Redwood Shores, Calif. — Jan. 5
Saba, a people cloud service provider, announced the appointment of Elaine Kitagawa to chief financial officer, effective Jan. 7. Kitagawa will assume responsibility for global finance and operations and report to Saba’s founder and CEO, Bobby Yazdani.
Kitagawa joins Saba from Gaia Interactive. In her roles as chief operating officer and chief financial officer there, she enabled the company to mature and operate efficiently from an early-stage to late-stage venture-backed company by building operations from the ground up.
Prior to Gaia, Kitagawa served 9 years at Ariba in various executive roles including CFO of Ariba EMEA and VP of corporate finance and investor relations. As a key executive of the company, Kitagawa was an integral part of the company’s transformation from an on-premise software company to a business commerce solution provider.
Prior to Ariba, Kitagawa held various financial and operational roles at Clarify Inc., Dialog Corp. and 3Com.
Kitagawa graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor’s of science degree from University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business. She is a certified public accountant in the state of California.
Source: Saba
