Position Title: Senior Director, Cisco Business
Position Location: Remote - US
Reports to: EVP, Enterprise Systems & Security
Job Summary:
Cisco is one of Pellera's largest and most strategic technology partnerships, and this is the first dedicated leadership role with have created for it. Today the relationship is managed across regions and practices without a single owner. We are hiring a senior leader to change that, and to roughly double the Cisco business over the next three years. This is a build role with an unusually strong starting position. A significant group of Cisco-oriented sellers is already hired and coming online across the next year, Cisco is investing in the partnership at record levels, and executive sponsorship sits at the EVP level. What has been missing is someone to own the plan, the relationship, and the execution end to end.
This is a national leadership role executed through influence, credibility, and a plan that regional leaders want to run. For the right person that is the appeal: national scope from day one, and a result that is visibly yours.
Essential Functions:
Relationship and Joint Planning:
- Serve as the single senior face of Pellera to Cisco, across Cisco's partner organization, area sales leadership, and business units.
- Shape and negotiate the joint business plan and memorandum of understanding; own the quarterly business review cadence.
- Own Pellera's standing and tier against Cisco's partner scorecard, and close identifiable gaps.
Growth and Account Penetration
- Carry the growth mandate for the Cisco business across all regions and practices
- Build and drive the target-account strategy, getting Cisco into accounts where Pellera already has the relationship and access but little or no Cisco presence
- Partner with regional sales leadership to make Cisco a motion every account executive knows how to run, and close the participation gap across the field
- Build the pipeline and forecast discipline that makes Cisco growth predictable rather than backend loaded.
Programs, Funding, and Enablement
- Own capture, compliance, and reinvestment of Cisco program funding: rebates, incentives, co investment, marketing development funds, and program tiers
- Align certifications, specializations, and partner-program milestones to where the growth is
- Drive Cisco sales and technical enablement into every region, including onboarding and ramping newly hired Cisco-focused sellers
- Assess field skills and coverage, and build business cases for additional capability investment
Offerings and Demand Generation
- Develop Cisco-specific offerings, services attach, and value propositions across networking, security, collaboration, data center, and observability
- Create and run Cisco-funded campaigns in partnership with marketing and the practices
- Represent Pellera at Cisco and industry events, and build the reference stories that win the next deal.
What Success Looks Like in Your First Year
- A baseline of the Cisco business by region, practice, and architecture, plus a three-year growth plan approved by Pellera leadership
- An executed joint business plan with Cisco and a working QBR cadence • Identified partner-scorecard gaps closed, and program funding capture improved
- Cisco enablement live in every region, with newly hired Cisco sellers ramped on schedule
- A named target-account plan in motion, with measurable growth in the number of accounts transacting Cisco
- Growth delivered above the partnerships recent trajectory, distributed across regions rather than concentrated in one or two
Required Skills/Abilities/Competencies:
- Deep, current Cisco knowledge: partner program structure and tiers, incentive and rebate programs, the partner scorecard, deal registration, architectures, and how Ciscos partner investment decisions get made
- A track record of growing a vendor practice or partner business at scale, with demonstrable revenue and margin results
- Proven ability to lead and influence a distributed field sales organization without direct reporting authority • Business acumen. Able to build a credible growth plan, a fundable investment case, and manage to margin in a competitive, low-margin business
- Executive presence. Credible with vendor executives, internal regional leadership, and a board-level audience.
Required Education and Experience:
- 10+ years leading a technology partner, channel, or strategic alliance organization, or in Cisco field or channel sales leadership
- Bachelors degree or equivalent practical experience
Preferred Experience:
- Experience at Cisco, or at a Cisco national, Gold, or top-tier partner
- Existing executive relationships within Ciscos channel organization and area leadership
- Experience across multiple Cisco architectures, not a single product line
- Experience working with distribution partners • Background building sales enablement programs and partner-funded demand generation
- Experience in a private-equity-backed or high-growth integrator environment
Physical Requirements:
- Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
- Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times.
- Willingness and Ability to travel approximately 40-50% of the time.
Pellera provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.