ddn - VP, Sales Engineering - EMEA

• Executive Leadership & Organizational Strategy • Own the vision, strategy, and execution of DDN’s Sales Engineering function across the EMEA region, spanning multiple sub-regions and market segments. • Lead through an active organizational and cultural transformation — setting a new standard for how the SE team operates, collaborates, and delivers. • Define and enforce a culture of accountability, where commitments are clear, performance is measured, and outcomes are owned at every level of the team. • Build a team-oriented environment that values collaboration over individual heroics, and where every SE understands how their work contributes to shared revenue and customer success goals. • Model and reinforce a positive, high-performance culture that people want to join and stay a part of. • Talent: Attract, Retain & Develop • Develop and execute a recruiting strategy that consistently attracts top-tier Sales Engineering talent across the EMEA region— building DDN’s reputation as a destination for great technical leaders. • Retain and invest in the current team: identify high-potential individuals, build personalized development plans, and create visible career pathways within the SE organization. • Lead a structured onboarding and enablement program that accelerates time-to-productivity for new hires. • Conduct regular 1:1s, coaching sessions, and performance reviews that are substantive, forward-looking, and developmental — not administrative. • Champion internal mobility and promotion from within as a primary talent strategy. • KPIs, Metrics & Operational Rigor • Design and implement a comprehensive KPI framework for the EMEA SE organization, covering technical win rates, POC conversion, deal cycle contribution, customer satisfaction, and team productivity. • Establish regular operating cadences — weekly team reviews, monthly business reviews, quarterly planning — that keep the organization aligned, informed, and accountable. • Build dashboards and reporting mechanisms that give Sales and executive leadership real-time visibility into SE performance across the region. • Drive continuous improvement by analyzing performance data, identifying gaps, and executing corrective initiatives with clear ownership and timelines. • Ensure initiatives are executed fully and measured rigorously — from launch through adoption and outcome verification. • Cross-Functional Leadership & Influence • Serve as the primary executive bridge between Sales Engineering and Sales, Product Management, Engineering, Marketing, and Professional Services — communicating clearly and influencing effectively at all levels. • Act as the authoritative voice of the EMEA field to Product and Engineering: translating customer and competitive intelligence into actionable roadmap input. • Partner with Sales leadership on pipeline strategy, deal qualification, and forecast accuracy — ensuring SE resources are aligned to highest-value opportunities. • Drive alignment between SE, Professional Services, and Support to ensure seamless customer experience from pre-sales through deployment and expansion. • Represent DDN Sales Engineering at executive customer briefings, strategic partner events, and industry forums. • Technical Execution & Customer Engagement • Ensure consistent, high-quality technical execution across all customer segments in the EMEA— from early discovery through POC, architecture review, and technical close. • Serve as an executive technical sponsor for DDN’s most strategic accounts and high-stakes competitive situations. • Establish and enforce architectural standards, technical messaging, and solution positioning frameworks across the SE team. • Guide the team in articulating DDN’s differentiation in AI data storage, EXAScaler, Infinia, and high-performance infrastructure environments. • Own the quality and consistency of technical deliverables: POC results, architecture documents, RFP responses, and executive presentations. • Leading Organizational & Cultural Transformation • Drive a deliberate transformation of the EMEA SE organization — evolving from a reactive, deal-support function to a proactive, strategic, value-creating team. • Build and institutionalize new operating models, playbooks, and processes that scale with DDN’s growth without sacrificing agility. • Create psychological safety and trust within the team so that people feel empowered to take initiative, raise issues, and challenge the status quo constructively. • Lead change with clarity and empathy — communicating the “why” behind organizational decisions, and bringing the team along rather than mandating from above. • Build a culture where feedback flows freely in all directions — from team to leader, leader to team, and peer to peer. • Established a clear KPI framework and operating cadence adopted across the full EMEA SE organization. • Completed a talent assessment of the current team and executed a development and retention plan for key contributors. • Recruited at least two senior hires who materially strengthen the team’s capabilities or coverage. • Driven a measurable improvement in technical win rate, POC conversion, or deal velocity in at least two of DDN’s EMEA segments. • Built visible, trusted relationships with Sales, Product, and Engineering leadership that enable faster, better decisions. • Defined the roadmap for the next phase of SE organizational evolution and gained executive alignment on it.