Sales Director - Higher Education

ServiceNow•Vienna, VA

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

This role involves building and leading a team of direct Sales Executives to drive significant new business sales growth within the Higher Education sector. The Sales Director will be responsible for developing and executing sales strategies, understanding the competitive landscape, and actively engaging in territory and opportunity development. Key aspects include recruiting, coaching, and mentoring sales team members, managing accurate forecasting and pipeline reporting, and achieving annual sales goals. The role requires C-level engagement to understand customer needs, building strong relationships with internal teams (Solution Consulting, Business Units, Professional Services, Marketing, Partners) and the ServiceNow executive team, and maintaining and growing the existing customer base through proactive engagement.

Requirements

Experience in leveraging or critically thinking about how to integrate AI into work processes, decision-making, or problem-solving. This may include using AI-powered tools, automating workflows, analyzing AI-driven insights, or exploring AI's potential impact on the function or industry.
Extensive track record of new business sales success including presentation and negotiation skills within industry and at C Level.
Strong success in recruiting, coaching, and managing an exceptional sales team.
Strong strategic thinking including analytical and financial planning skills to meet and exceed quotas and goals.
Ownership of accurate CRM reports including current and future quarterly forecasts and opportunity inspection.
Experienced in driving sales process and drive effective working relationships with Sales Operations.
Ability to understand the 'bigger picture' and business drivers around IT.
Ability to build long term strategic and senior level relationships.
Ability to adapt and work effectively within a rapidly changing and growing environment.
Demonstrates strong business and financial acumen.
Built self-motivated sales teams that embrace a culture of collaboration, enthusiasm, and overachievement.
Champions and promotes top performers, constantly develops and coaches the team and themselves, and topgrades appropriately.
Proven partner relationships and networks, and ability to grow the impact of revenue streams and territory development through the partner ecosystem.
Ownership of driving successful pipeline generation activities developed by marketing or the partner community.

Responsibilities

Build a team of direct Sales Executives to drive rapid new business sales growth in the region.
Build and drive sales strategy for the region in conjunction with Sales Operations to effectively Go-To-Market, including understanding the competitive landscape, presence, and strength within the region.
Actively engage in territory planning, relationship development, and opportunity development, and drive revenue by supporting and assisting Field Sales Teams in closing opportunities.
Recruit, coach, and mentor team members to drive excellence.
Development of territories and quota for the sales team and effectively communicate to set performance expectations within the team.
Manage and report accurate forecast and pipeline to the business.
Achievement of annual sales goals on a quarterly and annual basis is required.
Engage and align effectively in C-level meetings in order to properly understand customer business requirements.
Build effective working relationships with Solution Consulting, Business Units, Professional Services, Marketing, our Partner community, and the ServiceNow executive team.
Retain and grow existing customer base with regular non-sales customer engagement activities to deliver an excellent customer experience.