Vice President, Sales & Business Development

Wolters Kluwer’s Legal & Regulatory, U.S.(LRUS) business is a portfolio of digital content and software solutions.  LRUS’ main business serves law firms, law schools, corporate counsel, and professionals requiring legal and compliance information. The content industry is an industry under transformation, having largely shifted from print to digital and now undergoing an additional shift towards expert solutions, or domain fueled solutions that boost attorney productivity and improve client outcomes fueled by GenAI. In addition, LRUS offers software solutions to corporate legal departments and third-party retirement administrators. It also provides expert content to healthcare entities.

As both the market and the underlying mix of product and services shift, the LRUS sales organization continues to evolve as part of the overall business transformation. This role requires focusing the sales team on its continued evolution to:

• Understand and sell developing GenAI capabilities to solve client problems and improve customer experience.

• Adapt the selling organization to accommodate deep domain selling of productivity solutions in the attorney workflow for law firms and corporations.

• Build a true multi-level, team selling capability to allow high dollar strategic sales into key accounts.

• Focus and support the Customer Success organization to effectively drive retention, usage and engagement in high dollar accounts.

• Tightly collaborate and integrate marketing and sales efforts to facilitate coordination of market activities across market segments and sales channels. 

• Develop a data driven sales methodology leveraging SFDC to track activity from initial interest through post sales activities; build out of leading/trailing key performance indicators.

• Ensure a high-performance sales enablement team and set of capabilities to drive sales effectiveness and seller productivity

The VP of Sales will lead experienced and knowledgeable Sales, Sales Operations (and Enablement) and Training Managers, who manage Field and internal Sales Representatives across multiple sales channels, Training / sales enablement professionals and sales operations. This position is primarily responsible for driving strong and sustained sales results by delighting our customers and developing a passionate and accountable sales organization that focuses on attracting, developing, and retaining top talent.

This is a senior leadership position on LRUS’s executive management team which directs overall business strategy and builds on the existing culture of collaboration and openness across the company.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Works collaboratively with the rest of the Executive team to develop and refine the overall sales strategy and objectives for each market segment.

• Manages the sales team to execute sales strategy and achieve objectives.

• Identifies and implements sales methodologies driven by market segment characteristics in combination with product needs. Establishes a culture of continuous learning and collaboration in the sales organization.

• Builds a data driven sales culture to foster improved sales performance and forecasting / reporting; establishes clear sales metrics and benchmarks for measuring progress and maintaining focus

• Provides transparent sales reporting including pipeline and sales statuses to Executive team

• Builds capabilities that enable sellers to have the knowledge, skills, and tools they need to succeed

• Implements objective and measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the team

• Based on market and business needs, continually develops and evolves the sales organization to include structure, methodology, individual talent and compensation plans.

• Builds a culture of internal collaboration with the marketing organization driving improved efficiency and performance within the sales cycle.

• Builds strong relationships with key customers and industry associations; maintains a highly visible presence in the marketplace.

• Provides feedback and field intelligence to the organization to help drive business strategy and activities.

• Seeks continuous improvement in staff capabilities and provides ongoing coaching and development opportunities for sales reps and managers.

• Participates in budget planning, management and reporting activities

• Participates as a member of the LRUS Executive Committee

• Actively identifies and develops talent, continually grooms rising talent for succession.

Education:

• 4-year degree or equivalent combination of education and work experience required.

• MBA or JD is preferred.

Experience:

• 10+ years of strategic leadership sales experience managing multiple markets with a specific focus on B2B, SaaS and/or enterprise software sales is required.

• Demonstrated experience for talent identification, team management, coaching and conflict resolution and sales operations / sales enablement.

• Ability to help teams navigate complex sales processes in a matrixed organization.

• Familiar with utilizing data driven operating mechanisms around sales force effectiveness in a SFDC environment, including creating and managing sales pipeline

• Ability to communicate value of sophisticated and complex products/technologies.

• Strong team building abilities and skills; commitment to continuous quality improvement.

• Experience managing by example.

• Ability to engage and motivate a team of employees based remotely.

• Proven experience leading a team to meet and exceed sales targets.

• Strong knowledge of sales forecasting, planning and budgeting.

• Ability to operate at both a strategic/conceptual level and at a detailed, operational level.

• Metrics driven; highly disciplined process orientation.

• Proven ability to perform in a consultative, collaborative manner and engender trust and cooperation from colleagues and stakeholders.

• Engaging leadership style that builds and sustains credibility with staff, colleagues, clients and other stakeholders.

Core Competencies Requirements:

• Strong critical thinking skills.

• Enthusiasm and eagerness to learn.

• Outstanding communication, presentation, networking, and organizational skills.

• Consulting mentality—extracting insights from very complex and/or limited information to make a recommendation to stakeholders

• Results-oriented; able to take concepts and ideas through from implementation to action.

• Demonstrated ability to take initiative, be proactive, and think independently, and anticipate needs related to future work.

• Demonstrated capacity to learn and apply skills and knowledge to unique and varied situations

• Highly responsive and resourceful. Positive ‘can do’ attitude and approach to problem solving

• Innovative mindset; willingness to try creative and different ways of accomplishing work.

• Ability to clearly communicate concepts, research findings, issues analysis, project and evaluation results, and data interpretations

Travel Requirements:

• Frequent travel (~50%) required to our various locations and work in the field with customers and reps.

Compensation:

Target salary range CA, CT, CO, HI, NY, WA: $203,900 - $262,150