Team Manager, Sales Incentives (Global)

Location: United States

About the role

The Team Manager, Sales Incentives (Global) is responsible for leading the day-to-day operations of Pearson's global Sales Incentives function, ensuring the successful execution of incentive programs across all business units and sales organizations. This role serves as the operational leader for the Incentives organization, partnering closely with Sales Leadership, Finance, HR, Payroll, Business Units, RevOps, and Technology teams to deliver accurate, timely, and compliant incentive plans and payouts.

The Senior Manager will oversee the complete operational lifecycle of sales compensation, including implementation, governance, payout processing, exception management, and continuous process improvement. The role also provides direct leadership to the Incentives team, driving operational excellence, developing talent, establishing scalable processes, and ensuring consistent execution across the enterprise. Working in partnership with the Head of Enablement and Incentives, this role enables executive leadership to focus on long-term strategy, sales enablement transformation, governance, and enterprise commercial initiatives while ensuring flawless operational delivery.

Responsibilities

• Incentive Operations Leadership
  • Lead the day-to-day execution of Pearson's global Sales Incentive programs.
  • Manage the operational delivery of all Sales Incentive Plans across Pearson.
  • Oversee monthly and quarterly incentive calculation and payout processes.
  • Ensure payroll readiness and on-time, accurate incentive payments.
  • Manage operational calendars, milestones, and service level commitments.
  • Monitor execution risks and proactively resolve issues.
  • Drive operational consistency across all Business Units.
• Business Unit Partnership
  • Serve as the primary operational partner for Business Units.
  • Lead implementation planning and execution.
  • Coordinate plan rollouts and communications.
  • Manage operational timelines and deliverables.
  • Partner with Sales Leadership on incentive execution.
  • Provide consultation on operational questions and issue resolution.
  • Ensure alignment between business priorities and incentive administration.
• Sales Incentive Governance
  • Support enterprise governance by maintaining Sales Incentive policies and operational standards.
  • Lead approval workflows for incentive plans and exceptions.
  • Ensure compliance with governance requirements.
  • Support audit readiness and documentation.
  • Maintain operational controls and risk management practices.
• Sales Performance Management (SPM)
  • Oversee operational management of the Sales Performance Management platform.
  • Coordinate incentive plan implementation.
  • Support system testing and validation.
  • Manage production releases.
  • Partner with Technology and vendors.
  • Ensure data quality and system accuracy.
  • Drive automation opportunities.
• Payout Processing
  • Oversee end-to-end incentive payment operations.
  • Review calculation outputs.
  • Validate payout accuracy.
  • Coordinate payroll submissions.
  • Resolve payment issues.
  • Manage payout approvals.
  • Support finance reconciliation.
• People Leadership
  • Lead and develop a high-performing Incentives team through direct people management.
  • Provide coaching and mentoring.
  • Manage performance and career development.
  • Handle hiring, onboarding, and capacity planning.
  • Plan for succession and drive employee engagement.
  • Create an environment focused on accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and operational excellence.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Human Resources, Operations, or related field.
• 8+ years of experience in Sales Compensation, Sales Incentives, Commercial Operations, RevOps, or Sales Operations.
• 3+ years leading high-performing teams.
• Experience administering complex global sales incentive programs.
• Strong understanding of sales compensation principles and incentive plan design.
• Experience working with Sales Performance Management (SPM) platforms (such as Varicent, Xactly, Spiff, CaptivateIQ, or similar).
• Strong analytical and financial acumen.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional initiatives.
• Excellent executive communication and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting multinational sales organizations.
• Experience leading compensation governance.
• Knowledge of payroll operations.
• Experience supporting audit and compliance activities.
• Advanced Excel and data analytics skills.
• Experience leading enterprise transformation initiatives.

Pay

The minimum full-time salary range is between $150,000 - $170,000. This position is eligible to participate in an annual incentive program.

Benefits

Information on benefits offered is available here.

Schedule

Full-time