Vice President of Presales, Americas 

Job Description

The Vice President of Presales, Americas, will lead our esteemed team of Solution Engineers, Architects and Specialists as an integral pillar of our Go To Market team to generate growth across the Americas. Your responsibility is to lead Americas Presales to exceed revenue growth targets, build and grow a world-class team, and define and execute the strategy to evolve the organization to attain Okta’s ambitious long-term mission. As the VP of Presales you will interact and act as an executive sponsor with customer executives and ensure that Okta continues to exceed customer expectations. You will work with cross-functional teams to drive the Okta product roadmap via industry trends, customer challenges, technical evolutions, and business changes.

Your Impact

• Lead, organize and grow a world-class team by partnering with stakeholders and cross-functionally to exceed Okta’s short and long-term targets.
• Develop and foster a high performance culture of inclusion, development, and career growth within the theater. 
• Continue to evolve the organization where analysis of situations or data requires an in-depth knowledge of the company, customers, products, and solutions.
• Develop a strategy to retain, attract, and grow Presales staff, Presales Managers, and Presales Directors into the theater.
• Oversee Presales Enablement. Foster the broader ecosystem of partnerships.
• Represent the company in various technical PR activities and be a technical face of Okta in theater.
• Provide an escalation point for pre-sales and post-sales technical issues that arise in the theater.
• Lead development, continuous improvement, and maintenance of our tools, process and technical environments.
• Drive weekly team meetings. Coach direct reports regarding scoping and strategies to drive the sales process.
• Responsible for budgeting to ensure Presales teams meet customer needs in the most productive way possible.
• Collaborate and influence a variety of internal functional areas to ensure solutions are implemented and exceed customer expectations.
• Be a key contributor for product development or enhancements to new and existing products to product management function.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering or a related field or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years of experience in sales engineering or systems engineering with at least 8-10 years managing and directing a Presales or Sales Engineering team.
• Excellent knowledge and prior experience selling security, identity and infrastructure technologies including but not limited to: OAuth, OAuth2, SAML, LDAP.
• Demonstrated success working with Fortune 1000 companies.
• Strong customer relationship and people skills as well as strong written communications and presentation skills.
• Ability to influence decision makers and executives.
• Ability to travel frequently.

Your Experience

• BS CS/EE or related (or equivalent work experience), MBA desired.
• 5+ Years' experience leaving a theater level 3rd or 4th line leadership in Systems Engineering and/or global level experience.
• Industry knowledge of security product market trends and directional awareness of Okta’s roadmap and technology development efforts.
• Broad experience in both large enterprise engagements and high velocity sales segments.
• Proven success selling platform solutions, with clear, tangible sales results (Security, SaaS, Cloud, etc.). Again, metrics matter.
• Has a reputation with the customers in the theater as a trusted advisor who will always take care of their needs.
• Drives accountability and high performance culture,  including demonstrated development plans and execution, reduced attrition results and initiatives, a clear history of promotions and success, etc.
• Solid track record in building, developing and recruiting diverse high-performance teams based on a large network of talent in the security and identity industry within a rapidly growing sales environment.
• A validated leader who can drive broader business conversations beyond his/her functional expertise.
• Demonstrated Lifetime Value expansion initiatives, with factual results upselling subscriptions and platform solutions.
• Demonstrated success working and collaborating in a matrix manner with his/her extended teams, such as Support, Finance, Global Presales, HR, Product Management and other relevant organizations.
• Highly commercial in orientation, with a strong focus on the customer and a clear commitment to generating profitable topline growth.
• A highly autonomous individual that can lead a multi-functional project from the ground up and execute.
• A progressive thinker, extremely focused and capable of creating an evolving strategy to meet and anticipate both near and long-term development issues.

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:

• Builds Effective Teams: Building strong-identity teams that apply their diverse skills and perspectives to achieve common goals.          
• Demonstrates Self-Awareness (EQ): Using a combination of feedback and reflection to gain productive insight into personal strengths and weaknesses.
• Develops Talent: Developing people to meet both their career goals and the organization’s goals.
• Drives Results: Consistently achieving results, even under tough circumstances.
• Strategic Mindset: Seeing ahead to future possibilities and translating them into breakthrough strategies.

Okta is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Okta is rethinking the traditional work environment, providing our employees with the flexibility to be their most creative and successful versions of themselves, no matter where they are located.  We enable a flexible approach to work, meaning for roles where it makes sense, you can work from the office, or from home, regardless of where you live.  Okta invests in the best technologies and provides flexible benefits and collaborative work environments/experiences, empowering employees to work productively in a setting that best and uniquely suits their needs.  Find your place at Okta https://www.okta.com/company/careers/. 

By submitting an application, you agree to the retention of your personal data for consideration for a future position at Okta.  More details about Okta’s privacy practices can be found at: https://www.okta.com/privacy-policy.