Sales Compensation Director

Accountabilities:: Global Sales Compensation Strategy: Lead the end-to-end design, implementation, and evolution of global sales compensation programs, ensuring alignment with company growth objectives, SaaS revenue models, and changing market conditions. Compensation Plan Design: Develop and optimize incentive frameworks for a broad range of go-to-market roles, including Account Executives (AEs), Sales Development Representatives (SDRs), Customer Success Managers (CSMs), channel teams, enterprise sales, and renewals. Quota and Incentive Management: Partner with Sales Leadership to establish performance metrics, quotas, commission structures, accelerators, and incentive mechanisms that encourage high performance and predictable revenue outcomes. Market Benchmarking: Evaluate industry compensation practices, competitive intelligence, and market trends to ensure incentive programs remain competitive and effective in attracting and retaining talent. Governance and Compliance: Establish global standards for compensation plan documentation, approvals, governance, and change management while ensuring compliance with applicable regional regulations, including European Union and Irish employment requirements where relevant. Compensation Operations: Oversee compensation administration, payout processes, system performance, audit controls, and data accuracy to ensure reliable and transparent incentive delivery. Process Improvement and Automation: Identify opportunities to streamline compensation workflows, improve operational efficiency, automate calculations, and strengthen the scalability of compensation processes. Executive and Cross-Functional Partnership: Serve as a senior-level liaison between Sales, Finance, HR, Legal, and Revenue Operations, ensuring alignment on compensation strategy, policies, and execution. Executive Reporting and Recommendations: Present compensation strategies, performance insights, financial analyses, and actionable recommendations to C-suite leaders and other senior stakeholders. Team Leadership: Lead, develop, and mentor a high-performing team of compensation analysts, planners, and operations specialists, fostering accountability, analytical excellence, and continuous improvement. Financial Planning and Modeling: Collaborate with Finance on compensation forecasting, budgeting, financial modeling, and assessments of incentive costs and their impact on business performance. Global Quota-Setting and Capacity Planning: Own the global quota-setting process, incorporating sales capacity modeling, territory alignment, productivity analysis, and regional business requirements. Performance Analytics: Deliver executive-ready reporting on quota attainment, compensation effectiveness, incentive return on investment, and sales productivity across global teams. Risk and Opportunity Identification: Analyze compensation trends and sales performance data to identify potential risks, uncover growth opportunities, and recommend improvements to incentive structures. Requirements: Professional Experience: At least 10 years of experience in sales compensation, revenue operations, sales strategy, or a closely related field, including a minimum of 5 years in a leadership role. SaaS Compensation Expertise: Deep understanding of SaaS commission models, recurring revenue metrics such as Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) and Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), and subscription-based sales and renewal models. Global Program Management: Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, and scaling global sales compensation programs within a high-growth organization. Compensation Framework Design: Strong expertise in developing incentive plans, commission structures, quota methodologies, accelerators, and performance metrics across diverse go-to-market functions. Analytical and Financial Modeling Skills: Advanced analytical capabilities and proficiency in financial modeling, compensation forecasting, budgeting, and performance analysis. Compensation Technology: Experience with sales compensation and planning platforms such as Xactly, Varicent, Anaplan, or comparable tools. Governance and Regulatory Knowledge: Familiarity with compensation governance, audit controls, operational risk management, and cross-regional employment requirements. Executive Communication: Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to present complex analyses clearly and influence senior executives and business leaders. Cross-Functional Collaboration: Proven ability to build strong partnerships across Sales, Finance, HR, Legal, and Revenue Operations while balancing competing priorities and business needs. Global Leadership: Experience leading international teams and managing compensation programs across multiple regions, taking into account local requirements and operational differences. Strategic Thinking: Strong business judgment, problem-solving skills, and the ability to translate company objectives and sales performance insights into effective compensation strategies. Education: A bachelor's degree is required. An MBA or another relevant advanced degree is preferred. Continuous Improvement Mindset: A proactive approach to improving compensation processes, strengthening data quality, and introducing scalable systems and practices. Benefits: Competitive Compensation: Attractive compensation package with performance-based incentives. Strategic Leadership Opportunity: Lead global sales compensation initiatives and influence business performance at an organizational level. Global Business Impact: Shape incentive strategies that support sales productivity, revenue growth, and the success of international go-to-market teams. Professional Development: Opportunities to expand leadership capabilities, deepen compensation expertise, and contribute to strategic business initiatives. Collaborative Culture: Work closely with senior leaders and cross-functional teams in a collaborative, results-oriented environment. Comprehensive Benefits: Access to a broad employee benefits package, with specific coverage and eligibility details to be confirmed during recruitment. Growth-Oriented Environment: Contribute to a rapidly scaling SaaS business where compensation strategy plays a critical role in organizational success.