VP of Sales

Scholarly•Denver, CO

10d•$300,000 - $400,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Scholarly is building the next generation of AI-powered software for higher education with a faculty-first focus. As institutions face a wave of digital transformation, our mission is to become the AI-native system of record for faculty data. Our platform unifies fragmented workflows into a single, intelligent system that powers annual reviews, promotion & tenure, appointment tracking, and more, while eliminating manual data entry and improving decision-making for institutions. We’re a mission-driven, product-focused team shaping the future of higher education. Scholarly is seeking a Vice President of Sales to own new-logo revenue and build a repeatable, scalable sales engine as we grow. This is an ideal role for a proven higher education or EdTech sales leader who has closed complex institutional deals, built and coached a high-performing team, and wants to have a direct, visible impact at a fast-growing startup. This role is a mix of hands-on selling, team leadership, and go-to-market building. You’ll lead our team of Account Executives and Sales Development Representatives, personally engage in our most strategic pursuits (R1 research universities, academic medical centers, multi-campus systems, and formal RFPs), and build the process, forecasting discipline, and playbook that let the team scale behind you. We’re looking for someone who is comfortable switching between a meeting in the provost’s office, a procurement negotiation, and a pipeline review with their team.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree required.
10+ years of B2B SaaS sales experience, including 4+ years leading a quota-carrying team.
Track record selling enterprise software into higher education strongly preferred; experience with other complex institutional buyers (academic medicine, healthcare, public sector) also considered.
Consistent record of meeting or exceeding quota and closing six-figure, multi-year deals with long sales cycles.
Experience responding to and winning formal RFPs and navigating public procurement.
Experience building sales process at an early- or growth-stage company; comfortable operating without a large support structure.
Strong command of CRM tools and pipeline forecasting.
Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; executive presence with senior academic leaders.

Nice To Haves

Passion for higher education, EdTech, or mission-driven software preferred.

Responsibilities

Own the company’s new-logo ARR target, pipeline generation, and sales forecast.
Personally lead or co-lead strategic pursuits at large accounts, engaging provosts, vice provosts for faculty affairs, deans, CIOs, and procurement teams.
Navigate long, multi-stakeholder higher education buying cycles, including RFPs, consortium contracts, and fiscal-year budget timing.
Build accurate weekly forecasting and pipeline discipline in our CRM (HubSpot).
Partner with the CEO on pricing, packaging, and deal strategy for complex opportunities.
Lead, coach, and develop Account Executives and SDRs; set clear quotas, activity standards, and territory plans.
Recruit, hire, and onboard new sales team members as the team grows.
Run deal reviews and call coaching, and establish a consistent sales methodology across the team.
Build and continuously improve the Scholarly sales playbook, including ideal customer profile and segment definitions, qualification criteria, discovery and demo standards, proposal and RFP processes, and competitive positioning.
Define and track the metrics that matter (e.g., pipeline coverage, win rate, sales cycle length, average contract value, quota attainment, SDR-to-AE conversion) and drive improvements against them.
Partner with marketing on outbound, events, and account-based campaigns targeting priority institutions.
Ensure clean handoffs to Implementation and Customer Success, with accurate expectations on scope and timeline.
Bring customer and market feedback to Product and Engineering to shape the roadmap.
Work with Customer Success to identify and close expansion opportunities within existing accounts.