Commercial Growth Strategy & Operations Director

The Commercial Growth Strategy & Operations Director is responsible for leading the strategy, governance, and execution of sales and variable compensation incentives, as well as overseeing quota and territory design and management. This role plays a pivotal part in driving sales effectiveness and revenue growth by ensuring that incentive structures and sales operations are optimized to align with business objectives.

As the leader of the Commercial Growth Strategy & Operations team, this role will manage a team responsible for implementing, tracking and continuously improving sales incentive programs, commercial incentive governance, and sales growth strategies. The director will work cross-functionally with Sales, Channels, Finance, HR, and Operations to design data-driven solutions that enhance performance, productivity, and sales efficiency and accelerate revenue generation in alignment with company growth strategies.

Key Responsibilities:

Leadership & Team Management

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of Commercial Growth Operations / Sales Operations professionals to drive performance and career growth.
• Establish and oversee processes, tools, and analytics to support the team in executing sales incentive programs and data-driven growth strategies.
• Build and publish dashboards and tools to create visual management for sellers to track achievement against plan and to establish data integrity and credibility with constituents.
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement, innovation, and collaboration within the team and across the organization.

Sales Incentive & Variable Compensation Design

• Design, implement, and optimize sales incentive and variable compensation programs to drive desired sales behaviors and business growth.
• Partner with Finance, Sales, Channels and HR to ensure alignment with revenue targets, cost structures, and talent strategy.
• Establish methodologies for measuring incentive effectiveness and recommend enhancements based on data-driven insights.
• Oversee market benchmarking to ensure compensation plans remain competitive and aligned with industry best practices.

Quota & Territory Design and Implementation

• Develop and execute quota-setting methodologies that ensure equitable and achievable sales targets.
• Lead territory design and optimization to balance workload and maximize sales potential.
• Work closely with Sales Leadership and Revenue Operations to monitor and adjust territories based on performance data and market changes.

Commercial Incentives Governance & Strategy

• Establish and enforce commercial incentives governance frameworks to ensure transparency, compliance, and effectiveness.
• Lead periodic incentive plan reviews and facilitate alignment with key stakeholders on necessary adjustments.
• Ensure governance policies remain competitive and compliant with regulatory and business requirements.
• Chair the company compensation committee and track actions and approvals coming out of the recurring meetings.

Sales Growth Operations

• Demonstrate command of revenue variance mix including volume, geography, product, direct and indirect against plan.
• Drive the execution of sales growth strategies, leveraging data analytics and insights to enhance sales effectiveness.
• Oversee sales productivity analytics, providing actionable insights to optimize performance.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to align sales growth initiatives with broader business objectives.
• Identify and implement automation and process improvements to enhance sales operations and incentive management.

Qualifications & Experience:

• 8+ years of experience in sales incentive design, sales operations, finance, or related fields. 
• Proven leadership experience managing and developing a sales operations or commercial growth team.
• Deep understanding of sales compensation models, quota design, and territory management.
• Strong analytical skills with experience using financial modeling, sales analytics, and performance metrics to drive decision-making.
• Expertise in tools such as Salesforce, Xactly, Varicent, Tableau, or Power BI to manage and optimize sales incentive programs.
• Exceptional ability to collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders, influence decision-making, and drive strategic initiatives.
• Strong communication and change management skills to implement and gain adoption of new incentive and sales operations strategies.

Preferred Qualifications:

• MBA or Masters degree in Engineering
• Experience working in a SaaS, technology, or enterprise sales organization.
• Familiarity with behavioral economics and incentive psychology as it relates to sales motivation.
• Demonstrated experience in process automation, AI-driven sales analytics, or predictive modeling for sales incentives.