VP of Sales or CRO

Opportunity Summary:

SP6 is seeking a Vice President of Sales or Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) to build and lead the sales organization for our AI Security and AI Compliance service and software practices, and to deliver our ambitious growth targets in high-growth markets.

The exact role will depend on the candidate's prior skills and experience.

The ideal candidate has led sales in professional services (consulting), managed services, and software organization (either having worked in SaaS or in a partner organization) and has a track record of exemplary, sustained performance. Software sales leadership is a significant plus, as our services are led by proprietary technology attached to services engagements.

This role is ideal for a proven sales executive who wants to build a high-performance culture and a winning team.

This leader will take responsibility for a 14-person sales team (including sales and sales leadership, and growing) that will be focused in the following areas:

- AI Security. Software and consulting services leading customer advisement and tool implementation around AI security, including AI agent inventory, preventing data leakage, securing how agents and used and/or built, and more.

- AI Compliance. Consulting services focused on AI standards including ISO 42001, NIST AI RMF and other AI-focused frameworks.

- SIEM and Data Analytics Consulting.  SP6 is a leading technology services organization in the SIEM and data analytics space. Having been named Splunk’s three-time North American Professional Services Partner of the Year, SP6 is expanding services offerings with other market-leading software OEMs in the SecOps and Observability domains.

Primary Responsibilities:

Drive new customer acquisition, expansion, and revenue growth by:

1. Hit the revenue number

- Owns the company's new-business and expansion revenue targets: software resale, services and recurring revenue.

- Lead direct sales, channel sales, sales engineering, and a potential newly-developed SDR/BDR team.

- Focusing on margin and revenue mix, not just total bookings; ensuring SP6’s mix of Closed Won business is blended across higher and lower margin business and that sellers are not selling on price.

2. Build, Mentor, and Lead the sales team

- Recruits, hires, trains and keeps account executives, sales engineers or solution architects, and sales development reps.

- Ensure that proper sales enablement is in place for the constant development of sales team members.

- Develop internal talent pipeline to ensure the scalability of SP6.

3. Architect SP6's selling systems

- Set the sales process and methodology and how performance is managed.

- Set quotas and territories, and forecasts accurately each month and quarter.

- Designs compensation plans that reward the right behavior, such as bonuses for selling services alongside software or for multi-year deals; as well as are in-line with industry best practices for sales compensation in our industry.

4. Manage the pipeline and the sales process

- Owns pipeline health: coverage ratios (often 3–4x the target), deal stages, win rates and sales cycle length.

- Runs deal reviews and forecast calls, and keeps CRM data clean.

- Works with marketing on lead definitions, handoffs and the share of pipeline marketing is expected to source, which ties to the marketing revenue plan from earlier.

5. Through SP6's channel sales team, manage partner relationships

- Ensure the proper management of relationships with software vendors to include Microsoft, CrowdStrike, Splunk and others: partner tier status, certifications, deal registration and margin incentives.

- Drive co-selling with vendor sales teams and uses vendor programs like marketplace listings, funding for proofs of concept and market development funds.

6. Own client relationships and growing accounts

- Oversee strategic account plans, executive relationships and renewals.

- Drive land-and-expand: turning one project into managed services, add-on offerings and multi-year relationships.

- Coordinate with delivery leaders so the team doesn't sell work the firm can't deliver profitably. This is critical in consulting, where staffing capacity and utilization limit what can be sold.

7. Marketing Ownership

- Own the marketing and demand generation team and function

- Establish marketing's pipeline and revenue targets as part of the company's overall revenue plan.

- Plan how marketing budget is allocated across demand generation, events, content and brand, based on what produces pipeline and revenue most efficiently.

- Drive accountability in Marketing at the same level as sales, with targets for sourced pipeline, conversion rates, customer acquisition cost, and return on marketing spend.

Important : SP6 will only consider applicants for the CRO role, with prior CRO experience.

Requirements

Required Experience:

- 10+ years of sales experience, including 5+ years of technology sales leadership at the director level or above.

- Leadership of a direct sales team (this is not a channel or distribution role)

- Prior sales leadership in software, professional services/consulting, or managed services

- Experience leading B2B sales teams across both enterprise and middle-market customers (background in pure SMB will not be considered)

- A track record of exemplary performance and sustained year-over-year sales growth

- Working knowledge of solution selling or a consultative sales methodology

- Background in cybersecurity, MSSP, IT operations, and/or cyber compliance or GRC strongly preferred

Experience and knowledge with any of the following software products is a plus:

- Splunk

- Microsoft (Sentinel SIEM product)

- CrowdStrike NextGen SIEM

- Google SecOps

- Rapid7

- Exabeam

- IBM QRadar

- Palo Alto Cortex

- SentinelOne

- Dynatrace (Observability)

- GRC (Governance, Risk, & Compliance) solutions

Benefits

About SP6:

AI use made Secure, Compliant, Resilient

SP6 ensures that organizations get Beyond the Buzzwords ® and delivers Expert Services centered around (3) convergent areas: AI Governance, AI Security, and AI Systems Resiliency. SP6 leads organizational initiatives around:

- AI Governance, Risk & Compliance Services

- Establishing and enhancing controls around the safe use of AI via Subject Matter Experts on leading industry frameworks including ISO 42001, NIST AI RMF, and CSA AI Control Matrix.
- Evaluating organizations’ adherence to these standards, whether that be for self-monitoring of controls to mitigate risk or adherence to regulatory requirements including the EU AI Act, various state insurance regulation tied to the NAIC Model Bulletin, and other statutory requirements.

- AI Security

- Hands-on implementation (tooling, training, technical controls) to operationalize organizational standards.
- This technical tool advisement and configuration work becomes both the connective tissue to policy as well as the assurance of risk mitigation, from monitoring AI usage (both sanctioned and shadow) and configuring network, endpoint, DLP, SIEM, and other tools with practical defensive security measures.

- AI System Resiliency

- Ensuring that systems or services that are AI-led are behaving as expected, providing an uninterrupted and seamless user experience.
- This practice area also assists clients with managing and reducing unnecessary AI token spend.

These services co-exist with legacy expertise and services from SP6 in the Security Operations (SIEM), as the SIEM is an organization’s primary tool for security detection and analysis; as well as our existing Cyber Compliance expertise in Cyber Risk & Compliance (CRC) services.

Why SP6?

- The chance to lead a team in a high-growth markets

- Competitive salary

- Quarterly Bonus plan
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans.
- 401(k) with company match

- 30 days annual paid time off
- Significant Training and Development and Certification attainment.
- Opportunity for long-term career advancement.

- Your contributions are felt and recognized at our growing company

Core Values:

- Drive Customer Success, Iteratively and Often
- Take Extreme Ownership
- Hire to Uncompromising Standards
- Relentlessly Develop Team Members and Yourself
- Seek Constant Improvement
- Perform as a Unified Team
- Operate With Integrity, Without Compromise
- Encourage Guilt-Free Work-Life Balance
- Display Altruism