Senior Manager of Commercial Strategy and Contracts

The Senior Manager of Commercial Strategy and Contracts is a key role in the Sales Operations team responsible for leading the strategy of our complex nonstandard opportunities and commercial terms. They are also responsible for contract management, commercial term drafting, and redlines. This leader manages the team that directly engages with customers in deal negotiations and is responsible for driving growth, increasing average deal size, and ensuring alignment with Workiva's business objectives. This role, directly and indirectly, impacts the achievement of overall revenue targets by partnering with internal cross-functional stakeholders to creatively address our customers’ challenges and empower our customers to rapidly grow through innovative solutions.

Deal Strategy and Negotiation

• Owns and develops the overall strategy for our complex nonstandard deals and customer-facing negotiations

• Handles exceptionally complex deals and escalations for strategic commercial discussions with Sales, Deal Desk, and the customer in the development of complex nonstandard deals by thoughtfully balancing the “art of the possible” with the desired business objective

• Coaches team members in building a competitive, value-based commercial deal structure that maximizes the value of the opportunity

• Guides internal teams and customers in utilizing standard deal structures when possible, but also able to navigate revenue recognition and legal concerns when crafting nonstandard deals; works with Deal Desk to loop in Accounting and Legal when needed

• Advises Sales and Deal Desk on the competitive situation and creates an actionable strategy to meet the outcomes desired by our customers and our business

Contract Management, Commercial Term Drafting, and Redlines

• Collaborates with Sales, Deal Desk and Commercial Strategy teams in driving business-critical contract negotiations, redline activities, and internal and external objection handling

• Advises Deal Desk and Sales on commercial terms, redlines, and contract language

• Liaises between Deal Desk, Sales, Accounting, and Legal by providing guidance on commonly requested edits, non-standard terms, policies, and frequently asked questions

• Partners with Deal Desk, Accounting, and Legal to develop order documents, Master Agreements, and related best practices

• Manages the ownership and improvement of the commercial terms library, which houses all commercial terms, levers, approval requirements, and internal and external objection handling

Internal and External Alignment and Expectation Management

• Manages escalations by partnering with Sales leadership, and Deal Desk to obtain buy-in including briefing senior management and managing internal and customer stakeholder expectations

• Inspires and influences internal stakeholders, approvers, and senior management to remove obstacles in order to achieve desired business outcomes with short turnaround times

• Facilitates alignment through effective communication within internal and external stakeholders and promptly resolves any conflict to encourage productive and positive interactions

• Manages the hand-off process between Value Management, Deal Desk, and Commercial

• Contracts to ensure a smooth transition of activities between all teams

• Collaborates with Deal Desk and Value Management to lead business-critical contract negotiations and objection handling for strategic nonstandard deals

• Advises Deal Desk on commercial terms strategy, policies, and frequently asked questions

• Develops and maintains the commercial term playbook including best practices and customer-specific guidelines for unique commercial terms

Leadership and Mentorship

• Trains, mentors, and coaches internal teams on best practices in negotiations, commercial strategy, commercial terms, pricing analysis, and internal and external objection handling

• Supports team by ensuring alignment across Deal Desk, Legal, Accounting, and other stakeholders for complex pricing adjustments and nonstandard commercial terms

• Inspires and influences internal stakeholders and approvers to remove obstacles in order to achieve desired business outcomes with short turnaround times

• Facilitates alignment through effective communication within internal and external stakeholders and promptly resolves any conflict to encourage productive and positive interactions

• Recruits, coaches, manages, evaluates, and develops a team of direct reports that lead customer-facing deal negotiations and commercial strategy

Forecast Management

• Partners with Sales/Sales Ops leadership, Value Management, Deal Desk, and Legal to prioritize key deals and ensure deal closure

Education

Undergraduate Degree or equivalent combination of education and experience in a related field.

Skills

• Strong listening, written, and verbal communication skills with ability to synthesize and effectively articulate concepts to internal and external cross-functional stakeholders at all levels

• Ability to remain courteous and professional even during high-stress end-of-quarter deal negotiations

• Strong organizational and time management skills with ability to work autonomously, set priorities, meet deadlines, and manage multiple projects in a fast-paced, changing environment while exercising sound business judgment and with minimal supervision

• Can quickly identify gaps, problem solve, and then find creative and sustainable solutions

• Solid customer-facing analytical and negotiation skills

• Dedicated to excellent customer service while managing multiple priorities with short turnaround times

• Ability to be open and honest in communications with all stakeholders – customers and internal stakeholders including but not limited to Sales, Value Management, Deal Desk, Legal, Accounting, and executive management

Experience

• 8+ years customer-facing deal strategy, pricing strategy, and/or value-oriented negotiation roles including customer-facing interactions and people management, contract management drafting commercial terms, reviewing redlines and redlining customer paper.

• Minimum 3 years of direct people management experience highly preferred

• Experience in architecting deals within a value-based sales process and building a commercial model to support the business case

• Advanced skills in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Google Docs, and/or Google Sheets

• Experience supporting remote and local Enterprise SaaS sales teams

• Experience with both direct B2B sales models and tiered channel partnership models

• Experience working with remote cross-functional teams such as Legal, Finance, Product

• Working knowledge of ASC 606 Revenue Accounting guidelines

• Salesforce CRM, Salesforce CPQ, and CLM experience preferred

Travel Requirement

• Less than 10% travel

Working Conditions & Physical Requirements

• Reliable Internet access for any period of time working remotely, not in a Workiva office.

• #LI-REMOTE

Where You’ll Work

Our values drive how we work and who we hire. You will see these values ingrained in how we support our customers, work with team members, build our products and in the work environment we’ve created.

• Customer Success: Always delight our customers.

• Trust: Rely on each other. 

• Integrity: Do the right thing, every time. 

• Collaboration: Share resources and work together. 

• Innovation: Keep creating solutions and finding better ways. 

• Inclusion: Support a diverse community where we all belong. 

• Accountability: Be responsible for your success and failure.

We believe our people are our greatest asset, and our unique culture gives employees the opportunity to make an impact everyday. We give our employees the freedom and resources they need—backed by our culture of collaboration and diverse thought—to continue innovating and breaking new ground. We hire talented people with a wide range of skills and experiences who are eager to tackle some of today’s most challenging problems.

At Workiva, you’ll enjoy: 

• Fantastic Benefits: With coverage starting day one, choose from competitive health, dental, and vision plans on the largest physician networks available.

• Casual Dress: Workiva has a casual work environment, most people wear jeans to the office.

• Involvement: Ability to participate in Business Employee Resource Groups (Black, Hispanic, Asian, Women, Rainbow (LGBTQIA+), Veterans, Disabilities), Volunteering, Company wide celebrations, and more

• Work-life Balance: We have competitive PTO, VTO and Parental Leave. We encourage employees to spend time enjoying life outside of work.

  
  

Learn more about life at Workiva: https://www.linkedin.com/company/workiva/

Learn more about benefits: https://www.workiva.com/careers/benefits

Workiva is an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer. We believe that great minds think differently. We value diversity of backgrounds, beliefs, and interests, and we recognize diversity as an important source of intellectual thought, varied perspective, and innovation. Employment decisions are made without regard to age, race, creed, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, disability status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression genetic information, marital status, citizenship status or any other protected characteristic. We strongly encourage and welcome people from historically marginalized groups to apply.

Workiva is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. To request assistance with the application process, please email [email protected].

Workiva supports employees in working where they work best - either from an office or remotely from any location within their country of employment.