Manager, Sales Compensation

Altus Group•Chicago, IL

2d•$135,000 - $155,000•Hybrid

About The Position

We are looking for a Sales Compensation Leader. You will lead the global sales incentive compensation strategy and the compensation design-to-deployment process. You will develop and execute core compensation processes such as plan design and implementation, quota methodology, plan administration, performance management, compensation audits, and analytics. You will provide data-based solutions to influence decisions for future plan design and policies. In addition, you will lead the design and modeling of a scalable, cost-effective sales compensation program to optimize revenue growth and support strategic objectives for the company’s overall business strategy of attracting and retaining the best talent in the industry.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Accounting or Finance, MBA
5+ years of experience solving business problems and analyzing data
5+ years of experience in Sales and/or Revenue Operations with a focus on Sales Compensation in a growing SaaS/technology company
Ability and skill to interpret, understand and guide compensation policies, procedures and guidelines
Strong analytical skills and attention to detail with the capability to appropriately define issues, questions, and data; to comprehend qualitative and quantitative methods to perform accurate analysis
Proven experience, knowledge, and skills related to defining and optimizing reporting and analytical needs, deploying action plans, and determining future capabilities
Highly motivated self-starter that can effectively manage multiple competing projects while being focused on critical timelines.
Strong verbal and written communication skills with the ability to interact with different levels of management
Experience in being comfortable with engaging in strategic discussions with leadership and in making leadership presentations as well as have experience working with a field sales team and senior management.
Excellent quantitative, critical thinking, analytical and organizational skills required.
Comfortable with ambiguity and creative problem-solving
Ability to appropriately handle sensitive and confidential information
Deep sense of accountability, strong project management capability, and the flexibility to adapt to a dynamic workload.
Advanced Excel, PowerPoint and database skills including the development of complex spreadsheets and presentations, and experience preparing, documenting and presenting narrative reports and statistical analysis
Experience with Salesforce.com, Xactly Incent or equivalent compensation system and experience working in enterprise finance systems
Hands-on Xactly Administrator experience in Incent and Analytics, including configuring new plans and developing rules and formulas in Xactly.
Experience strengthening data quality, reconciliation controls, audit trails, and governance processes across CRM, incentive compensation, finance, and payroll systems.
Experience leading system enhancements, user acceptance testing, implementation partners or vendors, and compensation technology roadmaps that support scalable global operations.
SQL experience, with the ability to query, analyze, and interpret data to support reporting, data analysis, ETL and business decision making

Nice To Haves

A Certified Sales Compensation Profession (CSCP) designation is an asset

Responsibilities

Work with internal partners to define and implement relevant compensation performance metrics and dashboards to assist leadership in managing the business and making data-driven decisions.
Establish effective working relationships with key stakeholders and business leaders throughout Sales, Finance, HR, IT, and Legal in the development, design, terms & conditions, processes and policies to support our business strategy and sales compensation process.
Serve as a subject matter expert and trusted partner to Sales.
Support sales compensation budgeting and accrual processes and provide updates on a regular basis.
Establish governance, controls, documentation, and audit-ready processes for global sales compensation administration, including approvals, adjustments, exception handling, and compliance with internal control requirements.
Develop, maintain, and update the company’s sales compensation system, as a business subject matter expert (Xactly), including plan configuration, rules, formulas, reporting, processing and tracking of compensation and sales team metrics.
Perform ad hoc reporting and data analysis to generate business insight and provide tools that support sales and go to market (GTM) productivity, plan effectiveness, reporting and leadership decision-making.
Collaborate with the sales team on escalated compensation issues by providing insights and analysis. Establish rapport, credibility, trust through fair and thoughtful communications and by building out a compensation system of truth.
Respond to sales compensation inquiries from the sales organization in a timely manner, providing clear guidance, analysis, and resolution support.
Collaborate with management on pay decisions, compensation practices, and policy and guideline interpretation.
Develop and implement comprehensive and streamlined content and communications as it relates to the annual sales compensation plan, related changes and statements to the field.
Recommend, document, and continuously improve best-practice processes that support sustainable, efficient, and compliant sales compensation operations.
Collaborate with stakeholders to design and administer applicable sales incentive plans including, base pay, target incentive, OTE adjustments, and retention programs, including end to end design, rollout, and signature process.
Partner with the finance commission payout team to complete sales credit validations, approval and submission of the commission payroll file.
Oversee end-to-end commission payout cycles, ensuring calculations, approvals, adjustments, payroll-ready outputs, and related reconciliations are completed accurately and on time.
Implement best practices surrounding sales productivity improvements to ensure alignment with compensation plan components.
Identify and drive automation, standardization, and scalability initiatives that reduce manual work, shorten processing cycles, improve accuracy, and enhance the seller experience.
Support the planning of the regular quota and territory reviews and modeling processes.
Model compensation plan scenarios, quota attainment distributions, cost-of-sales impacts, SPIFFs, accelerators, draws, clawbacks, and exception policies to support fiscally responsible plan design.
Lead plan rollouts, including communications, training, field enablement, statement design, and clear documentation of plan mechanics.
Partner with stakeholders to maintain data integrity across Salesforce, Xactly, finance, payroll, and reporting platforms.
Manage the intake, tracking, escalation, and resolution of commission inquiries and disputes, using defined service levels and recurring root-cause analysis to improve transparency and consistency.
Report to the Head of Sales Operations. As well as have the chance to foster close, cooperative relationships with business leaders, sales management, field sales, sales operations team, finance and HR.