically, recognizing its transformative potential. Start by identifying key operational challenges and then seek out solutions that can provide clear return on investment. A key advantage for SMEs is that solutions like Samsara’s are highly flexible and can scale to meet fleets of any size. From small operations with a handful of vehicles, to large-scale fleets, it’s never been easier for SMEs and companies of all sizes to streamline their operations, improve efficiency and enhance the customer experience to drive business growth.
