[Hiring] Senior Director, Sales Compensation @Leaf Home

Role Description

The Senior Director, Sales Compensation is responsible for the strategy, design, governance, analytics, and effectiveness of the company’s sales compensation programs. This leader will serve as the company’s subject-matter expert on sales compensation, partnering closely with Sales, Finance, Human Resources, Operations, and senior leadership to ensure incentive programs drive the right behaviors, reward performance, support profitable growth, and remain competitive in the marketplace.

The role does not lead the sales organization. Instead, it serves as a strategic partner to Sales leadership, bringing deep expertise in incentive design and sales economics to help translate business strategy into compensation programs that are motivating, understandable, financially sound, and operationally executable.

The successful candidate will combine deep technical sales compensation expertise with strong business judgment and the ability to influence senior commercial leaders.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead the design and ongoing evolution of all sales compensation programs across the organization.
• Translate business objectives into incentive structures that drive desired sales behaviors and business outcomes.
• Design plans incorporating base salary, commissions, quotas, thresholds, accelerators, decelerators, bonuses, product incentives, contests, guarantees, draws, and other variable compensation mechanisms.
• Determine appropriate pay mix, performance measures, leverage, payout curves, thresholds, targets, accelerators, and maximum payout opportunities.
• Ensure incentive plans appropriately balance:
  • Revenue growth
  • Gross margin and profitability
  • Conversion
  • Average ticket
  • Product and service mix
  • Customer quality and retention
  • Sales productivity
  • Customer experience
• Simplify compensation programs where unnecessary complexity has accumulated while preserving appropriate differentiation for different sales roles and business models.
• Develop sophisticated financial models to understand the cost and behavioral implications of proposed incentive-plan changes.
• Model payout distributions across various performance scenarios before implementing plan changes.
• Conduct sensitivity analyses to understand how changes in performance, pricing, margin, mix, conversion, or productivity affect incentive payouts.
• Analyze compensation cost as a percentage of revenue, gross profit, and contribution margin.
• Evaluate whether incentive plans provide appropriate differentiation between low, average, high, and exceptional performers.
• Identify excessive payouts, insufficient upside, performance cliffs, windfalls, unintended consequences, and other design issues.
• Partner with Finance to forecast incentive expense and evaluate the ROI of sales compensation investments.
• Develop a comprehensive framework for measuring the effectiveness of sales incentive programs.
• Conduct regular analysis of actual performance and payouts against plan objectives.
• Evaluate whether incentive plans are producing the behaviors and business outcomes they were designed to create.
• Analyze performance and compensation relationships across representatives, teams, markets, products, channels, and business units.
• Identify potential plan gaming, unintended incentives, excessive discounting, poor-quality sales, or other behaviors created by compensation design.
• Recommend changes based on quantitative analysis and business results.
• Establish dashboards and reporting that give senior leadership visibility into incentive effectiveness and economics.
• Establish a disciplined governance process for the design, approval, implementation, and modification of sales compensation programs.
• Create clear standards regarding when separate incentive plans are appropriate versus when roles should participate in common plans.
• Establish policies governing:
  • Plan eligibility
  • Crediting
  • Split credit
  • Cancellations and rescissions
  • Chargebacks
  • Returns and rework
  • Guarantees and draws
  • New-hire treatment
  • Leaves and transfers
  • Exceptions
  • Disputes and appeals
  • Plan changes
• Create an annual sales compensation planning calendar aligned with the company’s strategic and financial planning processes.
• Maintain clear documentation of all plans, policies, calculations, and approvals.
• Ensure compensation programs comply with applicable legal, regulatory, and company requirements.
• Ensure incentive plans can be accurately and efficiently administered.
• Partner with HR, Finance, Payroll, IT, and Sales Operations to ensure accurate calculation and timely payment of incentives.
• Establish controls and audit processes to improve accuracy and reduce payment errors.
• Identify opportunities to automate compensation administration and reduce manual processes.
• Evaluate sales compensation technology and systems as appropriate.
• Ensure sales representatives and leaders have visibility into performance, earnings, and how compensation is calculated.
• Serve as the primary sales compensation advisor to the Chief Sales Officer and senior business leaders.
• Partner with Sales leadership to understand business strategy, sales roles, customer acquisition models, and desired selling behaviors.
• Challenge proposed compensation changes when they create unnecessary cost, complexity, or unintended incentives.
• Partner with Finance to ensure plans deliver appropriate economic returns.
• Partner with HR on market competitiveness, job architecture, total compensation, and compensation governance.
• Provide senior leadership with objective recommendations regarding incentive-plan changes rather than simply administering plans requested by the business.
• Conduct periodic comprehensive reviews of the company’s sales incentive portfolio.
• Identify opportunities to eliminate redundant or ineffective plans.
• Reduce unnecessary complexity and improve consistency across businesses and markets.
• Develop common compensation design principles while recognizing legitimate differences among sales roles and channels.
• Lead major redesigns of incentive programs when business strategy, market conditions, or sales models change.
• Develop implementation and communication strategies for significant compensation changes.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive experience in sales compensation, sales effectiveness, compensation consulting, commercial finance, or related disciplines.
• Significant experience personally designing complex sales incentive plans.
• Experience supporting large, distributed, commission-intensive sales organizations strongly preferred.
• Experience in home improvement, home services, roofing, HVAC, solar, telecommunications, insurance, financial services, automotive, or another high-volume commissioned sales environment preferred.
• Advanced financial and analytical capabilities, including sophisticated Excel and financial modeling skills.
• Experience with sales compensation administration platforms and CRM/data environments preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior Sales, Finance, and HR executives.
• Experience leading significant sales compensation redesigns and change-management efforts.
• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred.
• Must be legally authorized to work in the country of employment without sponsorship for employment visa status (e.g., H1B status).

