[Hiring] Leader, Strategy & Planning Operations @Cisco

Role Description

This remote role is open to candidates in the United States, no relocation is available.

As the Incubation SP&O Leader, you are the day-to-day operating partner to the Incubation Vice President and leadership team. You are responsible for building the “seller-facing plumbing” required to turn strategy into an executable go-to-market and sales operating model. This is a foundational role that requires defining processes from scratch, navigating a fast-changing product roadmap, and ensuring each Incubation product can scale from initial customer acquisition to a repeatable, successful motion.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategy & Operating Partnership: Serve as a strategic sparring partner to the Incubation VP on GTM strategy, resourcing, and portfolio prioritization. Lead the SP&O operating cadence, including QBRs, forecast reviews, and leadership reporting.
• Go-to-Market Execution: Define GTM strategy and sales plays tailored to the product maturity curve. Build sales readiness for new products, including process design, tools, customer intake, and cross-functional onboarding.
• Governance: Support the stage-gate/graduation framework that governs a product’s path from Incubation to Core or Hyper-Specialist coverage, using data-driven criteria to assess readiness.
• Compensation, Coverage & Metrics: Determine comp plans and territory/coverage models in partnership with Finance. Define and supervise metrics to quantify success for both individual products and the function overall.
• Team Leadership: Hire, lead, and develop a team of 2–3 SP&O professionals. Set the quality bar for the team’s output and assign coverage across products, partnerships, and "flex" capacity for new-product readiness.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Represent Incubation SP&O in planning sessions with Central Global Specialist Sales, Business Entities (BE), Enablement, Finance, and Customer Experience (CX).

Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in sales strategy, sales operations, business/GTM planning, or an equivalent role, ideally within a technology or software sales organization.
• 5+ years experience crafting or coordinating sales compensation plans and territory/coverage models.
• Consistent track record of building GTM processes or sales motions from scratch, with a high degree of comfort in ambiguous and evolving environments.
• 4+ years experience partnering directly with senior sales leadership (VP-level or above) as a trusted operating partner.
• 2+ years of proven people leadership experience or clear readiness to lead a small team.
• Cross-functional collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively across product/BE teams, Finance, Enablement, and Partner organizations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Economics, or a related field.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with experience preparing high-level materials for executive audiences.
• Experience supporting a new-product-introduction (NPI), incubation, or early-stage/emerging-business function.
• Familiarity with Cisco's sales organization, systems, and planning cycles.
• Experience with GSI/strategic alliance or partner GTM motions.
• Background in security, cloud, or AI/infrastructure markets.

Benefits

• Medical, dental and vision insurance.
• 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution.
• Paid parental leave.
• Short and long-term disability coverage.
• Basic life insurance.
• 10 paid holidays per full calendar year, plus 1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees.
• 1 paid day off for employee’s birthday, paid year-end holiday shutdown, and 4 paid days off for personal wellness determined by Cisco.
• 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year for non-exempt employees.
• Flexible vacation time off program for exempt employees.
• 80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter.
• Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer.