The application window is expected to close on: 10/10/2026
This remote role is open to candidates in the United States, no relocation is available.
Meet the Team
Global Specialist Sales is standing up a formal Incubation organization to give Cisco's newest platforms and solutions a dedicated path from "0 to 1" - through customer proof points, GTM readiness, and eventual graduation into mainstream Portfolio or Hyper-Specialist coverage. Incubation is home to products including AI Defense, Cisco Cloud Control, Agentic Security, Multicloud Fabric, and other new product introductions (NPIs) as they come online. The Incubation Sales Vice President is building out a central team-including Sales, GSI/Partnerships, Distinguished Solutions Engineering, Forward Deployed Engineers, and Sales Planning & Operations (SP&O)-to lead each product's transition through defined stage gates based on product-market fit, operational readiness, and alignment with Core.
Your Impact
As the Incubation SP&O Leader, you are the day-to-day operating partner to the Incubation Vice President and leadership team. You are responsible for building the "seller-facing plumbing" required to turn strategy into an executable go-to-market and sales operating model. This is a foundational role that requires defining processes from scratch, navigating a fast-changing product roadmap, and ensuring each Incubation product can scale from initial customer acquisition to a repeatable, successful motion.
Key Responsibilities
• Strategy & Operating Partnership: Serve as a strategic sparring partner to the Incubation VP on GTM strategy, resourcing, and portfolio prioritization. Lead the SP&O operating cadence, including QBRs, forecast reviews, and leadership reporting.
• Go-to-Market Execution: Define GTM strategy and sales plays tailored to the product maturity curve. Build sales readiness for new products, including process design, tools, customer intake, and cross-functional onboarding.
• Governance: Support the stage-gate/graduation framework that governs a product's path from Incubation to Core or Hyper-Specialist coverage, using data-driven criteria to assess readiness.
• Compensation, Coverage & Metrics: Determine comp plans and territory/coverage models in partnership with Finance. Define and supervise metrics to quantify success for both individual products and the function overall.
• Team Leadership: Hire, lead, and develop a team of 2-3 SP&O professionals. Set the quality bar for the team's output and assign coverage across products, partnerships, and "flex" capacity for new-product readiness.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Represent Incubation SP&O in planning sessions with Central Global Specialist Sales, Business Entities (BE), Enablement, Finance, and Customer Experience (CX).
Minimum Qualifications
• 12+ years of experience in sales strategy, sales operations, business/GTM planning, or an equivalent role, ideally within a technology or software sales organization.
• 5+ years experience crafting or coordinating sales compensation plans and territory/coverage models.
• Consistent track record of building GTM processes or sales motions from scratch, with a high degree of comfort in ambiguous and evolving environments.
• 4+ years experience partnering directly with senior sales leadership (VP-level or above) as a trusted operating partner.
• 2+ years of proven people leadership experience or clear readiness to lead a small team.
• Cross-functional collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively across product/BE teams, Finance, Enablement, and Partner organizations.
Preferred Qualifications
• Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Economics, or a related field.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with experience preparing high-level materials for executive audiences.
• Experience supporting a new-product-introduction (NPI), incubation, or early-stage/emerging-business function.
• Familiarity with Cisco's sales organization, systems, and planning cycles.
• Experience with GSI/strategic alliance or partner GTM motions.
• Background in security, cloud, or AI/infrastructure markets.
