Director of Distribution Sales, Japac

Company Description
**Our Mission**

At Palo Alto Networks® everything starts and ends with our mission:
Being the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life.

Our vision is a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before. We are a company built on the foundation of challenging and disrupting the way things are done, and we’re looking for innovators who are as committed to shaping the future of cybersecurity as we are.

FLEXWORK is an employee-centric reimagining of how we work. We built FLEXWORK based on employee feedback - it is about flexibility, trust, and choice whenever possible. It’s been a journey of disruption that has yielded the best of our values. We offer as much flexibility as possible, and choices that enable you to be most productive, including benefits that meet your needs and learning opportunities that you feel passionate about.

**Job Description**:
Your Career

The Director of Distribution Sales is primarily responsible for driving demand generation and pipeline development sales and marketing campaigns with Palo Alto Networks JAPAC Distributors. The Director of Distribution Sales is a leadership role, principally driving the vision, strategies, and best practices to optimize distribution performance in the areas of sales, marketing, and partner enablement, and in alignment with theater sales priorities. The role is responsible for aligning the sales, marketing, and enablement efforts between JAPAC distributors and Palo Alto Networks country channel team.

Role Objectives:

- Strategic vision and roadmap to evolve distribution sales model to meet evolving company needs
- Design whitespace and install base sales campaign with distributors, aligned at field-level
- Distribution Sales, Program, Marketing, and Partner Enablement Performance Management
- Internal alignment with and advocacy to Sales/SE, Renewals, and Marketing organizations

Your Impact

The role will primarily focus on accelerating Commercial and SMB “unaided channel sales capabilities” and “run-rate business volume” via distribution managed partners and high-velocity transactional partners. The role will work with stakeholders to set strategies and execute measurable, impactful pipeline development and sales campaigns for specific market opportunities, industry sectors, and sales segments.
- Set annual and quarterly goals and KPIs for distribution business plans and sales campaigns
- Build sales plans to drive accelerated growth and channel productivity in the Commercial accounts
- Align with marketing and field sales to the channel organization and partner ecosystem and will engage regularly to build distribution marketing and demand generation plans with the Distribution and Channel Programs Manager
- Act as a liaison to Marketing and Product Management on product portfolio needs, competitive intelligence / attack programs, and promotional/incentive strategies required in order for Palo Alto Networks to be successful in the Commercial market segment
- Work with the Distribution Systems Engineer Manager to build plans, frameworks, and measurables to advance the distributors’ efforts related to technical partner enablement
- Manage the sales performance of key distributors through quarterly and annual sales planning, forecasting and reporting for whitespace (new customer), install base expansion, product refresh, and renewal sales.
- Work in close collaboration with the Channel Renewals Manager in order to establish a performance management cadence with the distributors and Distribution Managers on Renewals business and to continually improve processes related to our two-tier Renewals business
- Work closely with Renewals team and distributors in order to improve renewals process efficiency and to improve key Renewal business KPIs.
- Develop a plan for effective hand-off and follow-up of Marketing generated Pre-Qualified Leads for accounts in the Commercial space. Build rules and process to have the channel take responsibility for these PQLs and maximize their return through closed business
- Develop or provide input on sales training plans for the distribution team, for the distributors, and for the channel partners
- Responsible for accelerating a channel sales strategy through the distributors, and primarily through their distribution managed partners, to address the commercial market business across the theater.
- Align with cross-functional teams (i.e. Field Marketing) to achieve performant channel marketing and demand generation activities through Distribution. Set Distribution Marketing annual and quarterly priorities.
- Ensure local Distribution Business Managers are working with local distributors to build an annual business plan within 30 days of close of each fiscal year-end
- Ensure local Distribution Business Managers are scheduling, preparing, and leading recurring Business Review meetings (QBRs) three times per year with cross-functional audience Sa