Vice President of Sales, Education Solutions

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We are a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization and the leading provider of educational reporting, data exchange, verification, and research services. Serving the education, workforce and learner communities has been at the heart of our mission for over 25 years. Our work — performed in a trusted, secure, and private environment — provides numerous time- and cost-saving benefits to students, schools, administrators, and requestors.

About the Role:

The Vice President of Sales (VPS), Education Solutions will be responsible for building and expanding relationships across our nationwide customer base, while driving sales and successful adoption of new Education Solutions to existing and new audiences. Drawing from our Learner Insight, Learner Mobility, and Custom Research offerings, this leader will be responsible for establishing a coherent, comprehensive sales and go-to-market strategy and executing against this with our relationship management and business development teams. This position will report directly to the Chief Growth Officer (CGO) and will be an integral member of Executive leadership. They will manage a team of about 20 that may grow quickly based on the demand in the marketplace.

With a persistent focus on the customer, the VPS will be responsible for maintaining relationships that span in-kind partnerships (e.g., our Enrollment Management) while also selling existing and new revenue-generating solutions to exceed annual budget targets. In addition to leading the relationship management and business development teams, this leader will also play a significant role in our partner sell-with and sell-through relationships, looking constantly for new, innovative ways to scale our presence in both the secondary and post-secondary markets – and increasingly into the workforce marketplace. The VPS will receive significant industry exposure (presentations, working directly with funders and attending conferences) and will leverage their deep experience in Higher Ed, specifically, and their understanding of the National Student Clearinghouse’s 5-year strategic plan to build a complementary sales and GTM working plan.

Championing the Clearinghouse’s promises of trust, privacy, and security, the VPS will be a public spokesperson for the organization and will deepen established relationships while building new ones within the education and workforce communities.

Leadership Competencies:

Demonstrate the Clearinghouse’s competencies, which align with our corporate values. (Manager will provide more details to candidates as needed.)

• Senior Leadership Competencies include: Balances Stakeholders, Cultivates Innovation, Drives Vision and Purpose, Strategic Mindset, and Understanding the Business.

Balances Stakeholders:

• Deal effectively with conflict, reach agreement without damaging relationships and find win-win solutions.
• Develop and foster a partnership relationship with a diverse group of stakeholders at all levels of the organization.
• Pragmatically and proactively partner with stakeholders, balance the needs of stakeholders without overcommitting and underdelivering, focusing on delivering value added solutions and services.

Cultivates Innovation:

• Work closely, drive and lead key internal resources that will drive new business/solutions.
• Encourage and support creativity, ideation and innovated thinking by staff and proof of concept work that is well thought out and grounded. Views failures as opportunity to learn.
• Moves beyond traditional ways of doing things and pushes past the status quo.

Drives Vision and Purpose:

• Lead by example with a high level of emotional intelligence and demonstrate a positive and intellectually curious demeanor about the Clearinghouse’s mission, vision, values, and opportunities for the Clearinghouse to provide value to the education community and learners.
• Communicate the vision and strategy to staff in a clear, relatable, and optimistic manner.
• Demonstrates and instills our cultural values and transparent communication philosophies.

Strategic Mindset:

• Review trends, anticipate future needs, and create a vision of possibilities for sustainable value and opportunities.
• Sees the big picture, constantly imagines future scenarios, and creates strategies to sustain competitive advantage.

Understanding the Business:

• Develop, maintain, and demonstrate a strong working knowledge of the Clearinghouse, its environment, including its mission, services, and key stakeholders and how each organizational unit contributes to that mission.
• Actively seeks opportunities for efficiencies and cost-effective technologies that reduce costs and optimize investments.
• Expertly represent the Clearinghouse externally.

How You Contribute:

• Provide vision and work collaboratively with the Executive team to incorporate Clearinghouse solution sales in line with the overall Clearinghouse strategic roadmap.
• Own primary responsibility for the Clearinghouse’s annual revenue performance.
• Establish and maintain the sales process – from pipeline and forecast maintenance in our CRM and other sales tools to participation in the build out of and reporting against the budget.
• Lead the evolution of the sales organization, identifying opportunities to grow and develop the managers and individual contributors.
• Establish and oversee the end-to-end customer sales and renewal experience, including the establishment of measurable goals and objectives linked to the organization’s overall mission.
• Inspire, encourage, enable, develop, and retain a team of high performing sales professionals.
• Serve as a key external voice, increasing the value of all the Clearinghouse offers to its education stakeholders and building on the organization’s established reputation in the sector.
• Partner with the product teams to develop new features and services in response to customer needs and market opportunities.
• Participate in customer councils and other opportunities.
• Set the direction and implement changes to deepen client satisfaction with Clearinghouse services in collaboration with the Clearinghouse’s senior leadership.

