Director, Global Sales Incentive Compensation - Hybrid, Cary, North Carolina

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About the job

The Director, Global Sales Incentive Compensation provides strategic leadership for the design, governance, operation and evolution of the organization’s global sales incentive compensation programs.

Operating at the intersection of Sales, Finance, HR, Legal and Revenue Operations, the Director acts as a trusted adviser to senior leadership, translating commercial strategy into incentive programs that drive the right behaviors and business outcomes while remaining financially responsible, scalable and operationally effective.

Success requires more than deep compensation expertise.

The Director must combine strategic thinking and commercial judgement with the ability to build trusted relationships, influence senior stakeholders, resolve conflict, lead significant transformation and ensure operational excellence.

As a Director, Global Sales Incentive Compensation you will:

• Design and lead global sales incentive compensation strategies that align with business goals, revenue growth objectives, and desired sales behaviors.

• Develop and evolve annual incentive plans, including performance measures, pay mix, quotas, thresholds, accelerators, and crediting methodologies.

• Evaluate plan effectiveness using data, market insights, and commercial judgment to optimize performance, control costs, and drive business outcomes.

• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior executives across Sales, Finance, HR, Legal, and Revenue Operations, providing strategic guidance on compensation decisions.

• Lead cross-functional alignment and resolve complex compensation challenges while balancing business needs, fairness, compliance, and operational simplicity.

• Oversee governance, compliance, and the end-to-end sales compensation lifecycle, ensuring plans are scalable, transparent, auditable, and operationally sound.

• Drive continuous improvement through process standardization, automation, and risk reduction to enhance the experience for sellers and administrators.

• Define and execute the technology strategy for Sales Incentive Compensation, including large-scale system implementations, transformations, and optimization initiatives.

• Leverage analytics, automation, and emerging technologies to improve compensation accuracy, efficiency, insights, and decision-making.

• Lead and develop a high-performing global team while guiding organizational change related to compensation strategy, processes, and technology.

• Embrace curiosity, passion, authenticity and accountability. These are our values and influence everything we do.

Required qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Accounting, Human Resources, or a related discipline.

• 10+ years of progressive experience in sales compensation, sales operations, revenue operations, finance, or related business functions.

• Experience leading global sales compensation or incentive programs in a complex, multi-regional organization.

• Demonstrated success partnering with senior and executive leaders on strategic business initiatives.

• Experience leading and developing high-performing teams.

• Strong analytical, financial, and problem-solving skills.

• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

• Equivalent combination of related education, training and experience may be considered in place of the above qualifications.

Additional competencies, knowledge and skills

• Leading Change - Driving organizational and cultural changes needed to achieve strategic objectives; catalyzing new approaches to improve results by transforming organizational culture, systems, or products/services; helping others overcome resistance to change.

• Creating a Culture of Trust - Fostering a work environment that encourages people to act with integrity and treat each other and their ideas with respect; creating and protecting a high-trust environment by setting an example, advocating for others in the face of challenges, removing barriers to trust, and rewarding others for demonstrating behaviors that cultivate trust. Provides feedback both reinforcing and constructive regarding the behaviors of his/her managers.

• Courage - Proactively confronting difficult issues; making valiant choices and taking bold action in the face of opposition

• Deep expertise in incentive compensation strategy, design, governance and operations.

• Strong strategic and commercial thinking, connecting compensation investment to seller behavior and business outcomes.

• Demonstrable experience successfully implementing or transforming a major Sales Performance Management or Incentive Compensation Management platform.

• Experience operating within complex, global and matrixed organizations.

• Strong analytical capability and the ability to use data and financial modelling to support decisions.

• Experience leading significant organizational and process change.

World-class benefits

Highlights include...

• Comprehensive medical, prescription, dental and vision plans.

• Medical plan options include:

• PPO with low annual deductible and copays.

• HDHP combined with a health savings account with a contribution from SAS (no access to on-site health care center).

• Onsite Health Care Center (HQ) that’s free to employees and family members enrolled in the PPO plan. There's a pharmacy too! Not local to HQ? The pharmacy will ship prescriptions for no additional charge!

• An industry-leading 401k plan.

• Tuition Assistance Program and programs and resources to support your development

• Generous time away including vacation time, a variety of paid holidays, and our much-loved U.S. Winter Wellness Break between December 25 and January 1.

• Volunteer Time Off, parental leave and unlimited paid sick days.

• Generous childcare benefits for all full-time employees.

You are welcome here.

At SAS, it’s not about fitting into our culture – it’s about adding to it. We believe our people make the difference. Our inclusive workforce brings together unique talents and inspires teams to create amazing software that reflects the diversity of our users and customers.

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