About Doina Popa — InnoTrue founder, Salesforce CTA, and executive coach
"At 25 I walked into my CEO's office and convinced her to build and launch a new product line. I've been reinventing myself ever since, through relocations, career gaps, rejection, and rediscovery. Not once or twice. Every time it was necessary."
Doina Popa founded InnoTrue on a single conviction: the professionals and organisations who navigate the AI transition best are the ones who invest in human capability — in themselves and in their people — deliberately.
She speaks from the full arc of that journey. Not as a theorist, but as someone who has held the roles and navigated the path her clients are working towards.
Shaped continuously,
intentionally.
At 25, just two years into her career, Doina spotted a product opportunity her company wasn't pursuing. She took the initiative past her manager and went directly to the CEO — a tough, intimidating woman who nonetheless took the time to listen. Over the next four years, Doina built and led an entire business unit around that product: sales, marketing, development, and customer support. That's where leadership stopped being theoretical.
"It was tough, but I learned through experience what it takes to be a leader."
“The world keeps changing. The people who lead through it are the ones who invest in themselves consistently.”
Then came country moves and long career breaks for childcare — periods that meant starting over more than once. Each time, Doina rebuilt her technical foundations and worked her way back to the level she'd left. When she talks about rebuilding from scratch, earning your place, or choosing growth over comfort, it is not motivational language. It is autobiography.
By 2014 she had earned the Salesforce CTA credential, and C-level roles followed at Capgemini and Barclays. Having held those seats — and judged dozens of others toward them — she'd noticed a pattern nobody was addressing: technically excellent people failing the Review Board and stalling before the C-suite, not because of what they knew, but because of how they showed up. When she asked herself what was worth building next, the answer was clear. InnoTrue was founded in 2019 to close that gap.
Two worlds.
One rare intersection.
Most people who can teach the technical side cannot coach the leadership side with lived authority. Most coaches have never held a CTO or CIO title in enterprise technology. Doina operates in both — and that combination is genuinely uncommon.
- Salesforce Certified Technical Architect
- 28 Salesforce certifications
- Active Salesforce CTA Review Board Judge
- Salesforce Workforce Development Partner
- Salesforce Certified Instructor — Architecture track (Trailhead)
- Top EMEA Advisory Services FY16
- 14 countries
- 4,200+ professionals trained and coached worldwide
Not a coach who passed.
C-suite lived experience
in the room
from the inside
- ICF PCC (Professional Certified Coach) — Professional Certified Coach
- ICF ACTC (Team Coaching) — Advanced Certification in Team Coaching
- EMCC Senior Practitioner
- Solutions Academy Team Coach
- Hogan Certified Assessor
- CTO Salesforce — Capgemini
- CIO Salesforce — Barclays
- 250+ person global team leadership
Rigorous credentials.
No shortcuts.
The full picture behind the credentials you've already seen.
- Executive MBA, Innovation & Business Creation — TU Munich & UnternehmerTUM, Germany
- Executive Certificate in Management and Leadership — MIT Sloan School of Management, US
- Executive Certificate in Strategy and Innovation — MIT Sloan School of Management, US
- Applied Neuroscience — MIT Sloan School of Management, US
- Professional Certificate in Executive Coaching — Henley Business School, UK
- Negotiation and Conflict Resolution — Macquarie Graduate School of Management
- MSc & Advanced Studies in Computer Science — Polytechnic University of Bucharest, Romania
A career built at the intersection of
technical mastery and leadership transformation.
The credibility that underpins every InnoTrue program is not constructed — it is the direct result of a career spent navigating the exact transitions her clients are working through.
2010
2014
Close the gap between
capability and recognition.
Too many technically excellent professionals are not getting the careers their capability deserves — because visibility, narrative, and leadership presence are not taught in any Salesforce curriculum or enterprise training program.
InnoTrue delivers both sides of what it actually takes: the technical rigour that earns credibility, and the leadership development that translates that credibility into recognised, high-impact careers.
Explore the programs.
Tell us about you
and your aspirations.
Write to us about where you are now, what you're working toward, and what you'd like to explore. Every message is read and answered personally.
Or email directly: hello@innotrue.com