Director, Sales - SLED

Overview

Lead a team of Strategic Account Executives serving State, Local, Higher Education, and K–12 customers across the Eastern United States, owning regional strategy, pipeline, forecast, deal execution, partner activation, customer relationships, and team development.

What you'll do

• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team of Strategic Account Executives, setting clear expectations for new-logo growth, pipeline creation, forecast accuracy, customer engagement, partner leverage, and deal execution.
• Create and execute the SLED East go-to-market strategy, including territory design, account segmentation, whitespace analysis, state-by-state priorities, coverage plans, and quarterly operating rhythms.
• Build early-stage demand and new-logo pipeline before formal solicitations through executive outreach, mission-led account hypotheses, referrals, partner intelligence, associations, events, digital programs, and responsible use of AI and data signals.
• Position Ping Identity's identity-security platform against SLED priorities such as legacy modernization, Zero Trust, identity proofing and assurance, phishing-resistant authentication, workforce and contractor access, citizen and student services, fraud reduction, privacy, auditability, and operational resilience.
• Lead disciplined opportunity execution from discovery through award and expansion, including qualification, stakeholder mapping, technical validation, demonstrations, proofs of value, RFI/RFP responses, contract-vehicle strategy, pricing, negotiation, procurement, and close plans.
• Maintain an accurate, evidence-based forecast reflecting funding and budget authority, compelling events, decision criteria, stakeholder support, procurement route, contract vehicle, competitive position, partner role, implementation readiness, and timing risk.
• Build trusted relationships with state CIO, CISO, CTO, digital-service, security, identity, education, procurement, finance, program, and executive stakeholders, expanding coverage beyond a single office or incumbent contact.
• Develop and activate a national and regional partner ecosystem, including contract holders, distributors, resellers, systems integrators, advisory firms, cloud and technology partners, education ecosystem partners, and public-sector associations, with joint account maps, pursuit plans, co-marketing, and partner-sourced or partner-influenced pipeline goals.
• Work with key partners and associations, including cooperative purchasing and contract-vehicle communities, NASPO, E&I, NASCIO, NASTD, Carahsoft, and regional government-technology and education networks, to deepen relationships and expand reach into new logos.
• Orchestrate the cross-functional pursuit team across Sales Engineering, Solutions Specialists, Customer Success, Professional Services, Business Value, Marketing, Channel, Product, Finance, Legal, and executive sponsors, ensuring one customer narrative, one account plan, and clear ownership of next actions.
• Coach the team on public-sector buying behavior, SLED budget cycles, cooperative purchasing, state and local contracting, education procurement, ethics and engagement boundaries, value selling, MEDDPPICC, mutual action plans, and close-plan discipline.
• Represent Ping Identity at customer briefings, executive roundtables, public-sector associations, partner events, and education forums, and bring field intelligence back to Product, Marketing, Channel, and Public Sector leadership.

What you'll need

• 8+ years of enterprise software, SaaS, cybersecurity, or technology sales experience, including 3–5 years leading quota-carrying sales teams.
• A consistent record of meeting or exceeding revenue targets and developing new public-sector logos in complex, multi-stakeholder sales cycles.
• Direct SLED experience, leading a SLED sales team across multiple states and account segments.
• Strong relationships and market knowledge across the Eastern U.S. SLED landscape, with the ability to build access in state agencies, municipalities, counties, school districts, community colleges, universities, and higher-education systems.
• Working knowledge of SLED and education budget cycles, procurement, contracting, cooperative purchasing, contract vehicles, reseller models, systems-integrator motions, and partner-led delivery.
• Demonstrated success creating and progressing opportunities before an RFI/RFP, influencing requirements, building consensus, and closing new logos through customer value rather than product positioning alone.
• Experience leading executive conversations with CIOs, CISOs, CTOs, chief digital officers, superintendents, higher-education technology and security leaders, procurement executives, and mission owners.
• Strong understanding of identity security, IAM, CIAM, workforce identity, authentication, authorization, federation, identity governance, fraud and verification, Zero Trust, cloud and hybrid architectures, and subscription software models.
• Ability to connect identity strategy to SLED mission outcomes, including public safety, benefits and constituent services, workforce productivity, student success, research, privacy, accessibility, and resilience.
• Familiarity with public-sector and education frameworks, including CISA Zero Trust guidance, NIST Digital Identity Guidelines, CJIS, FERPA, state privacy requirements, and applicable cloud-security or accessibility requirements.
• Strong leadership, communication, presentation, negotiation, inspection, and change-management skills; credible with customers, partners, and senior internal stakeholders.
• Fluency with Salesforce and related sales, forecasting, account-planning, and productivity tools; analytical and data-driven decision-making.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.

Nice to have

• Experience selling or leading in identity security, cybersecurity, IAM, CIAM, fraud prevention, identity verification, or adjacent cloud-security markets.
• Experience with higher-education consortia, K–12 districts, state education agencies, or multi-campus environments.
• Established relationships with national and regional public-sector resellers, distributors, systems integrators, advisory firms, cloud providers, technology alliances, and education ecosystem partners.
• Familiarity with emerging identity requirements for AI agents, non-person identities, automated workflows, and machine-to-machine access.
• Relevant identity, cybersecurity, public-sector, or sales leadership certifications.

Details

• Reports to: VP, Public Sector Sales.
• Location: Field-based; Eastern U.S. preferred.
• Travel: Regular travel across the territory and to customer, partner, and industry events; up to 50% as needed.
• Base hiring range: $136,850 – $195,500 plus commission.