Vanta's new Northern and Central Europe Sales Lead on How She Plans to Drive Growth In-Region

Isabel Gudenus recently joined compliance and security platform Vanta as its new Head of Sales for Northern & Central Europe, helping to deepen its footprint across the EMEA region.

With a strong track record in building and scaling high-performing sales teams at companies like Navan and Medallia, Gudenus brings a rare blend of commercial acumen and people-first leadership to the growing Vanta team. She joins at a time when trust, compliance, and security are taking centre stage in the boardroom—and Vanta’s automation-first approach is striking a chord across startups and enterprises alike.

We sat down with Isabel to find out what drew her to Vanta, how she plans to drive growth, and the principles she brings to GTM leadership.

Why did you choose to work at Vanta?

“I look at three main areas when evaluating a new opportunity—product (product market fit + TAM), leadership, and my potential to drive impact,” Isabel says.

Product: “Two topics are hot right now which will continue growing over the coming decade: AI, and everything related to security, trust and compliance. Vanta sits at the intersection of both.”

With increasing pressure on companies to prove security standards and compliance readiness, Vanta’s automated platform is transforming a traditionally manual and painful process. “Whether it’s the founder of a 20-person company or the CISO of a 2,000-person org, the reaction is the same—Vanta’s a no-brainer. It’s a massive time saver and lever for growth.”

Leadership: Gudenus is quick to highlight the calibre of the executive team. “I’m hugely inspired by our CEO, Christina Cacioppo, and our Chief Revenue Officer, Stevie Case. Alongside Chris Sander, our Head of Sales for EMEA, they’re exactly the kind of leaders I want to learn from.”

And it’s not just about business success. “Stevie was the first professional female gamer. How would you not want to learn from someone with such an epic career path?!”

Potential for Impact: For Gudenus, it’s about building, problem solving, and seeing progress. “It was important to me to join a high-growth organisation where I could make an impact. The potential for Vanta in EMEA gets me genuinely excited. We have a small but mighty team, which has already gotten Vanta to a place where we are the clear market leader and a gold standard for other product companies across the region. And with a massive addressable market still ahead, there’s so much more to build.”

How will you drive growth in your new role?

Gudenus is joining a high-performing team—but her focus is on amplifying what’s already working.

“I’m lucky to have joined an incredible team—the Vanta’ns here in Europe are an amazing bunch.

Driving growth in this role won’t necessarily come from massive strategy changes, but from enabling the team to excel in what they already do best,” she explains. “That means strengthening our SDR function, building out a world-class outbound pipeline generation program, and deepening our focus on value-based selling.

It’s cliché but true—I believe wholeheartedly that you need to control the controllables. If we focus on the things we can control, like picking up the phone to build pipeline, being incredibly curious throughout the entire deal cycle and building air tight business cases, then there is no reason why this team can’t win big.”

Longer-term, her ambitions are clear: “I want this team to be known for leaning into change, holding themselves to a higher standard, and standing out for their curiosity and drive.”

What’s next for Vanta in Europe?

Vanta’s global mission is simple: to secure the internet and protect consumer data. And Gudenus is focused on translating that into meaningful regional momentum.

“My team is focusing on key EMEA markets outside of the UKI—all with the potential to become as big as the UK, if not bigger,” she says. “I’m excited to work with the team to not only grow Vanta’s presence in those markets, but to help create an environment where, 20 years from now, our AEs can look back and say, ‘That was some of the best work of my career.’”

Isabel’s advice for GTM leaders

When asked what she’s learned about building successful sales organisations, Gudenus doesn’t hesitate.

• Focus: “You can fix everything, but not everything all at once. Identify the P0, what’s going to drive the biggest impact, and focus on that.”
• Communicate with clarity: “Be data driven, document clearly, set explicit expectations, give direct in-the-moment feedback, and share information often and candidly.”
• Culture matters: “Ask yourself: do people have fun being here? There’s no point in having a team that’s focused and clearly communicating, but otherwise bored. It’s our job as leaders to create an environment that people want to stay in.”

About Vanta

Vanta automates security monitoring and simplifies compliance, helping businesses get—and stay—audit-ready. The platform is trusted by thousands of companies globally to accelerate SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, and more.