Regional Sales Director - Confluent

Introduction At IBM Global Sales, we bring together innovation, collaboration, and expertise to help clients solve their most complex business challenges. Working across industries and geographies, you\'ll partner with colleagues, clients, and partners to co-create solutions that drive digital transformation and lasting impact.Success in Global Sales is built on curiosity, empathy, and collaboration. You\'ll connect technical understanding with strong people skills, building trusted relationships and shaping solutions that improve business and society. With world-class onboarding, continuous learning, and a supportive culture, IBM offers the tools and opportunities to grow your career. Join us and be part of a global team that\'s passionate about driving innovation and making a difference. Your Role and Responsibilities What You'll Do * Set the vision, strategy, and priorities for Confluent's Heartland Enterprise region, translating company and GTM priorities into a clear plan for growth and execution. * Lead, inspire, and develop a high-performing team of Enterprise Account Executives, creating a culture of accountability, collaboration, customer focus, and consistent execution. * Develop and execute a comprehensive regional business plan focused on driving new business, expanding strategic customer relationships, and accelerating adoption and consumption of Confluent's data streaming platform. * Own the operating rhythm and performance of the region, including pipeline generation, forecasting accuracy, territory and account planning, deal execution, and achievement of revenue and consumption targets. * Drive a strong consumption mindset across the team, ensuring sellers are focused not only on closing business, but also on accelerating customer adoption, expanding use cases, and driving sustainable growth over time. * Partner closely with Solutions Engineering, Customer Success, Marketing, Partners, and Professional Services to identify new workloads and use cases, remove barriers to adoption, and accelerate customer consumption and expansion. * Build deep relationships with senior executives and key decision-makers across strategic enterprise accounts, positioning Confluent as a critical technology partner for their broader data, cloud, and AI strategies. * Attract, hire, coach, and develop top sales talent, building a strong and diverse talent pipeline and creating meaningful development opportunities across the team. * Develop and leverage Confluent's partner ecosystem, including cloud providers, technology partners, and system integrators, to expand our reach and accelerate customer outcomes. * Maintain strong operational command of the business, proactively identifying risks and opportunities and taking decisive action to drive performance. * Collaborate closely with peer sales leaders across AMER and the broader GTM organization, sharing best practices and contributing to Confluent's overall enterprise strategy. * Lead effectively through change and ambiguity as Confluent continues to evolve and scale as an IBM company. Required Skills * 10+ years of successful enterprise technology sales experience, including significant experience leading high-performing enterprise sales teams. * Proven success selling complex SaaS, cloud, data infrastructure, database, analytics, AI, or enterprise platform solutions. Experience with data streaming, event-driven architecture, or adjacent technologies is highly valued. * A strong track record of leading teams to exceed revenue and consumption targets while driving predictable, sustainable growth. * Experience building and executing regional sales strategies that balance new business acquisition with customer adoption, consumption, expansion, and retention. * Demonstrated success navigating and closing complex, multi-million-dollar, multi-year enterprise agreements with large strategic customers. * Strong understanding of enterprise technology buying motions, with experience building multi-threaded relationships across technical, business, and executive stakeholders. * Strong business and operational acumen, with the ability to manage pipeline, forecasting, territory strategy, account planning, and performance with a high degree of rigor. * Demonstrated ability to attract, coach, and develop high-performing enterprise sellers and build an inclusive, high-performance team culture. * Strong executive presence and credibility, with experience engaging C-suite and senior technology leaders and connecting technical capabilities to strategic business outcomes. * Ability to operate effectively within a highly matrixed organization and influence cross-functional teams without direct authority. * Excellent communication, presentation, negotiation, and decision-making skills, with the ability to operate effectively in a fast-moving and evolving environment. * Stakeholder Collaboration: Experience working with various stakeholders to ensure compliance and effective execution of incentive plans. Additional Details (US) IBM offers a competitive and comprehensive benefits program. Eligible employees may have access to: - Healthcare benefits including medical & prescription drug coverage, dental, vision, and mental health & well being - Financial programs such as 401(k), cash balance pension plan, the IBM Employee Stock Purchase Plan, financial counseling, life insurance, short & long- term disability coverage, and opportunities for performance based salary incentive programs - Generous paid time off including 12 holidays, minimum 56 hours sick time, 120 hours vacation, 12 weeks parental bonding leave in accordance with IBM Policy, and other Paid Care Leave programs. IBM also offers paid family leave benefits to eligible employees where required by applicable law - Training and educational resources on our personalized, AI-driven learning platform where IBMers can grow skills and obtain industry-recognized certifications to achieve their career goals - Diverse and inclusive employee resource groups, giving & volunteer opportunities, and discounts on retail products, services & experiences We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable law. This position was posted on the date cited in the key job details section and is anticipated to remain posted for 21 days from this date or less if not needed to fill the role. Compensation, Benefits and Work Authorization The compensation range and benefits for this position are based on a full-time schedule for a full calendar year. The salary will vary depending on your job-related skills, experience and location. Pay increment and frequency of pay will be in accordance with employment classification and applicable laws. For part time roles, your compensation and benefits will be adjusted to reflect your hours. Benefits may be pro-rated for those who start working during the calendar year. This position is eligible for participation in an IBM Sales Incentive plan. Actual incentive opportunity will be based on performance and the eligible Target Incentive, as addressed in the applicable plan, all of which is subject to change. The compensation range listed for this position is the IBM Reference Salary that is used when you are not actively participating in a sales plan. Your actual base pay plus incentive opportunity will be determined by the Incentive Plan assigned to you. IBM will not be providing visa sponsorship for this position now or in the future. Therefore, in order to be considered for this position, you must have the ability to work without a need for current or future visa sponsorship.