Lead Global Head of Sales

Role Purpose & Context

Role Summary

The Lead Global Head of Sales is responsible for making sure a specific segment of our sales team hits its revenue targets, plain and simple. You'll be the person on the ground, guiding your Account Executives through complex deals, helping them unstick problems, and generally making sure they're set up for success. This role sits right at the heart of our sales engine, translating our overall sales strategy into daily actions for your team. When you do this job well, your team smashes their quota, our forecasts are spot-on, and you're building a pipeline of future sales leaders. If it's not done well, we miss our numbers, reps get frustrated, and we lose market share. The tricky part is balancing individual coaching with overall team performance, all while dealing with the usual market curveballs. The reward? Seeing your team grow, celebrating big wins together, and knowing you've directly contributed to the company's success – that's a pretty good feeling.

Reporting Structure

• Reports to: Director of Sales (Regional/Vertical)
• Direct reports: Roughly 3-8 Account Executives or Senior Account Executives
• Matrix relationships: Sales Manager, EMEA, Regional Sales Lead, Enterprise Accounts, Sales Team Lead, Global Markets,

Key Stakeholders

Internal:

• Other Sales Managers (for best practice sharing and cross-team collaboration)
• Sales Operations (for data, reporting, and process improvements)
• Marketing (to make sure the leads coming in are actually good ones)
• Product Management (to give feedback from the field and push for critical features)
• Finance (for deal approvals, compensation plan discussions, and forecasting alignment)

External:

• Key clients (you'll get involved in the biggest deals or escalations)
• Strategic partners (sometimes you'll work with partners on joint sales efforts)

Organisational Impact

Scope: Your impact is huge, honestly. You're directly responsible for a significant chunk of our revenue. You'll shape how your team sells, how they develop, and ultimately, how we're perceived by our customers. Get it right, and you're building a high-performing, profitable part of the business. Get it wrong, and it hurts our revenue, our reputation, and our team morale.

Performance Metrics

Quantitative Metrics

1. Metric: Team Quota Attainment
2. Desc: The percentage of your team's assigned revenue target that they actually achieve.
3. Target: 100%+ of your team's combined quota
4. Freq: Monthly and Quarterly
5. Example: If your team's quarterly quota is £5M and they close £5.2M, that's 104% attainment. Simple as that.
6. Metric: Forecast Accuracy
7. Desc: How close your team's 'commit' forecast is to the actual revenue closed each period.
8. Target: Within +/- 10% variance on your team's commit
9. Freq: Weekly (for commit calls) and Monthly (for review)
10. Example: You commit £1.5M for the month, and your team closes £1.45M. That's a 3.3% variance – excellent.
11. Metric: Average Rep Productivity
12. Desc: The average percentage of individual quota attainment across your team.
13. Target: >85% average across all direct reports
14. Freq: Quarterly
15. Example: If you have 5 reps, and their individual attainments are 110%, 90%, 80%, 105%, 70%, your average is 91%. We want everyone pulling their weight.
16. Metric: Sales Cycle Length Reduction
17. Desc: Reducing the average time it takes for your team to close a deal from first contact to signed contract.
18. Target: Reduce average sales cycle by 10-15 days (e.g., from 90 to 75 days)
19. Freq: Quarterly
20. Example: Analysing your team's deals, you find the average cycle is 80 days. You implement new qualification steps and reduce it to 70 days, saving 10 days.

Qualitative Metrics

1. Metric: Coaching Effectiveness
2. Desc: How well you're developing your team's sales skills, deal strategy, and overall performance.
3. Evidence: Regular 1:1s with clear action items, observed improvements in call recordings (Gong.io), positive feedback from reps in skip-level meetings, reps consistently hitting accelerators.
4. Metric: Team Morale & Retention
5. Desc: The overall happiness and stability of your sales team.
6. Evidence: Low voluntary attrition rates (below 15% annually), positive feedback in internal surveys, reps actively participating in team events, a generally positive buzz around your team.
7. Metric: Cross-functional Collaboration
8. Desc: Your ability to work effectively with other departments to get deals done and improve processes.
9. Evidence: Marketing and Product teams proactively involving you in planning, positive feedback from Finance on deal desk processes, smooth handovers between teams, no major inter-departmental 'blame games'.
10. Metric: Strategic Input & Execution
11. Desc: Your contribution to shaping and executing our go-to-market strategy for your segment.
12. Evidence: Your ideas are regularly incorporated into regional plans, you're seen as a trusted voice in leadership meetings, your team consistently follows the agreed GTM approach, and you're quick to identify and flag market shifts.

