Area Sales Director, Strategic Sales

The Okta Sales Team 

Okta has a vision to free anyone to safely use any technology by providing a secure, highly available, enterprise-grade platform that secures billions of Workforce log-ins every year. As an Okta AE, you will drive territory growth through both net new logos and cultivating relationships to develop and grow existing Okta Platform customers. With the support of your Okta ecosystem, your focus will be on consistent results and an unwavering commitment to our customers.

Strategic Sales Team 

We have a team of highly experienced sellers who are targeting Okta’s largest customers.  This segment represents one of the biggest opportunities for growth at Okta.  Each Strategic Account Executive is responsible for maintaining high activity standards; daily prospecting, pipeline growth, prospect qualification, and delivering assigned monthly sales revenue targets. 

The Area Sales Director, Strategic Opportunity

The Area Sales Director, Strategic Sales is responsible for the development and business results of a team of quota-carrying Account Executives in their region. The right Sales Leader for this position should have the ability to increase the productivity of account executives through skill development, adherence to activity standards, providing inspiration, rapid conflict resolution and building a highly empowered, constructive sales culture. We’re looking for a strong leader to take it to the next level.

This role requires travel to our San Francisco, CA or Chicago, IL office for in-person onboarding during the first week of employment. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application, interview process, or onboarding please use this Form to request an accommodation.

What you’ll be doing 

• Attract, recruit, hire, and mentor the Strategic Account Executive sales team.
• Lead a team of Okta's Strategic Account Executives, managing our largest customers
• Create an open, inclusive team-oriented environment, building a results-driven culture of accountability and transparency.
• Lead by example, set expectations, follow through effectively and provide coaching and mentorship as needed and ensure that managers do the same for their team.
• Be accountable for consistently delivering and overachieving against targets – ensuring Okta’s goals, and objectives are achieved consistently and sustainably.
• Analyze data and dynamics to maximize existing successes and to create new sales growth opportunities
• Accurately forecast monthly, quarterly, and annual targets for assigned regions; establish and manage data and supporting metrics (pipeline coverage, ASP, etc.)
• Effectively develop, design, build, and execute all aspects of the Enterprise Business plan to predictably and consistently generate short-term results while holding a long-term perspective of overall results.
• Put into place sales force structure, process strategies, and strategic resource plans that will capture key opportunities in target markets, Enterprise accounts/prospects, partners or industry verticals throughout the Region.
• Own the pipeline generation strategy and work with internal stakeholders to execute against the strategy.
• Maintain market intelligence and develop strategies to maintain Okta’s leadership position.
• Exhibit a growth mindset with the ability to outline the long-term vision and strategy.

What you’ll bring to the role

• 15+ years’ experience building and running Strategic sales teams in the software industry
• 7+ years’ experience as a front-line sales leader
• Deep understanding of SaaS / Cloud Go-To-Market and the required roles for effective customer engagement
• Relevant software industry experience in any of the following: IT systems, cloud enterprise or infrastructure management, application development and management, security, business applications and/or analytics. 
• History of consistently meeting/exceeding targets and objectives personally and as a leader
• Excellent leadership and influencing skills; ability to build strong business partnerships both outside, and within the organization
• Mastery of consultative/solution selling methodologies like MEDDPICC, Challenger, Solution Selling, and Sandler
• Technical aptitude and are experienced selling into CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, CTOs and Lines of Business

Okta’s Top 5 Core Leadership Competencies are part of the deeply ingrained principles that guide all of our company’s actions. They also align strongly to our cultural cornerstones, our Okta values: love our customers, empower our people, never stop innovating, act with integrity, and maintain transparency. It’s our expectation that our managers and leaders embody these core competencies: