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If you don’t think you meet all of the criteria below but are still interested in the job, please apply. Nobody checks every box – we’re looking for candidates that are particularly strong in a few areas, and have some interest and capabilities in others.
About the Role:
Kong is hiring a Senior Director, GTM People Business Partner to be the senior people leader for our global go-to-market organization. Reporting to our Chief People Officer, you will sit on the Chief Revenue Officer’s leadership team and partner with the leaders of Direct Sales, Sales Engineering, Sales and Business Development, Channels, Revenue Operations and Enablement across the Americas, EMEA and APJ.
This is a builder’s role at a pivotal moment. Kong’s Series E is funding global go-to-market expansion, our field teams are growing across more than a dozen countries, and our sales motion is moving from API management to AI connectivity. You will shape how the revenue organization is designed, led, paid and grown, and lead the People Business Partners who support it.
What You’ll Do:
Partner with the CRO and GTM leadership. Be the people voice on the CRO’s staff: org, talent, leadership and culture counsel, and the translation of each year’s revenue plan into a people plan.
Design the GTM organization for its next stage. Lead coverage-model changes, spans and layers, regional structures, and role architecture and leveling for sales, solutions engineering, SDR/BDR, partner and enablement roles, including new AI-connectivity selling roles.
Run headcount and capacity planning. With Finance, Revenue Operations and Talent Acquisition, build the ramp-adjusted capacity model, sequence hiring by territory and start date, and run a monthly GTM hiring review.
Govern sales compensation. With Global GTM Compensation and Total Rewards, shape plan philosophy, OTE and pay-mix benchmarks, quota-setting fairness, rollout, exceptions and disputes.
Build the GTM performance system. Run quarterly talent and attainment reviews, calibration, promotion criteria and fair, fast performance management across US, EMEA and APJ employment law.
Build the sales leadership bench. Assess first- and second-line leaders, own succession plans for the CRO’s leadership team, coach senior leaders, and launch a front-line sales manager program with Sales Enablement.
Shorten ramp and keep top performers. Define 30/60/90 plans with Enablement and Talent Acquisition, track time to quota, find the causes of early attrition and run targeted retention plans.
Protect culture, inclusion and engagement in the field. Own the GTM engagement read and the actions that follow, manager effectiveness, belonging and the norms of a distributed team.
Own employee relations and people risk for GTM. Lead investigations, restructures and international employment compliance across more than a dozen countries, with Legal and regional People leads.
Bring the data. Build the GTM people dashboard (attrition, ramp, attainment distribution, span of control, hiring velocity, representation) and present it at every QBR.
Lead the people side of change. Territory realignments, comp-plan changes, reorganizations, acquisition integrations and the field’s shift to AI connectivity.
Lead the GTM People Business Partner team and help shape Kong’s People operating model, including how AI and automation change HR work.
What You’ll Bring:
• 12+ years in People, including 5+ years as the lead business partner to a CRO, Chief Sales Officer or SVP of Sales at a B2B software company that at least doubled revenue during your
tenure.
• A background in infrastructure, developer-platform, API, cloud or open-source software. You know how technical sellers, solutions engineers and channel teams work, and how an open-source funnel feeds enterprise sales.
• Experience designing sales organizations with Finance and Revenue Operations: coverage models, spans and layers, role architecture, leveling and ramp-adjusted capacity plans.
• Fluency in sales compensation: OTE and pay-mix benchmarking, quota setting, accelerators and SPIFs, plan rollout, exceptions and disputes, and plans for usage-based products.
• A track record running performance management and talent reviews for quota-carrying teams in the US and in EMEA or APJ, including exits and restructures under different employment laws.
• Experience assessing and developing sales leaders, building succession plans for a revenue leadership team and coaching VP-level executives.
• Data fluency: you build and defend a people dashboard and bring analysis, not anecdotes, to a CRO staff meeting.
• Executive presence and judgment that a CRO and a CPO both trust, with speed and discretion on sensitive issues.
• Based in Southern California, or able to spend regular time in person with GTM leadership, with travel to San Francisco and the field.
How You’ll Work:
You are in the room before the decision, not after it. You say what the data says,
including to the CRO, and you leave managers more capable than you found them.
Nice to Have:
• You have been through a platform-to-AI shift in a company’s sales motion.
• You have integrated an acquired team into a sales organization.
• You have worked in a People function that uses AI and automation in recruiting and operations.
• You have partnered Customer Success and Business Development as well as direct sales.
• You have built or led a team of People Business Partners.
About Kong:
Kong Inc., the AI Connectivity Company, is building the connectivity layer of AI. Trusted by the Fortune 500® and AI-native startups alike, Kong’s unified API and AI platform enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI traffic — on any model, any cloud. For more information, visit www.konghq.com.
