Pre-revenue → Series A → PE acquisition → Post-IPO. Three industries. Three products. Three buying personas. One repeatable playbook.
LandTech
Head of LandFund
Pre-revenue → PE Exit
Built a new product line from ideation to 7-figure ARR. Zero fintech background. Company grew ~£100K to £13M+ ARR. Implemented MEDDIC — conversion +70%, AOV +87.5%, ARPU +61%.
Salesloft
Director → RVP Mid-Market EMEA
Scale-up → Series E
Top Sales Director globally (FY23). Commercial Leader of the Year (FY24). Turned around underperforming segment. Revenue per HC: $9K → $88K/quarter. First six-figure deal in company history ($267K ARR / $590K TCV).
Rubrik (NYSE: RBRK)
VP Mid-Market Revenue, EMEA
Post-IPO
Built EMEA MM from scratch. Zero security background. Revenue more than doubled in 12 months. Win rate 9% → 48%. Team 9 → 18 AEs + 3 RDs across London, Munich, Milan. Zero regrettable attrition.
Three industries. Three products. Three personas. One constant: a highly competitive sale with a complex motion — and a repeatable playbook that wins every time.
Talent
Hire. Coach. Retain.
High investment in people produces high performance as the outcome — not the other way around.
Hire — The Profile
Outbound-capable. Built pipeline cold — not just managed inbound.
Value seller. Articulates ROI to commercial stakeholders, not just technical champions.
Competitive experience. Won in complex, multi-threaded deal motions before.
Comfortable in ambiguity. Has sold without a full playbook behind them.
Clock speed. Adapts fast, learns fast, doesn't need scaffolding.
Consistent promotions. Evidence of growth — not just performance.
Curious by nature. Motivated by learning, not just earning.
Coach — High Investment
Structured weekly 1:1s with real coaching agendas — not pipeline reviews dressed up as coaching.
Lunch & learns, deal clinics, live call shadowing with structured feedback loops.
RVP on 100K+ deals. RDs on 50K+ deals. Present at the moments that matter most.
Enablement tied to specific skill gaps — Champ go/no-go, EB access, value articulation, outbound.
Coaching is a cadence, not a crisis intervention. Consistent, not reactive.
Retain — Structure & Purpose
Align every rep to their personal goals — not just the team number. Know what drives them.
Clear, evidence-based promotion pathways. SDR → AE → Senior → RD. No advocacy. No ambiguity.
Celebrate wins loudly — in Slack, team calls, and in front of leadership. Culture lives in moments.
Monthly skip-level 1:1s. RVP direct to AE. Keeps the pulse. Surfaces issues early.
Zero regrettable attrition target. If good people leave, something is wrong — and I own it.
5 profiles I would hire at Cursor Commercial EMEA
Profile 1 — Internal
SDR at Cursor
Existing Cursor SDR ready to step up. Knows the product, culture, and motion. Lowest ramp risk.
Profile 2 — External AE
To be confirmed
Strong outbound background. Complex deal motion. Comfortable in ambiguity without scaffolding.
Profile 3 — External AE
To be confirmed
Developer tooling or PLG-adjacent background. Understands the engineering buyer from inside.
Profile 4 — Known Rep
Rep I would bring
Existing relationship. Proven performer. Seen under pressure. Would back with my reputation.
Profile 5 — Known RD
RD I would bring
Second-line candidate. Track record building commercial teams from scratch in high-growth environments.
Pipeline Generation
Building from zero.
No PLG signals. No MQLs. No inbound. Here is the system I build from day one — and have built three times before.
Step 1 — Define ICP
Use closed win and lost data from the US team to identify which industries, profiles, and personas convert fastest at highest ACV. Collaborate — don't guess from scratch.
Step 2 — Build Messaging
Develop persona-specific outbound sequences built on commercial pain, not product features. Test across regions, share what works, iterate fast.
Step 3 — Run the Engine
Implement the five-pillar cadence below. Non-negotiable from week one. Measure weekly, coach to the gaps, protect prospecting time from everything else.
Five pillars — each essential, none sufficient alone
01
Why
Every rep must understand why PG is non-negotiable — tied to their personal targets, not just a team number.
🎯
Why
02
Expectation
Data-driven activity and outcome targets. Set from closed-win analysis — not guesswork. Clear, written, agreed.
📋
Expectation
03
Investment
Protected time blocks, the right tools, ICP coaching, and messaging support. Leadership in the room.
