VP of Worldwide HPC Sales

VP of Worldwide HPC Sales

The Company

Based in Dallas, our client has brought an elegant, cost- effective, and breakthrough solution to high performance computing.  It breaks power, performance, and programmability barriers with the world’s first hybrid-core computer - a system that marries the low cost and simple programming model of a commodity system with the performance of a customized hardware architecture. Started in late 2006 and already generating significant revenue, the company's groundbreaking hybrid-core computing architecture tightly integrates advanced computer architecture and compiler technology with commercial, off-the-shelf hardware - namely an Intel Xeon processor and Xilinx field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The systems help customers dramatically increase performance over industry standard servers while reducing energy costs associated with high-performance computing. Additionally, our client's systems are easy for programmers to use because they provide full support of an ANSI standard C, C++, and FORTRAN development environment.

Our client's architecture is the ideal complement to data-intensive computing because our client's hybrid-core systems combine powerful, reconfigurable processing elements with a supercomputer-inspired memory subsystem. Data-intensive applications, which depend upon random access patterns to large memory spaces, experience severe memory performance limitations on cache-based servers. Our client's highly parallel memory subsystem allows application-specific logic to have over 8,000 simultaneous memory transactions in flight, significantly increasing effective memory bandwidth over cache-based memory systems. Our client’s solution allows data-intensive problems to be solved with an efficient, innovative architecture that sells for considerably less than multi-million dollar, multi-node computer systems.

Our client brings decades of experience and impressive success to high performance computing. The majority of its executive team led the founding, growth, and subsequent acquisition of another company by Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 1995.  The team was retained by HP and led its further growth under the HP umbrella for 11 years.  This most recent effort is funded by well respected VC firms as well as Intel Capital and Xilinx.

The Position

Reporting to the CEO, the Vice President of Worldwide Sales will be responsible for the direction and management of all direct and indirect global sales activities for all market segments. Additional responsibilities include:

• Participate as a key executive team member to provide thought leadership and innovation in shaping and accelerating growth and profitability.
• Demonstrate a passion and commitment for customer success by developing a customer-centric, value-added, solutions-based sales process and sales team focused on the prosperity and success of customers. 
• Develop actionable ways the company can help customers succeed in meeting their business priorities and goals.
• Develop an analytical sales process based on a thorough, data-driven understanding of targeted accounts and the value chains in which they operate.  At each level in the value chain, understand the business priorities and strategies, key performance metrics, how money is made today and how it will be made in the future, the basis of competition/differentiation, and within this context, how the company can deliver measurable, actionable value today and in the future. 
• Build and manage a high performance, open and collaborative sales team capable of working seamlessly with internal teams to present a unified, highly customer-focused face in all engagements.
• Design and manage sales team incentive programs predicated on simultaneously achieving corporate performance targets and motivating exceptional personal performance.
• Meet/exceed ambitious revenue and profit targets.
• Develop rigorous, data-driven sales and sales process performance analytics and reporting.
• Design and execute effective account management plans.
• Participate in relevant and substantial industry forums that will support and expand the company's initiatives.
• Oversees business development to define, develop, and manage partner and distribution channels that are energized by the opportunity to sell a disruptive product even if additional time and resources are required to gain acceptance of the product.

The Person

We are seeking a high-impact, team-oriented, senior sales professional offering exceptional skills in strategic customer evaluation, account management, and revenue generation with the following attributes:

• A minimum of 10 years of demonstrated sales management success in the computer or related industries, ideally high performance systems into data intensive markets. A background that includes some combination of high performance computing, bioinformatics, government, and data analytics experience is preferred. 
• Proven ability to lead a technical, consultative sales process across multiple functional groups within targeted accounts.
• Start-up success with the intuition and skills required to grasp, organize, and develop strategies to accelerate market adoption of new technologies and products.
• Proven ability to overcome “start-up” adoption barriers when selling into larger, corporate accounts.
• Servant-leader and hands-on contributor who has built and managed entrepreneurial, high-growth global direct sales organizations.
• Possess a passion for developing/meeting quality sales forecasts.
• Demonstrated ability to design, build and manage distribution channels for products with value and use characteristics similar to our client’s.
• Must possess excellent people and leadership skills enabling him/her to motivate company personnel and interact with customers at all levels. Ability to build and manage lasting external relationships critical to business expansion.
• Must actively practice a “team-first” mentality based on trust, open and passionate debate, commitment to collaborative team decisions, personal and peer accountability, and results-driven performance.  Company and team success, not individual credit, will motivate this person.
• Extraordinary communication and listening skills across a diverse range of business and technical settings/audiences [including C-level audiences] is required, with particular emphasis on well-developed writing and speaking talents. 
• Unquestioned honesty and integrity.
• Capable of significant travel.
• A Bachelor of Science degree is required.  A graduate degree (MBA) is preferred.