Senior Director, People Partner- Sales

Cohesity•Durham, TX

13d•Hybrid

About The Position

Cohesity is a leader in AI-powered data security and management. Aided by an extensive ecosystem of partners, Cohesity makes it easy to secure, protect, manage, and get value from data — across the data center, edge, and cloud. Cohesity helps organizations defend against cybersecurity threats with comprehensive data security and management capabilities, including immutable backup snapshots, AI-based threat detection, monitoring for malicious behavior, and rapid recovery at scale. We’ve been named a Leader by multiple analyst firms and have been globally recognized for Innovation, Product Strength, and Simplicity in Design. Join us on our mission to shape the future of our industry. Cohesity is seeking a highly strategic and business-minded Senior Director, People Partner to support our Sales organization. This leader will serve as a trusted advisor to the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) and Sales Leadership Team, helping drive business performance through thoughtful people strategies, organizational effectiveness, leadership coaching, workforce planning, and talent management. The ideal candidate is a seasoned HR leader who deeply understands the unique dynamics of high-growth, quota-carrying organizations and can translate business priorities into scalable people solutions. This role requires strong commercial acumen, the ability to influence senior executives, and a proven track record of building high-performing organizations that accelerate revenue growth.

Requirements

Typically requires a minimum of 15 years of related People Partner / HR Business Partner experience with a bachelor's degree; or 15 years with a master's degree; or a PhD with 12 years of experience; or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Significant experience directly managing people — including experience building, coaching, and managing a team of People Partners or HR Business Partners.
Demonstrated track record operating as a strategic partner and trusted advisor to C-suite / CxO-level executives and their leadership teams.
Experience supporting a global sales, go-to-market, or revenue-generating organization strongly preferred, given the distinct workforce dynamics of a quota-carrying population (ramp time, territory/segment design, incentive-linked performance, and sales-specific attrition patterns).
Prior experience at a technology company required; experience in a cloud, SaaS, or platform-as-a-service environment preferred.
Bachelor's degree in human resources, Business, Organizational Psychology, or a related field; advanced degree a plus.

Nice To Haves

Expert-level people leadership and management experience — performance management, coaching/mentoring, and building high-performing teams.
Ability to provide expert opinions, advice, analysis, and recommendations to senior executives based on deep, first-hand experience and expertise.
Proven ability to build and sustain strategic partnerships with the most senior leaders in the company, earning trusted-advisor status as a subject-matter expert in human capital management.
Expert at leading complex organizational change efforts and project management — acting as both change agent and driver, not just a support function.
Business fluency: understands financial drivers, market dynamics, and product/customer lifecycle well enough to connect people decisions directly to revenue, retention, and growth.
Data fluency: uses people data to tell a story and drive decisions — not just to report on them — including scenario planning and predictive attrition/risk analysis.
Executive presence and influence: a trusted advisor in high-stakes moments who can challenge respectfully, hold the line under pressure, and bring a clear point of view rather than only options.
Talent-multiplier mindset: builds succession pipelines, drives decisive talent actions, and enforces real performance differentiation at scale.
Deep understanding of employee engagement and performance-management best practices and current trends.
Skilled in building organization and talent plans that anticipate — rather than simply react to — current and future talent needs.
Understands external customer, competitive, and industry trends (including sales/GTM market dynamics) and their impact on Cohesity's business.
Treats ambiguity as an advantage — drives innovation and improvement rather than waiting on clarity or precedent.
Strong verbal, written, and interpersonal communication skills, with the ability to flex style and level of detail from front-line sales managers up to the CRO and executive staff.
A "business first, HR second" orientation — uses HR skills, programs, and initiatives as tools to engage with and advance the business, not as an end in themselves.

Responsibilities

Serve as a strategic partner and trusted advisor to the Chief Revenue Officer and their leadership team, engaging as an integral member of the senior leadership team.
Manage, coach, and develop a team of People Partners supporting the Global Worldwide Field organization — owning the team's growth, performance, capacity, and career pathing.
Maintain enterprise-level business fluency: understand pipeline dynamics, quota structures, GTM strategy, and competitive positioning well enough to challenge leaders and decisions.
Connect hiring, performance, and org design decisions directly to revenue, retention, and customer-impact outcomes — not just regional or functional metrics.
Attend and actively contribute to QBRs, operating reviews while playing a key role in quarterly attainment and performance review sessions with senior leadership.
Advise the CRO on the workforce implications of major go-to-market or company-level strategic decisions.
Own workforce strategy for the Global Field Organization at a 6-12 month+ horizon, incorporating scenario modeling (territory changes, segment shifts, AI/automation impact on sales roles, etc.), in close partnership with the regional People Partner team. This includes reviewing and stress-testing org design proposals before they reach business leaders — catching gaps in spans, layers, or scalability.
Own enterprise talent strategy for the Global Field organization — advising CRO-level leadership on pipeline strength, succession gaps, and talent investment priorities.
Design and run executive-level talent review and succession-planning processes for leadership, driving genuine performance differentiation rather than compliance-only calibration.
Drive decisive talent actions across the Sales organization — accelerating high performers, addressing underperformance directly, and getting ahead of regrettable attrition.
Own culture health strategy — designing and leading diagnostics and change programs, and holding leaders accountable for talent and culture outcomes, not just quota attainment.
Model direct, courageous conversations with senior leaders about culture, behavior, and accountability, and coach the team to do the same.
Own the people-analytics view of the organization — tracking trends (attrition, ramp time, performance distribution, span/layers) rather than point-in-time snapshots.
Partner with other functions — Finance, Legal, Total Rewards, Talent Acquisition, and other People Centers of Excellence — to build value-added, globally consistent solutions for the organization.
Partner with functional and regional People Partner counterparts to ensure global strategic alignment across the broader business.
Ensure the Sales People Partner team stays focused on high-leverage, strategic work — redirecting transactional pull-through to HR Centers of Excellence and HR Operations.
Lead or contribute to company-wide transformation, restructuring, or M&A-integration initiatives that touch the Global Sales organization.