Workforce Management

• Build a team-based environment that aligns with company values, ways of working, and competencies.
• Recruit and select the best talent to help optimize skills and experiences and motivate and manage staff to maximize productivity and efficiency.
• Develop and manage career development and advancement opportunities at the Clearinghouse through MAPS conversations, developing and reporting on performance and goals, and defining and monitoring training and development plans to ensure job and career satisfaction.
• Ensure staff is adequately trained and provide guidance as needed.
• Monitor employee performance and conduct appraisals.
• Reward employees using formal and informal methods.

Position may be required to perform other duties as required. These essential functions are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the job. Reasonable accommodations will be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform these essential functions.

What You Bring to the Table:

• A Master’s degree and 15 or more years of experience working in sales leadership positions in Education-related companies, with ten years in a senior management or executive level capacity, executive level sales or relationship management experience.
• Demonstrated experience:
  • Leading a sales org or similar function, in all aspects of complex, cross-functional, large-scale sales and relationship management, in a fast paced and highly competitive ever-changing data environment.
  • A successful track record exceeding sales targets in higher education markets – large-scale and complex install-base customers as well as at-scale entry into new audiences.
  • Developing and managing sales management teams and/or sellers in a technology-driven, data-focused company.
  • And deep experience with Higher Ed-related technical and data-related research solutions.
• Proven track record of forming and maintaining high-level relationships in the business-to-business environment and ability to identify credible understanding of the key priorities of stakeholders and ability to connect the dots.
• Proven experience and leadership in change management and ability to bring customer-centered approach and methodology to support organizational and cultural transformation.
• Must possess high integrity, combined with an outstanding personal style that is characterized by executive-level presentation and communication skills, transparency, trust, active listening, authenticity, collaboration, and self-awareness.
• Talented at the Management competencies:
• Making complex decisions – Demonstrated experience building value and revenue for a business that does not exist today. Complex decisions will be the order of the day as the choices made in all business facets – strategy, budgeting, management, to name a few - can have direct impact on the success or failure of this opportunity.
• Being flexible and adaptable - Demonstrated ability to adapt and work in a fast-paced environment, on a team, and achieve results in a team environment.
• Building collaborative relationships and optimizing diverse talent – Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with develop and lead a team in a positive and professional manner with a proven track record of facilitating cross-departmental issue identification, problem solving, and resolution.
• Focusing on performance - Demonstrated ability to work across departments within the organization while begin outcomes focused and results driven. Experience in building measurement and tracking tools to ensure optimal performance while meeting agreed upon deliverables.
• Superb communication skills with effective presentation skills.
• Demonstrated proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite and proficient with other collaboration tools.
• Work Location is remote with some in-person activities with the team in Herndon, Virginia and at sector events, as required.

Additional Desired Requirements:

• Experience with:
  • Higher Education Sales (K12 and workforce experience are bonuses)
  • The US Dept of Education (FSA, NCES, IES)
  • Working with large education-oriented foundations and grant makers

Physical Demands:

• Use of a computer for 8 or more hours a day.
• Use of a copy machine, fax machine, and telephone.
• Frequently required to sit for 7 or more hours per day, when at HQ may sit in close proximity to others in an open office environment.
• Occasionally required to use hands and fingers to operate, handle, and reach.
• Vision abilities include close vision and the ability to adjust focus.
• Must be flexible to do out-of-town assignments and travel via car, train, and/or airplane when needed (up to 25%).
• Must be flexible to work after business hours and on weekends when necessary.

The National Student Clearinghouse provides a robust benefit program designed to help meet the needs of each employee and their family, both now and in the future. We offer comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance, as well as life and disability insurance benefits, for employees and their qualified dependents. Health care, dependent care, and limited purpose flexible spending accounts, as well as a health savings account, are options available for employees to set aside pre-taxed dollars for certain qualifying expenses. We offer a very generous 401k matching contribution program with the opportunity to defer pre-tax and Roth contributions, as well as catch-up contributions for those who are eligible! We are proud to offer a competitive paid leave program consisting of vacation, sick, and personal time, as well as paid holidays. Vacation time will accrue based on length of service, and new full-time hires can accrue up to 13 days of vacation and up to 10 days of sick time per year. On an annual basis, new employees may use up to 32 hours of accrued sick time as personal time. Additionally, the Clearinghouse observes at least 11 paid holidays per year.

Another perk is that employees have the option to get reimbursed for basic wholesale company and roadside assistance memberships (e.g., Costco and AAA) and to request a buy back on portions of unused accrued vacation based on tenure and certain other qualifications. Employees can further their education and professional development by using our Employee Education Assistance Program, which establishes reimbursement for qualified education expenses upon successful completion of the program, and leveraging the enterprise-wide LinkedIn Learning subscription. There are additional employee benefits, to find out more, please request a copy of our complete benefit package!

We reasonably believe that the salary range for this position is between $270,000 to $300,000 annually and is bonus eligible.