Head of Sales Development

About the role

The Head of Sales Development will build, lead, and continuously evolve Exa's SDR organization to support rapid growth. You'll own pipeline generation strategy across inbound and outbound motions, develop high-impact teams and leaders, and ensure operational excellence across the SDR function. This role partners deeply with Sales, Marketing, and RevOps to align on pipeline quality, coverage, and execution, scaling a best-in-class sales development engine.

Responsibilities

• Own pipeline generation strategy across inbound and outbound motions
• Develop high-impact teams and leaders
• Ensure operational excellence across the SDR function
• Partner deeply with Sales, Marketing, and RevOps to align on pipeline quality, coverage, and execution
• Build, scale, and lead a high-performing SDR organization
• Set the bar for talent, leadership expectations, and long-term succession planning
• Establish a data-driven growth engine
• Use performance analytics and continuous optimization to improve pipeline quality, conversion rates, and efficiency
• Create and sustain a culture of excellence, accountability, and operational rigor
• Align performance management, coaching frameworks, and standards across the team
• Design compensation, incentive, and recognition programs that drive consistent over-performance while aligning SDR behavior to revenue and pipeline priorities
• Develop future revenue leaders
• Implement career paths, readiness frameworks, and promotion criteria
• SDR performance reporting and forecasting
• Define KPIs, SLAs, and dashboards that give executive leadership clear visibility and inform strategic decisions
• Cross-functional partnership with Marketing, RevOps, and Sales Leadership to align demand generation, territory strategy, tooling, and process improvements

Qualifications

• 7+ years of sales / SDR leadership experience in a high-growth technology company
• Located in the San Francisco Bay Area and willing to commute to the office a minimum of 2x per week
• Deep understanding of modern SDR processes and tools such as Outreach, Gong, LinkedIn Sales Nav, 6sense, and Zoominfo
• Experience executing an outbound multichannel strategy
• Consistent track record of exceeding quota while both leading a team and as an individual contributor
• Strong analytical experience with managing pipeline goals and forecasting