Senior Sales Director, AI Rest of Cloud WW

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  • Location:
    Offsite, Chicago, Illinois, US
  • Alternate Location
    US Remote
  • Area of Interest
    Sales - Product
  • Compensation Range
    451100 USD - 596600 USD
  • Job Type
    Professional
  • Technology Interest
    AI or Artificial Intelligence, Cloud & AI (DCN & Compute)
  • Job Id
    1442113
New

The application window is expected to close on May 30th, 2025

Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received.


Meet the Team

You will be an integral part of both the Cloud + AI Infrastructure (CAI) and Internet and Mass-Scale Infrastructure (I&MI) teams. The CAI team delivers one scalable strategy with local execution for data center customer transformation and growth, serving as the worldwide go-to-market compute and data center networking engine. The I&MI team focuses on routing and optical solutions for mass-scale infrastructure. You will work closely with regional managers, sales specialists, technical experts, and marketing professionals to drive growth in the RoC segment.


Your Impact

As the Senior Director, you will lead Cisco's efforts in the rapidly growing "Rest of Cloud" (RoC) segment within the Artificial Intelligence (AI) market. You will be responsible for driving the go-to-market strategy and adoption of Cisco's AI infrastructure and networking solutions to Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) and emerging AI providers, including AI-native cloud builders, AI SaaS providers, and AI System Integrators. This role requires a strong understanding of both AI infrastructure and networking technologies, as well as the ability to translate technical concepts into compelling business value for our clients.

  • Own the team that will develop and execute a sales strategy to achieve sales targets for Cloud + AI Infrastructure and mass-scale networking products and services within the RoC segment.
  • Lead a team of business development managers who will work directly with VC/PE companies to identify emerging RoC leaders and activates sellers and technical communities.
  • Identify and prioritize target accounts within the emerging AI provider landscape and develop relationships with key decision-makers, making recommendations on companies to be added to formal RoC coverage.
  • Engage with clients to understand their business challenges and needs related to common workloads like Virtualization and AI.
  • Identify and engage with Venture Capitalists (VCs) funding NEOCloud builders to develop an infrastructure investment strategy/plan.
  • Engage in large opportunity development, requiring creative packaging/solutioning/funding.
  • Drive sales of optics, service provider routing, optical, and automation solutions to new providers building large-scale Artificial Intelligence (AI) networks.
  • Lead emerging providers through major network architecture transitions to support AI service offerings.
  • Work closely with cross-functional teams, including marketing, engineering, product development, channel and solutions partners, and customer success, to align sales strategies and improve customer experiences.
  • Travel as needed to meet with clients and attend industry events.

Minimum Qualifications

  • 10+ years of sales experience or related experience, with a focus on Compute, Data Center Networking, Storage Area Networking, Routing, Optical, and workloads like AI, Virtualization, Bare Metal, or related fields.
  • 5+ years of management and/or sales leadership experience, including experience leading a team of regional managers and/or sales specialists.
  • Validated knowledge of industry trends such as new workloads like AI technology, including machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision.
  • Experience understanding the business issues of Cloud Builders and Providers, Networking Infrastructure / accelerated Computing/ Data Center technology/ Deep learning & machine learning.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Ability to understand technical concepts and translate them into business value for clients.
  • Experience bridging mass-scale networking concepts with AI infrastructure (data center / compute). AI solutions both in the data center and between data centers.
  • Experience with deep learning, data science, and NVIDIA GPUs.
  • Experience in two or more data estate workloads such as: Microsoft’s Data & AI Platform (Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Databricks, CosmosDB, Azure SQL or HDInsight, etc.), AWS (Redshift, Aurora, Glue), Google (BigQuery), MongoDB, Cassandra, Snowflake, Teradata, Oracle Exadata, IBM Netezza, SAP (HANA, BW), Apache Hadoop & Spark, MapR or Cloudera/Hortonworks, etc.
  • At least one industry-recognized AI certification

Cisco is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, genetic information, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected basis.
Cisco will consider for employment, on a case by case basis, qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

#WeAreCisco where every individual brings their unique skills and perspectives together to pursue our purpose of powering an inclusive future for all.

Our passion is connection—we celebrate our employees’ diverse set of backgrounds and focus on unlocking potential. Cisconians often experience one company, many careers where learning and development are encouraged and supported at every stage. Our technology, tools, and culture pioneered hybrid work trends, allowing all to not only give their best, but be their best.

We understand our outstanding opportunity to bring communities together and at the heart of that is our people. One-third of Cisconians collaborate in our 30 employee resource organizations, called Inclusive Communities, to connect, foster belonging, learn to be informed allies, and make a difference. Dedicated paid time off to volunteer—80 hours each year—allows us to give back to causes we are passionate about, and nearly 86% do!

Our purpose, driven by our people, is what makes us the worldwide leader in technology that powers the internet. Helping our customers reimagine their applications, secure their enterprise, transform their infrastructure, and meet their sustainability goals is what we do best. We ensure that every step we take is a step towards a more inclusive future for all. Take your next step and be you, with us! 

Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:

When available, the salary range posted for this position reflects the projected hiring range for new hire, full-time salaries in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including equity or benefits. For non-sales roles the hiring ranges reflect base salary only; employees are also eligible to receive annual bonuses. Hiring ranges for sales positions include base and incentive compensation target. Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location and additional factors, including but not limited to skillset, experience, and relevant education, certifications, or training. Applicants may not be eligible for the full salary range based on their U.S. or Canada hiring location. The recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.

U.S. employees have access to quality medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, short and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance and numerous wellbeing offerings.

Employees receive up to twelve paid holidays per calendar year, which includes one floating holiday (for non-exempt employees), plus a day off for their birthday. Non-Exempt new hires accrue up to 16 days of vacation time off each year, at a rate of 4.92 hours per pay period. Exempt new hires participate in Cisco’s flexible Vacation Time Off policy, which does not place a defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use, but is subject to availability and some business limitations. All new hires are eligible for Sick Time Off subject to Cisco’s Sick Time Off Policy and will have eighty (80) hours of sick time off provided on their hire date and on January 1st of each year thereafter.  Up to 80 hours of unused sick time will be carried forward from one calendar year to the next such that the maximum number of sick time hours an employee may have available is 160 hours. Employees in Illinois have a unique time off program designed specifically with local requirements in mind. All employees also have access to paid time away to deal with critical or emergency issues. We offer additional paid time to volunteer and give back to the community.

Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components. For quota-based incentive pay, Cisco typically pays as follows:

.75% of incentive target for each 1% of revenue attainment up to 50% of quota;

1.5% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 50% and 75%;

1% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 75% and 100%; and once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap on incentive compensation.

For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.

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