Primary Traits

• Trait: Decisive
• Manifestation: You're the person who makes the tough calls. That means deciding which big deal gets extra resources when two are neck-and-neck, or frankly, knowing when to cut ties with an underperforming rep, even if they're a good laugh in the pub. You're comfortable owning the final decision, even when the information isn't perfect.
• Benefit: If you can't make a decision, your team won't either. Indecision at this level trickles down and paralyses the whole sales motion. A leader who dithers on whether to walk away from a bad deal in Q4 can seriously jeopardise our annual target. We need someone who can commit and move forward.
• Trait: Influential
• Manifestation: You're a master at getting people on side, both inside and outside the team. This might mean convincing the CFO that a slightly more aggressive compensation plan will actually pay dividends, or getting the Head of Product to bump a critical feature up the roadmap because it's key to closing a multi-million pound deal. You can present a challenging quarter to senior leadership in a way that still builds confidence in your plan.
• Benefit: A sales leader's job isn't just selling to customers; it's selling internally. Without the ability to influence, you won't secure the budget, the product support, or the executive alignment your team needs to hit their numbers. You're a diplomat and a persuader, always fighting for your team's success.
• Trait: Accountable
• Manifestation: When your team misses the forecast, you're the first to say, 'I got the forecast wrong,' not 'My reps let me down.' You take public ownership of failures and make sure your team gets the public credit for successes. Your reports and numbers are always presented without spin or excuses. You're the buck-stops-here person.
• Benefit: This is absolutely crucial for building trust – with the executive team, with your peers, and most importantly, with your own team. A leader who blames others creates a culture of fear, sandbagging, and distrust, which completely destroys any chance of accurate forecasting or genuine collaboration. We need someone who owns it, good or bad.

Supporting Traits

• Trait: Resilience
• Desc: You'll need to be able to take a punch – a lost whale of a deal, a tough quarter, or even a top rep leaving. The market is unpredictable, and you need to show up the next day with conviction, ready to rally the troops.
• Trait: Commercially Astute
• Desc: You think like a mini-CEO for your segment. You understand the P&L impact of deal structures, discounting, and hiring decisions. It's not just about revenue; it's about profitable revenue.
• Trait: Relentlessly Driven
• Desc: There's an innate, burning desire to win, to beat the competition, and to exceed targets. This drive isn't just for you; it's the engine that powers and motivates your entire sales organisation. You just don't like losing.

Primary Motivators

1. Motivator: Building a Winning Team
2. Daily: You get a real buzz from seeing your reps develop, close big deals, and hit their accelerators. You're constantly looking for ways to coach them up and celebrate their successes.
3. Motivator: Hitting Ambitious Targets
4. Daily: The challenge of 'making the number' for your team is what gets you out of bed. You love the strategic puzzle of how to get there, and the satisfaction of achieving it.
5. Motivator: Shaping Strategy and Impact
6. Daily: You enjoy contributing to the bigger picture, not just executing. You're constantly thinking about how to improve our go-to-market, refine our processes, and influence the product roadmap.

Potential Demotivators

Honestly, this role isn't for everyone. If you're someone who thrives on purely individual contribution and dislikes the messiness of managing people, you might struggle. You'll spend a fair bit of time dealing with performance issues, mediating internal conflicts, and fighting for resources. The 'urgent' request that messed up your Thursday might get deprioritised on Friday by someone else. You'll build a solid plan that might get derailed by a sudden market shift or a competitor's move. If you need every piece of your work to go smoothly and exactly as planned, you'll probably find this role frustrating.

Common Frustrations

1. The Marketing-Sales Divide: Constantly battling Marketing over what constitutes a 'Marketing Qualified Lead' (MQL), feeling like you're being handed a phone book while being held to a revenue number.
2. The CFO as the 'Sales Prevention Department': Fighting with Finance over every non-standard deal term, discount, or T&E expense, feeling they don't quite grasp the realities of getting deals done in the field.
3. The 'Hockey Stick' Quarter: That sheer terror and exhaustion of knowing 70% of your quarterly number is supposed to close in the last 10 business days, making your forecast calls a nightmare.
4. Inheriting a 'Dirty CRM': Wasting countless hours trying to build a reliable forecast off a Salesforce instance filled with duplicate accounts, outdated contacts, and inconsistent data entry from the previous regime.
5. Managing Out a 'Nice' Underperformer: The emotionally draining process of having to let go of a rep who's a great cultural fit and well-liked by the team but simply cannot hit their quota month after month.

