Executive Director, Sales Incentive Controls & Governance

CVS Health•New York, NY

3d•$131,500 - $303,195

About The Position

The Executive Director, Sales Incentive Controls & Governance leads the newly established Sales Incentive Controls & Governance function, responsible for setting and enforcing governance strategy, decision rights, controls, and oversight practices related to sales incentive outcomes across CVS Health. The role's primary focus is establishing governance, controls, and decision rights related to sales processes, role accountabilities, sales crediting, and other areas of the sales operating model that influence sales incentive outcomes. This role serves as the empowered, objective arbitrator for high-threshold and cross-entity sales incentive control, crediting, and governance decisions, partnering closely with Aetna and Caremark business-level governance teams (and other CVS Health business units as needed), Total Rewards Sales Compensation, Finance, HR, Legal, and Internal Audit to ensure sales incentives are consistent, well-governed, and aligned to enterprise goals.

Requirements

12+ years of experience in sales compensation design, compensation governance, or a related field
Deep understanding of the uniqueness and complexity of large, multi-entity sales organizations and the broader business context they operate in
Demonstrated experience designing and leading sales compensation strategy and philosophy at an enterprise level
Strong knowledge of how to structure sales compensation plans to achieve business strategy and incentivize desired behaviors
Strong understanding of financial controls and compliance requirements related to compensation payments
Experience designing and deploying auditable processes that drive predictability in incentive tracking and payout
Prior leadership experience building or leading a governance, controls, or compensation function, ideally in a large, multi-business-unit enterprise
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent relevant experience

Nice To Haves

Demonstrated ability to act as an objective, neutral decision-maker in politically sensitive, high-stakes environments
Proven track record building relationships and bringing functions (Legal, HR, Finance) together to work collaboratively in a matrixed environment
Field sales experience or credibility strongly preferred — prior experience in a sales role is a plus
Ability to balance the need for enterprise standardization with business entity-specific flexibility
Experience with sales compensation systems and tools and using compensation data to identify trends and drive process/control adjustments
Comfort tracking, analyzing, and reporting on compensation data to identify risk areas requiring deeper analysis
Strong executive presence and communication skills, with experience managing sensitive change communications
Experience building, managing and developing a highly specialized team
Ability to have impact through influence

Responsibilities

Lead the enterprise governance strategy for sales processes, sales crediting, quota allocation, decision rights, and controls that influence sales incentive outcomes.
Establish and maintain governance principles, accountability frameworks, and control standards across sales organizations.
Monitor market and sales incentive benchmarking to ensure competitiveness and alignment with business priorities.
Establish enterprise standards for cross-business and multi-role sales activities, including opportunity ownership, collaboration, handoffs, escalation paths, and accountability throughout the customer lifecycle.
Define and govern sales crediting principles, methodologies, and controls across businesses, products, channels, customer segments, and sales roles.
Oversee documentation, approval, exception, adjustment, and override processes to ensure consistent application of crediting policies.
Identify and resolve ownership, crediting, and process conflicts that create financial, operational, customer, or compensation risk.
Partner with Sales, Finance, Sales Operations, and Total Rewards Sales Compensation to ensure governance decisions are operationally feasible, financially sound, and accurately reflected in incentive programs.
Serve as the enterprise authority for resolving complex cross-business sales process, crediting, and incentive governance issues that extend beyond business-level decision-making.
Establish criteria and thresholds for enterprise-level review and adjudication.
Act as an objective decision-maker to ensure outcomes align with enterprise priorities and are free from organizational conflicts of interest.
Partner with Compensation leadership to strengthen governance, controls, and accountability across sales incentive plan design, administration, and payouts.
Oversee audits, monitoring, and risk management activities to ensure crediting practices and incentive payouts are accurate, compliant, and consistently executed.
Coordinate with business and P&L leaders on financial planning, cost management, quota alignment, and compensation-related risk mitigation.
Build strong partnerships across Sales, Finance, HR, Legal, and Compensation to evaluate governance effectiveness and drive continuous improvement.
Lead change management and communication efforts related to sales compensation governance.
Ensure compensation systems, documentation, and approval processes support governance requirements and control expectations.
Lead highly matrixed, cross-functional teams to drive alignment, accountability, and execution of enterprise sales compensation governance priorities.
Assess organizational needs and evolve team structure as governance complexity and business demands grow.