Job Qualifications

Executive Director, Sales and Marketing

Required Qualifications

• Proven Sales & Marketing Leadership Experience
  • 10+ years in sales and marketing roles or equivalent 
  • Demonstrated success leading teams and driving revenue growth in B2B SaaS environments.
• Domain Knowledge
  • Strong understanding of identity and access management (IAM), cybersecurity, or adjacent tech sectors.
  • Familiarity with the research and education market, including institutions, consortia, and funding structures.
• Strategic Sales Expertise
  • Experience in enterprise sales cycles and partner/channel development.
  • Ability to define and execute go-to-market strategies tailored for education and research verticals.
• Marketing Leadership
  • Strong grasp of marketing in higher education and research (preferably with SaaS solutions), demand generation, content strategy, digital marketing, and branding.
• Data-Driven Decision Making
  • Proficiency with CRM (preferably HubSpot) and marketing analytics tools.
  • Ability to interpret and act on performance metrics and KPIs.
• Team Leadership & Cross-Functional Collaboration
  • Experience building and mentoring high-performing teams.
  • Ability to work cross-functionally with product, customer success, engineering, and executive leadership.
• Exceptional Communication & Presentation Skills
  • Excel at representing the company externally at industry events, in partner negotiations, and with key stakeholders.
• Education
  • Bachelor’s degree in business, marketing, technology, or a related field.

Preferred Qualifications

• Industry Relationships - Established network within higher education and/or research organizations (e.g., Internet2, EDUCAUSE, InCommon).
• Experience with International Markets - Understanding of global education and research identity federation landscapes (e.g., eduGAIN, REFEDS).
• Product-Led Growth (PLG) or Subscription-Based Models - Familiarity with go-to-market models for SaaS, especially those based on recurring revenue 
• Change Management & Scaling - Experience leading a sales and marketing organization through significant growth or transformation phases.
• Thought Leadership - Recognized presence in the identity, edtech, or SaaS communities via speaking engagements, publications, or panels.
• Tech-Savvy - Experience with modern sales and marketing tools: HubSpot, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, SEO optimization tools, etc.

Cirrus Identity is an equal opportunity employer. 

This position requires a background check.

Job Description

Executive Director, Sales and Marketing

Company Overview

Cirrus Identity is an innovative identity solutions provider serving primarily the Higher Education and Research community. We serve over 150 universities and research organizations. The majority are US based, but we are expanding to other countries as well. Our team consists of many seasoned professionals who have worked at universities in the past. We value:

Mindset

We value mindset. We are purpose-driven and approach the growth of our products, relationships and selves with a sense of optimization, abundance and fun.

Relationships

We value trust, respect and integrity with our customers, partners and team to foster genuine relationship and communication.

Teamwork

We value teamwork. We leverage each other's strengths and often collaborate to make judicious and empathetic decisions. We focus on creative and solutions-oriented results that benefit Cirrus Identity Customers.

Strategic Solutions

We value strategic solutions. We work effectively to deliver high-quality, dependable solutions that drive company growth. These solutions work harmoniously with each other and with common customer architecture.

Leadership

Cirrus Identity is a strategic partner in our industry, as demonstrated by the actions of each member of our team.

Our headquarters are in Oakland, CA, but our team is largely remote. We use a variety of tools such as video-conferencing, Slack, ticketing systems, issue trackers and email to ensure close collaboration.

Position Overview

Cirrus Identity’s sales have grown steadily every year, due in large part to the efforts of our small but hard-working sales team. The Executive Director of Sales and Marketing sets annual goals for revenue growth, leads a small and dedicated team to develop new leads, nurtures leads through email and conference follow up, and closes deals as quickly as possible in the Higher Education market. The Executive Director of Sales and Marketing works closely with product leadership, which often serves in a “sales engineer” capacity, to ensure that the deals we close are in alignment with our current product offerings and our product roadmap. The Executive Director partners with our VP of Customer Success to ensure that we are documenting customer use cases collected in the sales cycle and sharing those across Cirrus teams as appropriate, as well as scheduling customer kick-offs at a pace our Customer Success team can support.

In addition to managing all aspects of deal flow, the Executive Director also oversees our marketing and business development efforts and manages the Sales and Marketing team, which currently includes a Sales and Marketing Associate and a Digital Designer. 

The position reports to the CEO and serves on the leadership team. The incumbent works closely with the entire leadership team to set company values, purpose, and mission and to set sales and marketing strategy in alignment with company strategy. The Executive Director collaborates closely with the CEO on developing and sustaining strategic partnerships. 

Below are key areas of responsibility for this role:

Revenue Growth

• Set sales strategy in collaboration with the Cirrus Identity leadership team and CEO.
• Conduct retrospective analysis of sales efforts and develop recommendations to improve sales strategy and operations to grow revenue. 
• Establish annual goals for revenue growth and track sales on a monthly basis against established goals. 
• Provide quarterly sales updates including sales forecasts for the remainder of the fiscal year.
• Maintain up-to-date deal flow in Hubspot to track new deals and renewals, with support from Cirrus Identity’s Head of Operations
• Cultivate relationships with potential customers and partners to support continued revenue growth.
• Nurture and develop leads through email, calls, conference interactions, and (when valuable) site visits.
• Develop and manage the annual Sales and Marketing budget, including conference and non-conference expenses.
• Work with CEO and leadership team to set and review product pricing and product pricing strategy.