What Role Doesn't Offer

1. A purely individual contributor path: Your success is now tied to your team's success, not just your own.
2. A predictable 9-to-5 schedule: Sales leadership, especially around quarter-end, can be demanding.
3. Complete control over all variables: You'll be influencing, not dictating, many of the factors that impact your team's performance.

ADHD Positives

1. The fast-paced, varied nature of sales management, with constant problem-solving and new challenges, can be highly engaging and stimulating.
2. The need for quick, decisive action in deal strategy and coaching can play to strengths in rapid decision-making.
3. High energy and enthusiasm can be incredibly motivating for a sales team.

ADHD Challenges and Accommodations

1. Managing multiple direct reports and their individual pipelines requires strong organisational skills; using tools like Salesforce and a structured 1:1 cadence will be crucial.
2. The administrative burden of forecasting and reporting might be challenging; leveraging AI tools for summaries and CRM hygiene (more on this below) can help immensely.
3. We can offer flexible work arrangements to help manage energy levels and focus, and provide structured templates for reporting and team management.

Dyslexia Positives

1. Often brings strong verbal communication skills, which are essential for coaching, presenting, and influencing.
2. Excellent spatial reasoning and 'big picture' thinking can be a huge asset in understanding complex deal structures and market dynamics.
3. Creative problem-solving abilities can help in developing unique sales strategies or overcoming objections.

Dyslexia Challenges and Accommodations

1. Heavy reliance on written reports, emails, and CRM notes might be challenging; using dictation software, grammar checkers, and having a trusted colleague for proofreading can be helpful.
2. We can provide access to assistive technologies and offer training on tools that convert text to speech or simplify complex documents.
3. Prioritising verbal communication for updates and coaching, with written summaries as a secondary output, can be an effective approach.

Autism Positives

1. A deep focus on data and patterns can lead to exceptional insights into sales performance, market trends, and coaching opportunities.
2. Strong adherence to processes and methodologies (like MEDDPICC) can ensure consistency and high standards across the team.
3. Direct and honest communication, when delivered constructively, can build trust and clarity within a team.

Autism Challenges and Accommodations

1. The highly social and often ambiguous nature of sales leadership, with constant negotiation and 'reading the room,' might be demanding; clear expectations and structured interactions will be key.
2. Managing the emotional dynamics of a sales team can be complex; we can provide training in conflict resolution and emotional intelligence, and offer a clear framework for performance management.
3. We'll ensure clear, explicit communication of expectations and provide a predictable meeting schedule where possible, with agendas shared in advance.

Key Responsibilities

Experience Levels Responsibilities

1. Level: Lead Global Head of Sales (8-12 years experience)
2. Responsibilities: Lead and coach a team of 3-8 Account Executives to consistently achieve and exceed their individual and collective sales quotas. This means regular 1:1s, call reviews (using Gong.io), and helping them strategise on their biggest deals.
3. Own the weekly sales forecast for your team, ensuring accuracy and providing clear, data-backed insights to your Director. You'll be the one on the 'commit call' explaining why deals will close or why they've slipped.
4. Implement and refine our Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy within your segment, translating high-level objectives into actionable sales plays for your team. You'll need to make sure everyone's aligned and executing consistently.
5. Recruit, onboard, and develop top sales talent. This isn't just about hiring; it's about making sure new reps ramp quickly and existing reps are continuously improving their skills. You'll be their primary mentor.
6. Drive deal strategy for complex or high-value opportunities within your team's pipeline, often getting directly involved in customer meetings to help close the biggest deals or resolve escalations.
7. Collaborate closely with Sales Operations to analyse team performance data, identify areas for improvement, and ensure our CRM data (Salesforce) is clean and accurate. Garbage in, garbage out, right?
8. Work with Marketing and Product teams to ensure your team has the right messaging, collateral, and product features to win in the market. You're the voice of your team and our customers internally.
9. Supervision: You'll have monthly strategic alignment meetings with your Director, but day-to-day, you're largely autonomous. You're expected to define your team's approach, manage your time, and execute without constant oversight. Think of your Director as a sounding board and an escalation point, not a micromanager.
10. Decision: You'll have full authority for decisions within your team's operational domain. This includes allocating budget up to roughly £50K for team incentives or training, making hiring decisions for your direct reports, and assigning territories or accounts within your segment. For anything above £50K or major strategic shifts (like entering a new market), you'll need to consult with your Director.
11. Success: Success here means your team consistently hits 100%+ of their quota, your forecasts are within +/- 10% accuracy, and you're actively developing future sales leaders. We'll also be looking at your ability to drive continuous improvement in sales cycle length and average deal size for your team. Ultimately, it's about building a high-performing, motivated, and predictable sales engine.