Preferred Knowledge, Skills, Abilities or Certifications

• Deep technical expertise in sales compensation principles, including:
  • Pay mix
  • Quotas and performance measures
  • Thresholds and accelerators
  • Payout curves
  • Commission structures
  • Crediting
  • Plan leverage
  • Performance distribution
  • Cost modeling
  • Plan governance

Travel Requirements

• Occasional overnight travel is required (1-10%).

Overtime/Additional Hours Requirements

• Additional and non-standard hours may be required (exempt).

Physical Requirements

• Normal office environment.
• Performs indoor work in a climate-controlled environment.
• Sedentary work. Exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally and/or negligible amount of force frequently or constantly to lift, carry, push, pull or otherwise move objects, including the human body. Sedentary work involves sitting most of the time.

Benefits

• Industry-leading compensation package.
• Competitive medical, dental, and vision benefits after 60 days.
• Retirement savings plan with company match.
• Paid parental leave and generous paid time off programs.
• On-campus fitness programs and meal delivery services.
• Comprehensive health, wellbeing, financial wellness, and childcare benefits.
• Opportunities for growth and advancement.

Additional Perks

• Employee assistance program with 24/7 legal, financial, and counseling support.
• Employee discount marketplace with thousands of savings options.
• Flexible gym membership.
• Employee resource groups, including VetConnect and the Women’s Committee.

Awards and Recognition

• Leaf Home has been recognized as a top workplace by The Plain Dealer, is a multi-year recipient of Top Workplaces USA by Energage, and is Great Place to Work® Certified™.
• Additional recognitions include:
  • Remodeling 550 list placements.
  • Qualified Remodeler Top 500 rankings.
  • Smart Culture Awards for employee-focused culture.
  • Inc. 5000 and Inc. 5000 Regionals: Midwest growth recognition.

Diversity and Equal Opportunity

Leaf Home is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, religion, age, genetic information, veteran status, or disability, in accordance with applicable law.

Americans with Disabilities Act Statement and Contact

Leaf Home is committed to honoring the spirit and requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. If you require reasonable accommodation in completing this application, interviewing, completing any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participating in the employee selection process, please direct your inquiries to [email protected].