🛠
Investment
04
Accountability
Daily wrap-ups, weekly 1:1s, data reviewed with ops. No hiding behind activity. RD cascade to AE.
📊
Accountability
05
Celebration
Shout every win. First meeting booked, first opportunity created, first deal closed — all celebrated loudly.
🏆
Celebration
+173%
Sales-sourced pipeline Rubrik, 12 months
71% → 47%
Channel dependency reduction
$9.54M
Highest ever PG quarter +66% YoY
×3
Self-sourced pipeline in 12 months
Forecast
Three calls. One number.
Forecast accuracy comes from process, not instinct. At Rubrik: within 6% of actuals, quarter on quarter.
01
The RD Call
Each RD submits against a structured template — not a Slack message or gut feel.
Consistent categories across all regions: Commit, Best Case, Pipeline. Same definition every quarter.
RD owns their number. No surprises in the final week of quarter.
I challenge, probe, and align before rolling up — not after something misses.
02
The Data Call
Work with Revenue Ops: pipeline created, carried in, win rate by stage — the full picture.
Mathematical model triangulates against the RD's human forecast and flags disconnects early.
Where is the view misaligned with what the data actually says? We find it before close.
Data doesn't have opinions. It keeps everyone honest — including me.
03
The Deal Call
Key deal validation on every commit above threshold.
3 Whys: Why buy? Why now? Why us over the alternative?
Champ go/no-go: Authority, influence, and urgency — all three, not just one.
Path to EB: Accessed, or a credible and time-bound plan to get there.
Compelling event + next step on calendar. No event = not a commit deal.
📍 At Rubrik: forecast accuracy within 6% of actuals, quarter on quarter. Three calls. One number you can present to your CRO with confidence.
Defining & Measuring Success
Rep-first. Then everything else.
Leaders are successful as a by-product of their reps' success. That principle shapes every metric and every decision I make.
01
Rep Attainment Distribution
80% of reps over 80% of quota. The single most important leading indicator of team health.
A team where one or two carry the number is fragile. A team where most people are winning is a machine. Measured monthly. Coached to weekly. This is where I direct attention first.
02
Revenue & Strategic Attainment
Overall revenue against plan — and against strategic initiatives: new logo %, ACV growth, ICP focus, product mix.
At Rubrik: tracked cloud pipeline separately from month one. That discipline drove the pivot from single-digit to 58% cloud mix in 12 months. Revenue follows where you measure.
03
Retention & Internal Promotions
Zero regrettable attrition is the target. If good people leave, something is wrong — culture, comp, or leadership. That starts with me.
At Rubrik: 2x SDR→AE, 2x AE→Enterprise, 1x AE→Channel in 12 months. Promotions prove the system works for what comes next, not just today.
"Being rep-first isn't a philosophy — it's a practice. It changes where you spend your time, what you celebrate, and every decision you make as a leader. Get the reps winning and everything else follows."
Risks & Gaps — Honest Assessment
What I'm watching for.
Every build has risks. I'd rather name them now, own them, and arrive with a plan — than be surprised by them at quarter end.
Risk 01
Commercial siloed from Geo and Enterprise
Mitigation → My responsibility to own
If the three motions operate in silos, we lose best practices, cultural alignment, and the ability to move accounts between motions efficiently. I will make cross-functional alignment my personal responsibility from day one — building relationships with Isi's team, aligning on ICP definitions, sharing what works in both directions.
Risk 02
Time to repeatable structure in an abundance market
Mitigation → Playbook first, always
Inbound abundance means reps can hit number without building pipeline or following a playbook. That's dangerous. When the market gets hard, the muscle won't be there. I've lived through this at Salesloft. Non-negotiable structure from week one — protected especially when it feels unnecessary.
Risk 03
Complacency in a high-growth environment
Mitigation → Hire curious, reward growth
Easy wins create complacency. Reps stop developing, stop prospecting, stop pushing. Hitting target gives an illusion of resilience. At Cursor the market moves incredibly fast. The answer starts at hiring — the right traits, identified early — and continues through a culture that celebrates development as loudly as closed deals.
Risk 04
Ramp time without early enablement
Mitigation → A request as much as a risk
The 30 days before day one matter as much as the first 30 after. I would want access to Cursor's knowledge base, key people, and product training ahead of my start date — so I arrive on day one with context, not spending week one catching up. Invest early and the payback is immediate. This is something I would ask for directly.