Fast Facts

The Vice President of Strategic Accounts will lead all sales initiatives across undergraduate and graduate education, focusing on growth and relationship building within a portfolio of mission-driven clients, primarily in the higher education sector.

Responsibilities: Manage a strategic client portfolio, achieve growth, renewal and retention goals, collaborate with university leaders, maintain high customer satisfaction, and oversee sales metrics and pipeline management.

Skills: Strong consultative sales skills, deep knowledge of the higher education industry, proficiency in Salesforce.com, excellent communication and negotiation skills, and ability to manage complex sales processes.

Qualifications: Bachelor's degree required, master's preferred; 10+ years in sales, specifically in higher education; experience with C-suite executives and consultative sales approaches.

Location: Remote Anywhere US with a corporate office in Iowa; willingness to travel approximately 50% of the time is required.

Compensation: Not provided by employer. Typical compensation ranges for this position are between $150,000 - $250,000.

Job Details

Job Location:   Remote Anywhere US - Corporate Office, IA

Salary Range:   Undisclosed

Description

The Vice President, Strategic Accounts is a successful higher education professional responsible for all undergraduate, graduate, online and fundraising sales within an assigned portfolio and is committed to supporting the mission of niche-market campuses/clients. The Vice President is responsible for managing a strategic portfolio of mission-based clients, taking a highly consultative approach to achieve strong account growth, expansion, and new solution sales. 

The ideal candidate has:

• Cultural Competence: Understand the unique position and mission of campuses, including the strengths, goals and challenges they may face while pursuing enrollment, fundraising, and student success goals
• Consultative Approach: Focused on building authentic relationships and helping clients maximize opportunities in their market; synthesizing information and communicating strategy recommendations; offering critical insights, innovation and breakthrough thinking to help our partners succeed.  
• Focus on Metrics: Diligence in tracking activity, opportunities, and important client information in Salesforce.com. Excellent organization skills and attention to detail in managing client portfolio; commitment to timely and personalized client follow-up.
• Business Development Experience: High business and sales acumen to effectively navigate renewals, create new opportunities for clients, expand into new buying centers, inspire clients to pursue new ideas, and make compelling business cases.
• Passion and Experience in Higher Education: Our consultative approach leverages the industry experience of our team members. Consultants must bring a passion for client-success and RNL’s mission to their work.
• A Priority on Collaboration and Teamwork: Ability to build and develop internal and external partnerships to achieve success.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES/RESPONSIBILITIES: (not limited to)

• Achieve growth, renewal and retention goals for clients within a defined portfolio; generate and close upsell and partnership expansion opportunities. This is a quota-bearing role, with goals set each year
• Collaborate with university leaders to address undergraduate, graduate, online enrollment, and fundraising challenges and opportunities while exploring partnership opportunities with RNL
• Maintain high levels of customer/client satisfaction
• Achieve quarterly and annual sales goals for business bookings including renewals, cross sell and upsells
• Use sales metrics to manage sales activity, objectives, and results
• Pipeline management: Develop, measure, and manage healthy pipelines and the effective progression of deals through the sales process
• Able to manage a complex sales process from lead generation to contract negotiation
• Ability to build and develop internal and external partnerships to achieve success
• Sales planning & forecasting for assigned territory
• Represent RNL at industry events and speaking engagements

Qualifications

Required:

• Bachelor’s degree required; master’s degree preferred
• 10+ years’ experience in progressive sales experience; specifically in the higher education industry preferred
• Deep knowledge of higher education industry, enrollment, fundraising, and non-profit trends
• Effective in driving business development and conducting consultative sales approaches
• Skilled in managing high-level meetings with C-suite executives in university settings
• Proficient in communication, both written and verbal
• Capable of delivering engaging presentations
• Experienced in negotiation
• Demonstrates strong leadership capabilities
• Excellent problem solver; using analytical skills to synthesize complex challenges and present innovative solutions to meet enrollment management challenges
• Proficient with Microsoft Office
• Self-starter, able to plan and execute tasks and projects, and achieve goals, with minimal supervision
• Willingness to travel as needed (approximately 50% of the time)
• Ability to maintain and work in a remote home office
• Remote/virtual work environment must be free from distractions while performing the essential functions of the job and have a reliable network connection
• Position predominantly includes sitting/standing for long periods of time, close vision through the use of a computer screen, extensive keyboarding, talking, hearing, and infrequent light physical effort is required (minimum of fifteen pounds)

RNL is an equal opportunity employer, and we are committed to fostering an inclusive and accessible work environment. If you require any accommodations during the application or interview process, please reach out to us here.