Decision-Making Authority

• Type: Team Hiring & Firing
• Entry: No authority. Provide feedback to manager.
• Mid: No authority. Provide strong recommendations to manager.
• Senior: Full authority for direct reports, with consultation with HR and your Director.
• Type: Deal Discounting & Terms
• Entry: Follow established guidelines. Escalate anything outside standard.
• Mid: Can approve discounts up to 10% within standard terms. Escalate above that or non-standard terms.
• Senior: Can approve discounts up to 20% and non-standard terms within a defined framework. Anything higher or more complex goes to the Deal Desk or your Director.
• Type: Team Budget Allocation (e.g., SPIFs, Training)
• Entry: No authority.
• Mid: Propose small budget requests to manager.
• Senior: Full authority up to £50K, with regular reporting to your Director. Consult for anything above that.
• Type: Sales Process & Methodology Changes (Team-specific)
• Entry: No authority. Follow established processes.
• Mid: Propose minor process improvements to manager.
• Senior: Define and implement process improvements for your team, ensuring alignment with overall sales strategy. Consult with Sales Ops for broader impact.

Competency Requirements

Foundation Skills (Transferable)

Beyond the technical stuff, there are some core human skills you'll need to absolutely nail. These are the foundations that make a great sales leader.

• Category: Communication & Influence
• Skills: Coaching & Feedback: The ability to give constructive, actionable feedback that helps reps improve their performance and close more deals. It's about listening, observing, and guiding.
• Executive Presentation: Clearly articulating complex sales strategies, performance updates, and market insights to senior leadership, often under pressure.
• Negotiation & Persuasion: Guiding both internal and external stakeholders towards a mutually beneficial outcome, whether it's a deal term or a resource allocation.
• Category: Problem-Solving & Decision-Making
• Skills: Deal Strategy: Breaking down complex sales opportunities, identifying key stakeholders, risks, and winning plays for your team.
• Performance Management: Diagnosing why a rep isn't hitting their numbers and putting a clear, fair 'get-well plan' in place.
• Market Analysis: Spotting trends, competitive threats, and new opportunities in your market segment and adapting your team's approach accordingly.
• Category: Leadership & Development
• Skills: Team Motivation & Engagement: Keeping your team energised, focused, and bought into the vision, even when things get tough.
• Talent Identification & Development: Recognising potential in reps, mentoring them, and helping them grow their careers.
• Conflict Resolution: Mediating disagreements within your team or with other departments in a constructive way.
• Category: Adaptability & Resilience
• Skills: Change Management: Guiding your team through shifts in strategy, product, or market conditions without losing momentum.
• Stress Tolerance: Remaining calm and focused under pressure, especially during quarter-end or when dealing with high-stakes deals.
• Learning Agility: Quickly picking up new sales methodologies, tools, or market knowledge and applying it effectively.

Functional Skills (Role-Specific Technical)

These are the specific sales methodologies, frameworks, and tools you'll be using day-to-day to manage your team and drive revenue.

