Manager, EMEA Sales Development

About the team

OpenAI’s mission is to build safe artificial general intelligence (AGI) which benefits all of humanity. This long-term undertaking brings the world’s best scientists, engineers, and business professionals into one lab together to accomplish this.

In pursuit of this mission, our Go To Market (GTM) team is responsible for helping customers learn how to leverage and deploy our highly capable AI products across their business. The team is made of Sales, Solutions, Support, Marketing, and Partnership professionals that work together to create valuable solutions that will help bring AI to as many users as possible.

About the role

In this leadership role, you will be responsible for developing and executing our EMEA sales development strategy. You will build and lead a high-performing team of outbound and inbound sales development professionals, focusing on acquiring new customers and driving pipeline growth for our business.

The ideal candidate will possess significant sales and sales development leadership experience, along with a comprehensive understanding of AI technologies. This leader will have the capability to adapt to a complex and fast-changing technology environment. Key responsibilities include hiring and onboarding SDRs, expanding into new markets, generating high-quality pipeline and revenue, and fostering a collaborative and high-performing team culture.

Additionally, this individual must be a proven leader who can effectively collaborate cross-functionally with sales, marketing, operations, and core GTM teams, while guiding and mentoring the SDR team to achieve business objectives.

This role is based in London, UK. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

In this role, you'll:

• Lead a team of inbound and outbound SDRs
• Hire and onboard new SDR team members
• Train SDR team members to identify, contact, and create qualified opportunities
• Collaborate with marketing and sales teams to create and refine lead generation strategies
• Analyze sales data and metrics to identify trends, optimize processes, and make data-driven decisions
• Foster a collaborative, inclusive, and high-performing team culture
• Monitor and manage the performance of the SDR team, providing regular feedback and coaching
• Ensure SDRs develop their sales skills over time by providing regular coaching and feedback 
• Work closely with Sales to align on account prioritization and outbound prospecting strategy
• Work in collaboration with Content, Marketing Program Managers, and Product Marketing to develop effective messaging to convert inbound interest into qualified pipeline
• Support the recruitment and onboarding of other teammates
• Support the development of the company culture

We're seeking someone with experience including:

• 4+ years of experience in sales development leadership within the SaaS industry
• Strong leadership and team management skills with a track record of building and scaling high-performing teams
• Expertise optimizing inbound lead generation processes 
• Experience leading outbound teams who strategically engage with potential customers using a personalized, multi-channel, value-driven strategy 
• Deep understanding of SaaS sales methodologies, lead generation strategies, and sales process optimization
• Excellent analytical skills with the ability to interpret sales data and metrics to drive informed decision-making
• Ability to adapt to a complex and rapidly changing technology environment.
• Demonstrated success in driving growth for fast-paced, high-performing companies

You might thrive in this role if you: 

• Are customer-centric. You are motivated to deeply understand your customer’s priorities and help them achieve their vision for using our models to improve their internal productivity and AI strategy. You build strong relationships with executives and professionals across functions and serve as a trusted advisor. 

• Have a passion for or deep curiosity in artificial intelligence. You embrace the opportunity to help deploy our technology in a way that benefits humanity. You’re excited to educate our customers on AI and how to plan for the future.

 • Are a builder. You are excited to impact how our company operates and scales. Your passion is building strong systems and processes from the ground up and executing them with precision. 

• Are excited by new challenges. You don’t have the answers to every question up front, but the process of solving them invigorates you. Bespoke issues requiring multidimensional knowledge excite you. You’re willing to experiment with new solutions. 

• Are a strategist. You deeply understand go to market best practices and raise the bar for our organization. You think and plan forward on the order of years and bring internal and external stakeholders along with your strategy.

Compensation, Benefits and Perks

This is a position with OpenAI UK Ltd., which controls the hiring and management of this position. Total compensation includes competitive salary, generous equity and benefits.

• Private medical insurance covering 100% of premiums for employees and their dependents
• Pension plan with 4% employer contribution
• 52 weeks maternity leave and 20 weeks parental leave
• Unlimited time off
• Annual learning & development stipend ($1,500 USD equivalent per year)

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. 

We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status. 

OpenAI Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement

For US Based Candidates: Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.

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At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.