Adoption & Activation Manager, AI For Sales

Meet the Team
Join a high-impact team at the center of Cisco's mission to revolutionize how organizations connect and protect in the AI era. We are building a modern sales team of AI-enabled sellers who show up more prepared, compete differently, and unlock innovation for customers and partners. With AI, the seller experience, and customer value at our core, we are redefining how we activate and drive adoption so our strategy becomes reality.

About the role

As the Adoption & Activation Manager, AI for Sales, you own the health and momentum of the AI for Sales CoE (Center of Excellence) and the program that enables our AI CoE for Sales Engagement Leads to drive adoption with leaders and sellers. You establish a reliable operating cadence for the AI for Sales CoE and turn inputs from across our broad AI capabilities, tools, and initiatives into the clear, consistent story, proof points, and materials the Engagement Leads use to move sellers and sales leaders from a conversation about tools and features to one about outcomes and workflows. This role spans the full AI for Sales capabilities rather than any single tool. You are the connective tissue and single point of accountability across initiatives — owning the AI for Sales CoE’s operating rhythm and system of record, and equipping the Engagement Leads with the narrative and proof points they take to senior leaders. You are an AI-forward professional with genuine conviction about the technology — credible enough to be a trusted thought partner to the Engagement Leads and, when needed, to build confidence directly with senior stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Enabling Executive & Frontline-Manager Engagement
  • Develop and implement tailored adoption plans for the AI CoE sales initiatives, programs and sales leadership personas.
  • Design and execute detailed adoption plans, including multi-channel communications, training, and support strategies, that are tailored to effectively inform, engage, enable, and motivate the global sales organization throughout key AI transformations.
  • Prioritize frontline-manager activation as a high-leverage audience, building the messaging and touchpoints the Engagement Leads use to turn managers into visible AI role models for their teams.
  • Own the format, content, and follow-through for recurring senior-leadership briefings, equipping the Engagement Leads to run them and land the specific actions that drive adoption and behavior change.
  • Design and sequence a program of executive micro-learnings for the Engagement Leads to deliver, so each leadership touchpoint builds on the last.
  • Partner with the communications and Activation & Adoption teams to equip Engagement Leads to embed AI for Sales into existing leadership routines — leadership forums, team meetings, all-hands — anchored on clear messages and proof points, so it becomes part of how leaders run their business.
  • Help elevate the conversation to leadership outcomes — such as forecast accuracy and the quality of customer conversations — connecting each to the AI capabilities that support them.
• AI for Sales CoE Program Health & Accountability
  • Own AI for Sales CoE program-level health: the operating cadence, participation, and system of record, ensuring nothing falls between forums and every action has a named owner and a due date.
  • Provide one coherent, current view of program performance for executive audiences, drawn from across the AI portfolio.
  • Work with cross-functional partners to build a clear narrative and adoption plans that leaders and sellers can act on.
• Adoption Insight & Measurement
  • Partner with the AI for Sales CoE engagement leads and other AI for Sales teams to make workflows the unit of adoption, measuring whether sellers work differently and the business impact that follows.
  • Translate complex adoption data into measurable actions for leaders to drive action.
  • Track honest progress along an AI-maturity path, showing leaders where they stand and what it takes to advance, while ensuring measurement stays a valid signal.
• Cross-Functional Orchestration
  • Connect platform, communications, product, sales strategy, operations, and regional stakeholders, translating priorities into practical operating plans and field-ready, executive-ready content.
  • Influence without authority across a complex, global, matrixed organization, and use AI-enabled tools to improve program operations, reporting, and follow-through.

Requirements

• BA/BS or equivalent experience in Business, Communications, Marketing, Organizational Development, Sales Operations, or a related field.
• 9+ years in executive communications, go-to-market/sales strategy, program management, enablement, change management, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience owning a recurring, executive-facing program — running leadership cadences, managing a system of record, and driving accountability to named owners and deadlines.
• Proven ability to translate complex, multi-source inputs into clear, compelling executive narratives, and to influence senior stakeholders without direct authority.
• Hands-on fluency with generative AI tools in daily work, with genuine conviction about their value and the ability to build confidence with senior audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting sales, go-to-market, customer success, or other revenue-facing organizations, ideally within the Americas.
• Experience with AI-powered tools, sales technology, or seller-productivity initiatives.
• Chief-of-staff, executive-communications, or senior-leadership-facing program experience.
• Ability to turn adoption data and field sentiment into actionable insight, with executive presence across regions and functions.
• Proven experience / certification with change management methodologies (Prosci ADKAR, CCMP, or equivalent).

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• 401(k) plan with Cisco matching contribution.
• Paid parental leave, short- and long-term disability coverage, and basic life insurance.
• Grants of Cisco restricted stock units, which vest following continued employment with Cisco for defined periods of time.
• Paid time away:
  • 10 paid holidays per full calendar year, plus 1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees.
  • 1 paid day off for employee’s birthday, paid year-end holiday shutdown, and 4 paid days off for personal wellness.
  • Non-exempt employees receive 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at a rate of 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees.
  • Exempt employees participate in Cisco’s flexible vacation time off program, which has no defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use (subject to availability and some business limitations).
  • 80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter, with up to 80 hours of unused sick time carried forward from one calendar year to the next.
  • Additional paid time away may be requested to deal with critical or emergency issues for family members.
  • Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer.
• Annual bonuses for non-sales roles, subject to Cisco’s policies.
• For sales roles, performance-based incentive pay on top of base salary, split between quota and non-quota components.

Pay

The starting salary range for this position is $127,600.00 to $161,700.00 for new hires in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including incentive compensation, equity, or benefits. Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location, market conditions, job-related skillset, experience, qualifications, education, certifications, and/or training.

Full salary ranges for specific locations:

• New York City Metro Area: $148,500.00 - $234,600.00
• Non-Metro New York State & Washington State: $135,400.00 - $215,200.00

For quota-based sales roles on Cisco’s sales plan, the ranges provided include base pay and sales target incentive compensation combined.