Technical Competencies

• Skill: MEDDPICC/MEDDICC
• Desc: You'll use this rigorous qualification framework not just for your own deals, but to coach your team on how to systematically vet Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Paper Process, Identify Pain, Champion, and Competition. It's about de-risking deals and improving forecast accuracy.
• Level: Expert
• Skill: Commit/Best Case/Pipeline Forecasting
• Desc: This is your weekly ritual. You'll be an expert at categorising your team's deals based on their probability of closing ('Commit' 90%+, 'Best Case' 50-70%, 'Pipeline' everything else). You'll live and breathe the forecast call.
• Level: Expert
• Skill: Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy & Execution
• Desc: You'll take the broader GTM plan and translate it into actionable steps for your team. This means defining Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs), understanding market segmentation, and making sure your team is executing the right plays.
• Level: Advanced
• Skill: Sales Capacity & Quota Planning
• Desc: While not owning the whole model, you'll provide critical inputs and understand the data-driven exercise of how many reps are needed to hit a revenue target. You'll understand the impact of ramp time and attrition on your team's numbers.
• Level: Intermediate
• Skill: Multi-threaded Deal Management
• Desc: You'll coach your team on how to build relationships with multiple stakeholders (e.g., Economic Buyer, Champion, Technical Buyer) within a target account to avoid single points of failure and build consensus. This is key for complex enterprise deals.
• Level: Advanced
• Skill: Value-Based Selling
• Desc: You'll teach your team to shift conversations from features and price to quantifiable business outcomes and ROI. This is absolutely critical for defending price and winning large, strategic deals against tough competition.
• Level: Expert

Digital Tools

• Tool: Salesforce Sales Cloud
• Level: Advanced
• Usage: You'll be building complex dashboards for your team, using advanced reporting features to track KPIs, identifying process gaps, and coaching your team on best practices for pipeline hygiene and data entry.
• Tool: Gong.io
• Level: Expert
• Usage: This will be your primary coaching tool. You'll build team-specific libraries of winning talk tracks, track rep performance on calls, and identify patterns in what makes deals win or lose. You'll use it every day for 1:1s.
• Tool: Tableau
• Level: Advanced
• Usage: You'll connect to Salesforce reports, build custom dashboards for your team/region to track KPIs, prepare for QBRs, and present performance insights to your Director.
• Tool: SalesLoft / Outreach
• Level: Advanced
• Usage: You'll be building and refining team-wide sequences, analysing performance data to optimise outreach, and ensuring your team is using these platforms efficiently and compliantly.
• Tool: LinkedIn Sales Navigator
• Level: Expert
• Usage: You'll train your team on advanced techniques for prospecting, account mapping, and relationship building. You'll use it for strategic account planning and to expand your team's network.
• Tool: Microsoft Office Suite (Excel, PowerPoint, Word)
• Level: Advanced
• Usage: Building compelling presentations for internal reviews, creating detailed sales reports, and drafting internal communications or performance plans. You'll be comfortable with complex spreadsheets.

Industry Knowledge

• Area: Market Dynamics & Competitive Landscape
• Desc: A deep understanding of the industry you're selling into, including key players, emerging trends, customer challenges, and our competitive advantages (and disadvantages). You'll need to know what your competitors are doing.
• Area: Sales Compensation Structures
• Desc: Understanding how different compensation plans motivate reps, including accelerators, SPIFs, and how to structure plans to drive desired behaviours. You'll understand the financial mechanics.
• Area: CRM Best Practices
• Desc: More than just using Salesforce, it's knowing how to optimise it for your team, ensuring data integrity, and using it as a strategic tool rather than just a logging system. You'll be the champion of clean data.

Regulatory Compliance Regulations

• Reg: GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)
• Usage: Ensuring your team's prospecting activities, data handling in CRM, and communication practices comply with GDPR requirements, especially when dealing with customer data. You'll know what's allowed and what isn't.
• Reg: Anti-Bribery & Corruption Laws (e.g., UK Bribery Act)
• Usage: Understanding the fundamental principles to ensure your team's interactions with clients, especially in international markets, are always ethical and compliant. You'll know when to escalate a potential issue.
• Reg: Company Sales Policies & Ethics
• Usage: You'll be the frontline enforcer of our internal 'Rules of Engagement' (ROE), discounting policies, and ethical selling guidelines. You'll coach your team to always act with integrity.

Essential Prerequisites

• A proven track record of consistently exceeding individual sales quotas for at least 3-5 years as an Account Executive, particularly in complex, enterprise-level deals.
• Demonstrable experience in informally mentoring or coaching junior sales reps, perhaps as a Senior AE or a team captain.
• A solid understanding of sales methodologies like MEDDPICC and how to apply them in real-world scenarios.
• Experience with Salesforce (or a similar enterprise CRM) at an advanced user level, including building reports and dashboards.
• Strong analytical skills, capable of dissecting sales data to identify trends, opportunities, and areas for improvement.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with a knack for presenting complex information clearly and concisely.

