Director Specialist Sales North America - USA Remote
About the position SUSE is looking for a visionary and experienced North America Leader for our Technology Sales team. This executive will be responsible for refining & executing the global strategy to align for North America. To lead our technical sales community, ensuring seamless alignment with our overall sales and marketing objectives while providing a tight feedback loop with our Product & Technology group. This role demands a leader who can not only drive significant sales growth but also cultivate a high-performing, sustainable organization that embodies technical excellence and customer-centricity.
Responsibilities
- Strategic Sales & Marketing Leadership: Develop and implement consistent technology sales strategy that aligns with SUSE's overall GTM strategy and revenue goals.
- Collaborate closely with Sales and Marketing leadership to ensure cohesive strategies, consistent messaging, and effective execution of global sales plays across all customer segments .
- Serve as the key connection point between the Sales organization and Technology & Product (T&P) teams, influencing product roadmaps and incubating initial GTM strategies for new offerings.
- Drive the adoption of a consistent, robust toolbox of content and enablement materials for the global Tech Sales team, ensuring they are equipped to articulate business value and competitive differentiation.
- Utilize sales data, market analytics, and performance metrics to inform strategic decisions, optimize the allocation of technical sales resources, and drive predictable revenue growth.
- Organizational Development & Leadership: Build, develop, and lead a sustainable, high-performing global Technology Sales organization, fostering a culture of accountability, technical excellence, continuous learning, and collaborative teaming.
- Champion a leadership style rooted in high self-awareness and emotional intelligence, creating an inclusive environment where feedback is encouraged and individuals are empowered to achieve their full potential.
- Define and evolve consistent roles, responsibilities, management structures, and compensation plans for all technical sales roles (e.g., Account Solution Architects, Specialist Solution Architects, Sales Specialists, Field CTOs etc).
- Champion consistent and clearly defined career paths, performance expectations, and professional development opportunities for the team, including technical certifications and soft skill development.
- Oversee and influence the effective allocation of technical sales resources across segments and geographies, ensuring appropriate coverage and focus on strategic opportunities.
- Technical Sales Excellence & Thought Leadership: Cultivate a high standard of technical expertise and lead by example, demonstrating deep knowledge of SUSE's portfolio, the competitive landscape, and emerging industry trends.
- Ensure the Technology Sales team acts as trusted advisors to customers, capable of translating complex technical solutions into tangible business value.
- Drive the adoption of best practices in solution architecture, technical discovery, demonstrations, proof-of-concepts, and value-based selling.
- Foster a culture of knowledge sharing and collaboration across technical communities of practice, promoting innovation and continuous improvement within the team.
- Represent SUSE as a public thought leader in the technology sales space, contributing to industry discussions and advocating for SUSE's vision.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Ensure seamless collaboration between Technology Sales and other critical customer facing functions, including Customer Success, Ecosystem (Partners) and Professional Services, as well as with the Products & Technology functions.
- Oversee the process for specialist support requests, ensuring timely and prioritized allocation of resources based on strategic value.
Requirements
- 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in technology sales, solution architecture, or a related technical field within a global enterprise software company.
- Proven track record of building, leading, and scaling large, geographically dispersed technical sales organizations.
- Deep understanding of enterprise software, open source technologies, cloud, containerization, and DevOps principles.
- Demonstrated ability to develop and execute strategic sales and GTM plans, resulting in significant revenue growth and market share expansion.
- Proven ability to apply analytical reasoning and data-driven insights to shape strategy, identify market opportunities, and solve complex business problems.
- Exceptional leadership and organizational development skills, with a focus on talent cultivation, mentorship, and fostering a high-performance culture.
- Strong business acumen with the ability to translate technical capabilities into compelling business value and ROI for customers.
- Excellent communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills, capable of engaging effectively with C-level executives, technical teams, and internal stakeholders.
- Experience working in a matrixed organizational structure and collaborating cross-functionally to achieve shared objectives.
- Ability to adapt to a fast-paced, dynamic environment and lead through organizational transformation.
- A high degree of self-awareness and emotional intelligence, with a proven ability to understand your impact on others, solicit and act on feedback, and lead with authenticity.
Nice-to-haves
- Experience with SUSE technologies or similar open source solutions.
- Familiarity with various sales methodologies (e.g., MEDDPICC, Challenger Sale).
- Advanced technical certifications (e.g., Linux, Kubernetes and cloud provider certifications).
Benefits
- US benefits include a comprehensive medical plan, life and disability insurance, 401k, Employee Assistance Programme and generous paid time off and leave policies.
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