Head of Southern Europe, SMB & Commercial

The shape of it

In the posting’s own words

We’re looking for an experienced second-line sales leader to lead our SMB and Commercial business across Southern Europe. You will manage a team of sales managers and Account Executives, set the regional strategy, and be accountable for delivering sustainable growth across multiple countries, customer segments, and sales motions.

What it asks for · 13

• 12+ years of relevant sales or commercial experience in technology, financial services, payments, or another fast-growing industry.
• A proven track record as a second-line manager, with meaningful experience leading and developing sales managers as well as Account Executives.
• Demonstrated success growing a complex business across multiple countries, customer segments, products, or sales motions.
• Experience owning a significant regional or multi-market revenue target and delivering sustained performance against ambitious growth goals.
• A strong record of building high-performing organizations, including hiring and developing leaders, managing performance, and creating succession plans.
• Demonstrated ability to translate company strategy into clear regional priorities, operating plans, and measurable team goals.
• Experience running a disciplined sales organization, including forecasting, pipeline management, capacity planning, territory design, and performance reviews.
• Strong executive presence and a track record of building trusted relationships with senior customer and internal stakeholders.
• Excellent commercial judgment, including the ability to evaluate complex opportunities, allocate resources, and balance short-term execution with long-term growth.
• Experience leading through periods of rapid growth, organizational change, or significant ambiguity.
• Ability to influence across a highly cross-functional and matrixed organization without relying solely on formal authority.
• Strong analytical skills and the ability to use data to identify patterns, challenge assumptions, and make informed decisions.
• A commitment to building inclusive teams and creating a culture of high standards, continuous improvement, and shared accountability.

Also a plus

• Experience leading SMB and Commercial sales teams with distinct coverage models, sales cycles, and customer needs.
• Experience managing a geographically distributed organization across several Southern European markets.
• Experience scaling a business through multiple phases of growth rather than inheriting a mature and stable organization.
• A track record of successfully leading both new-business acquisition and existing-customer expansion motions.
• Experience in payments, fintech, financial infrastructure, SaaS, or another technically complex industry.
• Familiarity with platform, marketplace, subscription, or usage-based business models.
• Experience working in a global organization and influencing regional and global go-to-market strategy.
• Professional fluency in one or more Southern European languages.

What the job covers

• Own the overall strategy and commercial performance of Stripe’s SMB and Commercial business across Southern Europe.
• Lead, coach, and develop a team of sales managers and Account Executives across multiple countries, segments, and sales motions.
• Build a strong leadership bench by hiring exceptional managers, setting clear expectations, and creating development and succession plans.
• Establish a clear regional vision and translate it into country, segment, and team-level plans with measurable outcomes.
• Deliver ambitious revenue, acquisition, expansion, and activation goals while building a healthy and sustainable long-term business.
• Create a rigorous operating cadence across forecasting, pipeline generation, territory planning, performance management, and business reviews.
• Hold managers accountable for team performance while coaching them to diagnose challenges, make sound decisions, and lead independently.
• Identify differences across Southern European markets and adapt coverage, capacity, and go-to-market strategies accordingly.
• Build executive relationships with strategic customers and prospects, stepping into critical opportunities and negotiations when leadership involvement can materially improve the outcome.
• Improve sales productivity and effectiveness by identifying systemic opportunities across process, tooling, enablement, segmentation, and coverage.
• Partner closely with Marketing, SDR, Product Sales, Solutions Architecture, Customer Success, Partnerships, Deal Pricing, and Operations to deliver an integrated regional strategy.
• Represent the needs of Southern European users and sales teams to Stripe’s regional and global leadership.

Tools and skills named

Words the posting leans on

• sales31×
• experience22×
• business19×
• regional18×
• organization17×
• southern17×
• performance16×
• managers15×
• commercial14×
• customer14×
• growth13×
• strategy12×
• leadership10×
• building9×
• clear9×
• executives9×

Counted from the posting after the mission statement and the legal notices are set aside. The ones near the top are the ones a screener is looking for.

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