Position Description

The responsibility of the Executive Account Director (EAD) is to establish, cultivate and bring to fruition enterprise/institutional/system level partnerships by offering pan-Pearson Courseware business models like Inclusive Access (IA) and Pearson services offerings to meet the institution's strategic needs. The EAD also works in partnership with the Courseware sales team and the Professional Services team to drive revenue growth at institutions already partnering with Pearson via existing agreements by influencing C-suite engagement to accelerate the volume of courses in Inclusive Access business models.

The key accountabilities for the role include:

• Achieve or exceed revenue targets and OKRs.
• Prospect, develop and grow a pipeline of potential institutional customers based on revenue potential, readiness criteria and strategic needs of the institution as related to Pearson solutions, including Inclusive Access, Smarthinking, and any new commercial offers as launched.
• Serve as primary sales contact and trusted business advisor to institutional stakeholders and decision makers at target accounts.
• Negotiate institutional customer agreements for services where required, working in partnership with Account Services and the deal desk.

This is a remote/home-based position with approximately 50% travel. Ideal candidate would be located in the territory. Relocation not available for this position.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy, Planning & Analysis:

• Account strategy, planning & analysis with local sales team and Account Services to determine which courses should be actively pursued for IA inclusion at a given account; work with Finance if P&L needed
• District and Regional Planning with District Managers and Sales VP to identify key growth areas across states and systems; develop plan to drive enterprise revenue.
• Work with government relations team to impact policy and inform key state leaders of Pearson initiatives and partnerships
• Demonstrate leadership in account planning and execution process by leading collaboration among all internal and external stakeholders involved to ensure advancement of the opportunity. Demonstrate effective and efficient use of OneCRM and sales tools; ensure accuracy. Use data and insights to inform account plans and activity.

Business Development Prospecting:

• Continuously research and scope target institutions' challenges and top priorities and articulate to Pearson internal partners the top problems that need to be solved for each account.
• Create stakeholder maps and cultivate relationships with all key institutional stakeholders in decision-making positions. Gain a deep understanding of customer critical success factors to become an integral business consulting partner at target institutions as those institutions seek to meet their internal goals.
• Lead the work with channel partner executives (system and partner wide) on growth strategies and alignment on targets for revenue maximization.

Enterprise Level Engagement

• Effectively conduct and manage all phases and aspects of consultative selling: discovery, analysis, synthesis, business solution definition and presentation, and negotiation, close.
• Actively partner with the Courseware Sales Reps and District Managers to develop relationships and opportunities at institutions or college-wide within the territory to increase pipeline opportunities and drive new partnership closed deals.
• Work with customers to co-create business solutions using the suite of Pearson enterprise level products and service capabilities that will help customers achieve their goals and drive revenue growth for Pearson.
• Work with Professional Services Team to continuously use qualitative decision criteria to evaluate the viability and customer readiness for each opportunity and make collaborative decisions to pursue only those that fit the mission, purpose, feasibility, and profitability metrics.
• Serve as the Professional Account Services Team escalation point into the institution (as needed) to resolve any obstacles to a successful implementation.
• Manage customer expectations to ensure they align with Pearson's ability to deliver what is needed.

Communication and Teamwork

• Summarize and communicate follow-ups and next steps for every interaction with prospects and internal partners including respectful requests for confirmation.
• Stay current to communicate internally and externally on key issues in the Higher Education sector, state-wide legislative issues and at each key institution they are partnered with within the territory.
• Be a strong team player within their regional sales team by contributing regularly in team settings, recognizing other team members for their support.

Outcomes

• Meet or exceed targets as outlined in performance goals and incentive plan

Essential Skills and Qualifications

Essential Experience/Background

• A Bachelor's degree or an equivalent combination of education and successful work experience.
• A minimum of 5 years of increasingly successful sales achievement.
• Experience selling complex business solutions in the higher education market with demonstrated capability around negotiating and engaging at executive level.
• Ability to quickly engage with and understand departmental/divisional/executive positions, effectively communicate those to internal stakeholders and respectfully guide internal resources to obtain a positive result for the customer and revenue growth for Pearson.
• Outstanding track record of defining an effective sales plan and achieving its implementation and execution.
• Strong business acumen: Proficient in sales account planning and execution; understands financial models and can create the P&Ls that support those models, using data to inform the development and execution of account plans.
• Accomplished in identifying client critical success factors and needs that drive buying behavior, coordinating decision processes and consulting within the Higher Education institutional framework.
• Holistic Solution Thinking: Possesses a high level of comfort working with complex situations where numerous sources of information must be integrated and interpreted. Demonstrated ability to make connections between issues that arise and feasible solutions.
• Demonstrated ability to clearly understand partnership metrics, define and develop opportunities from sales calls and subsequently create and negotiate contracts or amendments with efficiency.
• Demonstrated ability to gather and interpret key data points in pursuit of new opportunities. Also skilled at identifying, organizing, and presenting the necessary data required to support approval of opportunities. Strong value articulation skills.
• Strategic: Demonstrated ability to apply strategic and creative thinking when presented with ambiguous opportunities, and able to be analytical in pursuit of new opportunities.
• Record of informal and/or formal leadership.
• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively in an effective team where there is shared "ownership" of meeting customer's needs and delivering outcomes.
• Demonstrated proficiency in MS Office, CRM, Sales Reporting, and light project management tools.

Essential Attributes

• Executive presence
• Achievement-driven - determination/drive/desire to achieve results
• Strong value articulation skills and consultative sales skills
• Strategic
• Entrepreneurial spirit/ability to spot opportunities
• Creative solutioning and problem-solving skills
• Analytical
• Exceptional written, interpersonal, and presentational communication skills
• Strong sense of purpose and vision
• High emotional intelligence and self-awareness
• Has an inherent ability to build trusting relationships with customers and internal staff and then to maintain those relationships through professional empathy and the 13 core high trust behaviors
• Collaborative Leadership skills: Ability to both lead a team and work as an effective team player
• Change agility - able to adapt quickly, quick on their feet
• Learning agility - ability to quickly learn and understand customer needs at all levels and then communicate those professionally with internal collaborators to obtain a positive result for the customer; aptitude for learning new technologies and service offerings
• Initiative-taking; self-directed; coachable
• Organized with ability to prioritize multiple projects and deadlines
• Tenacity, resilience, and ability to handle stressful situations

Desirable Qualifications and Experience

• Business development experience
• High degree of comfort in publisher and technology sales

Job: SALES

Organization: Higher Education

Schedule: FULL_TIME

Req ID: 3207