Career Pathway Context

Think of these as the stepping stones you've already climbed. You're not coming in cold; you've been in the trenches, you've hit your numbers, and you've probably already found yourself informally guiding others. This role formalises that leadership journey and gives you the platform to really build a team.

Qualifications & Credentials

Emerging Foundation Skills

• Skill: AI-Driven Coaching & Performance Optimisation
• Why: AI tools are getting incredibly good at analysing sales calls, emails, and CRM data to pinpoint exact areas where a rep can improve. As a leader, your job will shift from manual review to interpreting AI insights and building targeted development plans.
• Concepts: [{'concept_name': 'Micro-coaching based on AI prompts', 'description': "Using AI-generated suggestions (e.g., 'Rep X talks too much on discovery calls') to deliver specific, timely feedback."}, {'concept_name': 'Personalised learning paths', 'description': 'Leveraging AI to identify individual skill gaps and recommend tailored training modules for each rep.'}, {'concept_name': 'Predictive performance analytics', 'description': 'Using AI to forecast individual rep attainment and identify at-risk reps before they fall behind, allowing proactive intervention.'}, {'concept_name': 'Ethical AI use in sales management', 'description': 'Understanding the biases and limitations of AI tools and ensuring fair, transparent use in performance evaluations.'}]
• Prepare: This month: Get deeply familiar with Gong.io's AI features. Explore its coaching recommendations and sentiment analysis.
• Next quarter: Experiment with using AI to summarise your 1:1 notes and identify recurring themes for each rep.
• Month 3-6: Research other AI coaching platforms and bring ideas for how we could integrate them or improve our current setup.
• Month 6-12: Lead a small pilot project to test an AI-driven coaching initiative with a subset of your team, measuring the impact.
• QuickWin: Start using AI to draft personalised email templates for your reps based on common scenarios, saving them time and improving consistency.
• Skill: Data Storytelling with Advanced Analytics
• Why: As sales data becomes more abundant and complex, simply presenting numbers isn't enough. You'll need to weave compelling narratives from data to influence senior leadership, justify resource allocation, and motivate your team.
• Concepts: [{'concept_name': 'Visualisation best practices', 'description': 'Creating clear, impactful charts and dashboards that tell a story without needing lengthy explanations.'}, {'concept_name': 'Identifying causal relationships', 'description': 'Moving beyond correlation to understand why certain sales behaviours lead to specific outcomes.'}, {'concept_name': 'Audience-centric reporting', 'description': 'Tailoring your data narrative to resonate with different stakeholders (e.g., CFO vs. Marketing Director).'}, {'concept_name': 'Scenario modelling', 'description': "Using data to build 'what if' scenarios for market shifts, headcount changes, or new product launches."}]
• Prepare: This week: Take a free online course on data visualisation principles (e.g., from Tableau or Coursera).
• This month: Re-evaluate one of your regular reports. Can you make it tell a clearer story with fewer words and better visuals?
• Next quarter: Volunteer to present a data-heavy update to a cross-functional team, focusing on the narrative.
• Month 3-6: Explore advanced features in Tableau or Power BI to build more dynamic and interactive dashboards for your team.
• QuickWin: For your next team meeting, create a single, impactful dashboard that visually summarises your team's performance against key metrics, rather than just reading numbers.

Advancing Technical Skills

• Skill: Sales Tech Stack Integration & Optimisation
• Why: Our sales tech stack is growing. You'll need to understand how different tools (CRM, outreach, coaching, forecasting) connect and work together to create a seamless, efficient sales process for your team.
• Concepts: [{'concept_name': 'API integrations and data flow', 'description': 'Understanding how data moves between Salesforce, Gong, SalesLoft, etc., and identifying bottlenecks.'}, {'concept_name': 'Tool ROI analysis', 'description': 'Evaluating the actual return on investment for each tool your team uses and making recommendations for optimisation or replacement.'}, {'concept_name': 'User adoption strategies', 'description': 'How to get your team to actually use the tools effectively, not just as a tick-box exercise.'}, {'concept_name': 'Security & compliance in sales tech', 'description': 'Ensuring our tools meet data privacy and security standards, especially with AI-powered features.'}]
• Prepare: This month: Shadow Sales Operations to understand how our key sales tools are integrated and configured.
• Next quarter: Take ownership of one sales tool's performance for your team, identifying areas for optimisation and training.
• Month 3-6: Propose a small improvement to our sales tech stack, backed by data on potential efficiency gains.
• Month 6-12: Lead a review of a specific sales tool's effectiveness for your team, making recommendations for its future.
• QuickWin: Identify one underused feature in Salesforce or Gong.io that could immediately benefit your team, and run a quick training session on it.

