Vice President Sales, EMEA

Digimarc Corporation (NASDAQ: DMRC) is the global leader in product digitization. A pioneer in digital watermarks, Digimarc connects every physical and digital item to a digital twin that enables the capture of product data, records events and interactions, and supports powerful new automations. Trusted to deter counterfeiting of global currency for more than 20 years, Digimarc is also recognized for ensuring product authenticity, improving plastics recycling, and more, with a commitment to promoting a prosperous, safer, and more sustainable world. In 2023, Digimarc was named to the Fortune 2023 Change the World list and honored as a 2023 Fast Company World Changing Ideas finalist. See more at Digimarc.com.    

We're looking for an experienced Vice President, Sales, that will report directly to our Chief Revenue Officer. As Vice President, Sales you will own new business across our key industries and retail in EMEA. This is a senior leadership role. You will sit on the GTM leadership team, report to the CRO, and be accountable for the number: bookings, ARR, and the team that delivers them. 

To be direct about the profile: we want a field leader. Someone who leads from the front, stays close to the team and customers, and is consistently engaged — in the field, on the phone, in the meeting, and on the plane. They build a team that wants to operate the same way. This leader is personally involved in the key deals of the quarter. They know each one deeply, have built relationships with the key stakeholders at the accounts that want to do business with us, and when asked about any deal that matters, they answer from firsthand knowledge — not from a dashboard. They bring an AI-first mindset to how they work, how they sell, and how they lead. 

Digimarc is at a pivotal growth phase. We have a storied history, a great platform, and some of the most recognizable retailers and brands in the world as customers. We are actively sharpening product market fit across our key industries and retail, deciding where we win and doubling down there. Sales is where that gets proven: every deal is both revenue and signal. This is a build role inside a real company. You will inherit customers, technology trusted by central banks, and a leadership team committed to a disciplined operating cadence. What you will build is the enterprise sales engine on top of it: the team, the rigor, and the wins that turn product market fit from a hypothesis into a number. 

The goal is simple: bookings and ARR from key industries and retail across EMEA. Within the first 6 months, expect the team at capacity, MEDDPICC live in every deal, weekly pipeline generation running as a team discipline, and forecast accuracy holding week over week. Within 12 months, expect key industry bookings pacing to plan with lighthouse wins on the board in EMEA. 

This role requires 50% travel. 

• Hire and ramp the team. Recruit key Account Executives and keep capacity at all times. Never carry open headcount. Own ramp plans and enablement in partnership with product, enablement, and cross functional resources, so every rep gets productive fast. Key AE seats filled fast, never carried open, with ramping reps actively managed to productivity and capacity planned ahead of the number, not behind it. 
• Provide executive air cover and own the key deals of the quarter. Be personally in the deals that decide the quarter: executive sponsorship, C-level relationships, and hands on leadership in the moments that decide outcomes. Know every key deal implicitly and personally — the champion, the economic buyer, the blockers, the paper process — and be in the room with the logos that want to do business with us, not briefed on them afterward. Land the complex enterprise deals that generate reference customers and repeatable plays. In any forecast call, you speak to the key deals of the quarter from firsthand engagement: you have met the buyer, walked the account, and pressure tested the close plan yourself. 
• Enforce deal rigor. MEDDPICC applied to every opportunity, no exceptions. Maniacal Salesforce inspection: stages, forecast dates, next steps, business case current and inspectable at all times. Deal reviews that make deals better, not just report on them. 
• Run the operating rhythm. Own QBRs with the team, drive weekly territory and activity plans, and build the outbound playbook. Create a pipeline generation culture — a PG Tuesday type environment where the whole team prospects together, every week, no exceptions — with coverage ratios ahead of the number in every territory, every week. Hold weekly forecast discipline inside our 13 week operating cadence, with accuracy that lets the company plan and the CRO commit. 
• Be exceptional in front of customers. Model the standard: deeply prepared, fluent in the customer's business drivers and problems, credible from the loading dock to the boardroom. 
• Sell a complex platform through complex routes. Get competent and credible on SDKs, APIs, and embedded solutions. Navigate enterprise ecosystems: shaping RFPs with partners and SIs, working alongside hardware and firmware providers, and orchestrating multi party deals on a sophisticated technology platform. 
• Test product market fit in market. Partner with marketing on new messaging and positioning, run the experiments with live prospects, and bring the signal back to the GTM leadership team with a point of view on where we win, how we win, and how best to win. 
• Bring the energy everywhere. Drive customers and prospects to the booth, to the dinner, to the event. Tradeshows, executive briefings, industry moments: you are visible, positive, and pulling pipeline into the building. 
• Coach relentlessly. Great deal coaching on every review. Build a positive, high energy, high output culture people want to join. Develop the people who can grow, and move decisively on the ones who cannot. Coach up honestly, coach out quickly. 
• Lead as one GTM team. Operate as a full member of the GTM leadership team. Debate hard, align fully, and carry one message to the field. Named owners, dates, and outcomes on every plan. 

• 10+ years minimum of enterprise sales leadership as a first line leader, managing quota carrying reps selling $1M+ ACV deals. A field leader, in the field with the team, not leading from the dashboard. 
• 5+ years minimum of second line GTM leadership, managing first line sales leaders and running a multi team number. 
• Proven personal success closing seven figure enterprise deals with C-level stakeholders, and a track record of building teams that do it repeatably. 
• Deep command of MEDDPICC or an equivalent qualification framework, with the discipline to enforce it and the judgment to apply it. 
• Fluency in Salesforce driven forecast and pipeline management, and comfort operating inside a weekly forecast cadence with real accountability. 
• Hands on command of the sales operating rhythm: QBRs, weekly territory and activity planning, outbound playbook creation, and building a team wide pipeline generation discipline that holds coverage at all times. 
• Technical competence with SDK, API, and embedded solution selling, and experience with complex enterprise routes to market including SIs, partners, and hardware or firmware providers. 
• Experience selling into retail, CPG, or adjacent industries, with fluency in the business drivers of those customers. 
• Genuine AI fluency. Current on the ecosystem, AI-first in your own workflow, and focused on using it to understand customer problems and business drivers faster and deeper than the competition. 
• Executive presence. Credibility, composure, and command with C-level buyers, and the energy to match at a tradeshow booth at 5pm on day three. 
• Willingness and ability to travel up to 50% across EMEA. 

We hire against Lencioni's ideal team player. Humble, hungry, smart. In this role, that looks like: 

• Humble. The team's number is your number. You share credit with reps, partners, and cross functional teams instinctively. You disagree openly in the room and align completely outside it, and you never let daylight show between you and the leadership team in front of the field. 
• Hungry. Bias to action. No stone left unturned, no customer left unspoken to. Quick to engage, on the phone, in the meeting, on the plane. You are measured by bookings and you like it that way. 
• Smart. People smart. You read the champion, the economic buyer, the procurement lead, and the skeptical architect, and you know what each needs to hear. You coach reps to do the same. 

Preferred: 

• Experience selling identification, authentication, traceability, or loss prevention solutions, or other complex platform technology into retail and CPG. 
• Experience opening or scaling EMEA. 
• Experience as a first or early sales leader building the playbook, not inheriting it. 

• Collaborative – Stronger together. We embrace diverse perspectives and harness our collective talent to realize our full potential.  
• Curious – Listen and look forward. We think differently and seek out opportunities for growth to exceed our stakeholders’ expectations.  
• Courageous – Innovate with integrity