Manager, NA Sales Development

American Express Global Business Travel•Chicago, IL

About The Position

Amex GBT is a place where colleagues find inspiration in travel as a force for good and – through their work – can make an impact on our industry. We’re here to help our colleagues achieve success and offer an inclusive and collaborative culture where your voice is valued. Amex GBT is building a phone-first outbound culture in our mid-market segment rooted in real conversations, critical thinking, and a fundamentally different approach to how sales development teams create pipeline. We're seeking a coaching-first leader who believes the best way to build a high-performing team is to be in the work alongside them—coaching in real time, modeling excellence, and creating an environment where every prospect conversation is a strategic opportunity to learn, connect, and advance. This role is the face of Amex GBT's mid-market sales development organization. You will set the tone, drive the culture, and be the standard your team measures themselves against. You'll lead from the trenches, not from behind a desk, with your calendar protected for coaching, strategy, and the work that directly drives pipeline and performance. A Note on Fit This role is built for a leader who gets energy from being in the work—not above it. Someone who finds their best days are the ones spent coaching a rep through a breakthrough moment, not formatting a report. If you’re the kind of manager whose team would run through a wall for you because they know you’d run through it first, you’ll thrive here. If you’re most comfortable managing from a distance through dashboards and status updates, this likely isn’t the right match.

Requirements

Proven Coaching-First Leadership: Track record of developing every person on your team with a genuine belief that your primary job is people development, reflected in measurable improvements in rep performance and ramp times
Deep Phone-First Conviction: Authentic belief that real pipeline is built through conversations, not just sequences and automation, with demonstrated success leading outbound teams through this model
Strategic Outbound Creativity: Strong instincts for messaging, positioning, and account engagement that go beyond standard playbooks, bringing fresh ideas grounded in front-line intelligence
Natural Curiosity: Genuine interest in understanding the business, market dynamics, and your prospects—you ask why before prescribing how
Lead by Example: Comfortable and confident picking up the phone yourself; you never ask your team to do something you wouldn't do
Data Literacy with Purpose: Capable of building your own reports and reading dashboards, but you use data to drive coaching and decisions—not to avoid being present with your team
High Emotional Intelligence: You read your team well, know when to push and when to support, and adapt your leadership style to each person's needs
Talent Magnet: Proven ability to recruit and retain successful talent; people want to work for you and stay because you invest in their growth
Cross-Functional Credibility: Strong collaborator who represents the sales development organization with professionalism and earns trust through consistent results
Culture Builder: Maniacally focused on building something special—creating an environment where your team feels challenged, supported, and genuinely invested in their work

Responsibilities

Coach in Real Time: Listen to calls, sit with reps during prospecting blocks, run live coaching sessions, and demonstrate what great outbound conversations sound like—developing your team in the moment, every day
Lead from the Front: Pick up the phone alongside your team to model techniques, spark momentum, and show reps what excellence looks like through your own work
Build a Phone-First Culture: Champion a culture where the phone is the primary weapon, helping your team understand that outbound is about understanding prospects and building genuine pipeline through real engagement
Shape Outbound Strategy: Bring front-line intelligence and creative approaches to Amex GBT's evolving outbound playbook, identifying gaps and collaborating with the Transformation & Strategy pod to improve messaging, sequencing, and account engagement
Own Team DNA & Culture: Know every person on your team—what drives them, where they're growing, and what's holding them back—creating an environment where top performers thrive and the standard is both high and supported
Make Data-Informed Decisions: Use analytics to inspect what you expect and ask better coaching questions, leveraging dashboards as a tool to inform your time with people, not replace it
Drive Cross-Functional Impact: Represent your team across the organization with credibility, collaborate effectively with AE Leaders, and ensure sales development efforts translate into real business outcomes
Attract & Retain Top Talent: Identify high-potential sales development talent, accelerate their development, and create a team environment where A-players seek out opportunities to work for you
Measure What Matters: Understand not just what's happening with your team's performance, but why—the trends, initiatives, and coaching themes driving every result
Champion Pipeline Quality: Build a competitive advantage through meaningful conversations and strong pipeline generation that outpaces teams relying primarily on automation

Benefits

GBT is committed to attracting and retaining exceptional front-line leadership.
This role is compensated to reflect the outsized impact a great coaching manager has on team performance and pipeline creation.
Competitive base salary plus performance-based variable compensation
Team-level accelerators that reward sustained over-performance
Clear career progression into senior leadership within GBT.
The opportunity to be a foundational leader in building GBT’s next-generation outbound culture
Flexible benefits are tailored to each country and start the day you do. These include health and welfare insurance plans, retirement programs, parental leave, adoption assistance, and wellbeing resources to support you and your immediate family.
Travel perks: get a choice of deals each week from major travel providers on everything from flights to hotels to cruises and car rentals.
Develop the skills you want when the time is right for you, with access to over 20,000 courses on our learning platform, leadership courses, and new job openings available to internal candidates first.
We strive to champion Inclusion in every aspect of our business at Amex GBT. You can connect with colleagues through our global INclusion Groups, centered around common identities or initiatives, to discuss challenges, obstacles, achievements, and drive company awareness and action.
And much more!