Sales Operations

• Work with Sales and Marketing Associate to ensure demo requests are responded to (and handle response and scheduling when necessary).
• Prep and conduct demo calls, and conduct demo call follow up, including additional calls if necessary.
• Manage the process to provide customers pricing info in a timely manner, working with CEO, Engineering and Customer Success for complex implementations.
• Work closely with VP of Customer Success to manage customer relationships including handoff from sales to Customer Success, overall workload across the teams (including timing of kick off calls), analysis of strategic customers, identifying customers for churn risk and upsell opportunities, recruiting customers to provide testimonial quotes and use case stories, and managing customer expectations in general.
• Lead RFI / RFP responses. Solicit necessary input from Customer Success, Compliance and Engineering.
• Manage the process to provide and track status of customer contracts.  Manage communications throughout the customer contract process between the CEO and Director of Compliance and the customer’s procurement and/or general counsel department.
• Coordinate with the Head of Operations readiness for billing/invoicing for new deals.  
• Oversee review of customers usage versus usage tier on a regular basis.
• Oversee administration of Cirrus Identity’s CRM platform, HubSpot. Perform a quarterly update of key company, contact and deal data working with Customer Success.  Update and maintain product subscriptions and key customer data.

Management Responsibilities

• Manage the Sales and Marketing staff, including a Sales and Marketing Associate and part-time Digital Designer.
• Select and manage company staff or outsourced vendors who provide sales and marketing support, including:
  • Develop and maintain job descriptions for these roles.
  • Recruit new staff to fill vacancies.
  • Supervise training, retention, and performance management for all sales and marketing staff in accordance with the company hiring process, personnel policies, budget requirements, and culture priorities.
• Be proactive in identifying, mitigating and resolving potential conflict within the sales and marketing team and with other Cirrus Identity teams.
• Set performance expectations with full-time and contract technical staff, and provide regular clear and specific feedback. 
• As a member of the leadership team, work with the CEO to establish compensation standards for sales and marketing employees.

Marketing and Communications

Marketing Strategy

• Oversee development of the annual Marketing Strategy in support of Sales Goals - Personas, Geography, Solutions/Use Cases.
• Oversee and assist in the development of a supporting monthly Marketing Plan that aligns to the Sales & Marketing Goals.
• Based on customer responses, refine messaging to strengthen Cirrus Identity’s reach and effectiveness in communicating the value of our solutions.
• Provide feedback from opportunities and customers to Cirrus Identity leadership in support of product and implementation improvements.
• Oversee the definition of key metrics for measuring marketing efforts.  Conduct quarterly marketing analysis based on marketing goals.
• Oversee and contribute to the development of all public facing content.  
• Oversee the continuous improvement of demo decks and pricing packages in addition to Customer Success for kick off decks.
• Review web content of key competitors and other companies in our market.

Web Presence Management

• Oversee development of Cirrus Identity website content and upgrades.
• Oversee efforts to identify SEO strategy, set goals and measure results.
• Oversee development of content for website in collaboration with Product, Customer Success and Compliance. Work with Digital Designer and Sales and Marketing Associate to update and maintain website design and content.
• Develop recommendations for improvements in Cirrus Identity’s web presence and oversee efforts to implement those recommendations.

Communications

• Oversee and contribute to publication of quarterly newsletter.
• Oversee work to draft content and distribute targeted emails utilizing HubSpot data.
• Where possible, oversee development of new marketing collateral:
  • Video
  • Use Case Stories
  • Articles / Publications
  • Learning Center
• Manage social media presence (primarily LinkedIn) and marketing, including any paid advertising.

Community Engagement

• Participate in community workgroups and committees where appropriate, such as the InCommon Catalyst group, EDUCAUSE workgroups, etc.
• Prepare for conferences, provide engaging collateral, and engage customers and prospects.
• Attend conferences and help staff the Cirrus Identity booth as well as engaging with current and potential partners and prospects.
• Work with VP of Customer Success and Head of Operations to plan and produce the Annual User Group Social.
• Lead outreach efforts for customer presentations at conferences with Customer Success.  Oversee the develop content and ensure proposals are submitted.

Business and Partnership Development

• Oversee outreach to current and potential technical and professional services partners as needed to develop awareness of Cirrus Identity, sustain good partnerships and leverage joint sales processes.
• Oversee options for building partnerships with software companies that could leverage our solutions to expand their footprint and competitiveness in the higher education market.
• Cultivate and deepen relationships with non-profits organizations that provide leadership in our target markets: InCommon, CANARIE, JISC, Geant, GakuNin, etc.
• Work with CEO on reselling contracts with vendors - Steeves, Visual Zen, SHI, Cisco and others.