Talking Rain Tech VP Marlee Perez Leads Data, ERP Overhaul
Editor's Note: This article is part of a CGT series that digs into leadership hires a year into the new positions, to learn how roles are evolving and how fresh eyes can transform business operations.
Marlee Perez joined Talking Rain Beverage Co., which manufactures the Sparkling Ice water brand, as its vice president of technology last August.
Over the past year, her remit has been to build a connected strategy across data, technology, people and processes. She was tasked with:
- Developing and executing the company’s tech strategy and roadmap.
- Leading the stabilization and optimization of its ERP system.
- Fostering a culture of innovation and accountability within the tech team and driving continuous improvement initiatives.
- Managing the annual tech budget, achieving cost savings while prioritizing strategic investments.
Since taking on the role, Perez has checked off significant transformation tasks, helping to deploy a digital roadmap, introducing accountability protocols, identifying areas of collaborative opportunity and diving deeper into artificial intelligence.
"We deployed a program assessment and roadmap that links our three-year business strategy to the capabilities our teams need most," she tells CGT.
Additionally, Perez introduced the company's Confidence Indicator, a measure of how employees (or Rain Makers as they are referred to internally) are performing and where they need support to effectively navigate change.
"On the technology side," adds Perez, "we launched an AI program focused on literacy, tool evaluation and operational integration, so AI becomes a coordinated business capability above and beyond a series of disconnected experiments and great ideas."
Overhauling the Core
Perez is no stranger to global digital transformations. Throughout her career, she successfully directed eight ERP transitions across 27 business units. So, when it came time to overhaul Talking Rain's ERP, she had already established systems that would help the company transition smoothly and move together with a collaborative approach.
"Large-scale transformation taught me that change cannot live with one person or one team. It has to be distributed, which is why our Confidence Indicator gives every individual a clear way to own their readiness," she says.
As with any large ERP implementation, there's a need for stabilization and optimization. And by moving together as an organization, she says, it brings cohesiveness and discipline to the technology decisions that Talking Rain makes as a company.
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"Building on our existing system, we have already begun identifying practical wins, including reducing chargebacks and capturing payment discounts. We then paired those efforts with stronger governance and user readiness," says Perez.
Today, ERP changes require a clear business case, she says, and the program is on track to deliver measurable value with less than a two-year payback.
Improving Data Access Enterprise-Wide
This is part of Talking Rain's efforts to improve data visibility and access for the entire organization.
"We are building a shared data foundation so teams make decisions from the same clean, trusted information instead of disconnected reports and spreadsheets," says Perez.
That foundation begins with an enterprise reporting layer, which gives the business one consistent definition of key metrics across sales, marketing, finance and operations. And as Talking Rain establishes trust in its data, it will then "apply AI more strategically across channels and departments, helping teams evaluate tools and integrate them in ways that support the broader system."
With clean data, the company can also focus on integrated business planning to create a single source of truth for planning, budgeting and forecasting so team members are all working from the same assumptions and figures.
"Clear data and tested processes compound the advantage of AI as an effective tool," says Perez. "Success for us means less time reconciling data and chasing reports, and more time making confident decisions."
Tech Transformation Requires a Culture Shift
Continuous improvement begins with culture, says Perez. She asks every person involved in a project to own how the changes impact them, and then uses the Confidence Indicator to turn broad risk into specific conversations about readiness and support.
"That makes challenges easier to solve and creates accountability without blame," she says. "People can name what is not working, learn from it and move faster together."
While Talking Rain has always had an entrepreneurial, roll-up-your-sleeves culture, Perez says she has focused on adding more intention to that energy so it compounds across teams instead of staying siloed.
"In a fast-moving consumer goods environment, clarity has to come early and often," she says. "I try to be direct about non-negotiables while keeping collaboration strong, because lasting transformation depends on both alignment and momentum."
