Gabriella DeCesare 
Amanda Wellborne is vice president of public sector at Totara, leading the U.S. direct sales organization with responsibility for public sector market strategy, revenue growth and pipeline development. She oversees account executives and sales engineering teams, driving alignment across sales strategy, technical engagement and opportunity development to support federal customers.
Wellborne brings a diverse career background spanning academia, human resources, learning and development, enterprise software and public sector technology sales. After beginning her career as a faculty member at Texas A&M University, she transitioned into corporate leadership roles focused on training, organizational development, customer success, account management and sales. She has also led international business operations, including support for Latin American markets.
With extensive experience in learning technologies and government-focused solutions, Wellborne is known for building high-performing teams, strengthening customer relationships, and driving growth through strategic go-to-market execution.
Wellborne recently sat down with ExecutiveBiz for an exclusive Spotlight interview on Totara’s growth goals and strategy, as well as features for talent retention and her personal journey from academic to executive.
ExecutiveBiz: Where do you see Totara in 10 years and what concrete steps must you take to get to that stage of evolution?
Amanda Wellborne: For Totara, I think that becoming one of the defining workforce transformation platforms globally will be where we are in 10 years, especially when we think about highly regulated industries and federal agencies. We have grown and expanded our scope into the public sector. I definitely see us being very well established in that in the next 10 years.
When we think about industry from an LMS perspective, I think where it’s headed is not just simply delivering content anymore, we’re talking about organizations and agencies that have a stake and a true need for workforce intelligence. So meaning, I wanna know if my workforce is ready, I wanna know what skills I have and where those skills sit and how can I help people capitalize on their talents and really impact the business overall. That’s where we will continue to adapt and transform our platform and tools into meeting this flexibility and change in the workforce readiness.
And then how do we get there and what are some concrete steps? First, continuing to think about how we evolve beyond the LMS model and position us as a full workforce and enablement and talent intelligence platform will be critical for us in the next decade. Being that companion or collaborative tool that can help organizations make smarter decisions in real time. Second, I think that there’s a huge opportunity to deepen investment in GovCon and other highly regulated industries because security is continuing to be a priority.
Compliance, accessibility and audit will always be a priority within these highly regulated environments that we work in within the federal space, so continuing to align our capabilities to things like FedRAMP standards or GovRAMP standards will be top of mind for us in the next decade. Third, I also think that we’ll continue to lean into responsible AI where it makes sense within the tool and use it responsibly to shape those workforce development opportunities and reasons why you would use a talent development tool like ours.
ExecutiveBiz: What are Totara’s core values? How do you think these values translate into continued success and growth in the GovCon market?
Wellborne: Totara is built on a collaborative mindset. So I think that making sure that our value of that collaborative nature shines through to our customers and being able to provide a true partnership centered around adaptability, flexibility and openness—because nobody works well in a vacuum—we work well when we can work together and truly understand what are the challenges you’re facing and what are your needs. When we think about collaboration, really we want to co-create and collaborate on how we’re developing the workforce in general. Then we’ve also been built with an emphasis on openness and togetherness.
We think about how we can combine all of our powers together to help solve that. I think that is really key. When we think about flexibility, for example, when we look at the federal landscape, no two agencies are the same or operate necessarily in the same way. So compliance requirements may be there, but reporting structures could be different, or a rigid system over here might look a little more flexible over here. Totara can really help these agencies adapt and use our flexible configuration and ecosystem to create an advantage for them there.
ExecutiveBiz: What is your strategy for attracting and retaining top-level talent amid ongoing talent shortages in today’s highly competitive market?
Wellborne: It’s been interesting to watch this evolve over the past couple decades. I think salary was king for a long time, but in the last five to 10 years it’s been knocked off its throne. Now we’re really seeing people not only ask for but demand value in development and growth. How companies care for an employee and help them to learn new things, reskill or upskill and grow within your organization is really key. At Totara we definitely like to help people come in, learn the product, learn the processes and help them grow along the path. For me, attracting and retaining exceptional talent starts with that type of culture where growth and development is at the center and that leadership also projects and portrays that from the top down. Making sure to be that hand up is really key for me in being able to retain valued people.
Lastly, I think transparency is very key as well. People don’t want to guess where they are—they don’t want to think, “how am I doing right now”. Being able to provide continuous feedback, having a transparent and good working relationship is key, not only at the company level, but from leadership to employee as well. That is definitely a part of our talent attraction.
ExecutiveBiz: Tell me what being a lifelong learner means to you. How does this drive your work at Totara and influence how you serve others?
Wellborne: I have a passion for helping and teaching others, but that also means growing and learning myself and developing to be able to help and teach others. I am currently finishing my PhD, so from a personal perspective, lifelong learning is always there as part of my process.
How that translates into my work life is in how it helps me with knowledge of my space, and understanding things like learning and development. I think learning in general dictates and drives how I lead and collaborate and serve others, including clients, because you have to always have a healthy curiosity. A healthy curiosity means asking questions, caring about that person that you’re talking to or that client—evaluating what is the ultimate outcome and are you driving towards that? For me, those are some ways that I weave that learning mindset into my everyday, both personally and professionally.