Education Requirements

• Level: Minimum
• Req: A Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, or a related field
• Alts: We're pragmatic. If you've got exceptional, demonstrable sales leadership experience (8-12 years) with a consistent track record of over-performance, we'll absolutely consider that as equivalent. Show us what you've done.

Experience Requirements

You'll need roughly 8-12 years of progressive sales experience, with at least 2-3 years specifically in a formal or informal sales team leadership role. This means you've not only consistently hit your own quota as a Senior Account Executive but you've also had direct responsibility for coaching, mentoring, and guiding other reps to achieve their numbers. We're looking for someone who's managed a segment of a sales pipeline and been accountable for a team's forecast.

Preferred Certifications

• Cert: MEDDPICC Certification
• Prod: Various accredited providers (e.g., MEDDICC.com)
• Usage: Demonstrates a deep, structured understanding of enterprise sales qualification, which is crucial for coaching your team and improving forecast accuracy.
• Cert: Sales Management Training Programme
• Prod: Various reputable sales training organisations (e.g., Dale Carnegie, Huthwaite)
• Usage: Shows you've invested in formalising your leadership skills, covering topics like coaching, performance management, and team motivation.
• Cert: Salesforce Administrator Certification
• Prod: Salesforce
• Usage: While not a core admin role, understanding the technical side of Salesforce will make you much more effective in optimising processes and reports for your team.

Recommended Activities

• Regularly attend industry webinars and conferences focused on sales leadership and sales technology.
• Join professional sales leadership communities or peer groups to share best practices and challenges.
• Read books and articles on coaching, motivation, and strategic sales management.
• Seek out mentorship from experienced sales leaders, both inside and outside the organisation.

Career Progression Pathways

Entry Paths to This Role

• Path: Senior / Enterprise Account Executive (Internal Promotion)
• Time: 3-5 years as a top-performing AE
• Path: Sales Manager (from a smaller company)
• Time: 2-4 years in a similar sales management role
• Path: Sales Operations Lead (with field sales experience)
• Time: 5-7 years in Sales Ops plus 3-5 years in field sales

Career Progression From This Role

• Pathway: Director of Sales (Regional/Vertical)
• Time: 3-5 years in this Lead Global Head of Sales role

Long Term Vision Potential Roles

• Title: VP of Sales (e.g., VP Sales, EMEA or VP Enterprise Sales)
• Time: 5-10 years from this role
• Title: Chief Sales Officer (CSO) / Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)
• Time: 10-15+ years from this role

How Zavmo Delivers This Role's Development

DISCOVER Phase: Skills Gap Analysis

Zavmo maps your current competencies against all requirements in this job description through conversational assessment. We evaluate your foundation skills (communication, strategic thinking), functional skills (CRM expertise, negotiation), and readiness for career progression.

Output: Personalised skills gap heat map showing strengths and priorities, estimated time to competency, neurodiversity accommodations.

DISCUSS Phase: Personalised Learning Pathway

Based on your DISCOVER results, Zavmo creates a personalised learning plan prioritised by impact: foundation skills first, then functional skills. We adapt to your learning style, pace, and neurodiversity needs (ADHD, dyslexia, autism).

Output: Week-by-week schedule, each module linked to specific job responsibilities, checkpoints and milestones.

DELIVER Phase: Conversational Learning

Learn through conversation, not boring modules. Zavmo uses 10 conversation types (Socratic dialogue, role-play, coaching, case studies) to build competence. Practice difficult QBR presentations, negotiate tough renewals, and handle churn conversations in a safe AI environment before facing real clients.

Example: "For 'Stakeholder Mapping', Zavmo will guide you through analysing a complex enterprise account, identifying key decision-makers, and building an engagement strategy."

DEMONSTRATE Phase: Competency Assessment

Zavmo automatically builds your evidence portfolio as you learn. Every conversation, practice scenario, and application example is captured and mapped to NOS performance criteria. When ready, your portfolio supports OFQUAL qualification claims and demonstrates competence to employers.

Output: Competency matrix, evidence portfolio (downloadable), qualification readiness, career progression score.