Head of Sales

A leading scientific organization is seeking an accomplished publishing professional to provide strategic and operational leadership for its global sales function. This role calls for a commercially focused individual with substantial knowledge of scholarly publishing, strong leadership capabilities, and a history of building institutional business and delivering revenue growth. The successful candidate will be responsible for translating market opportunities into effective sales programs, strengthening relationships with customers and partners, and ensuring that the publishing division meets its financial and strategic objectives.

The Head of Sales will provide direction to the organization’s sales team and international subscription-agent network, overseeing efforts to market a diverse portfolio of journals, online archives, conference content, and emerging publishing products. The position will lead the development and achievement of institutional revenue goals, oversee customer and agent agreements and negotiations, identify new routes to market, and work collaboratively across the publishing organization to expand business in established and emerging markets.

Working as part of the publishing leadership team, the Head of Sales will help determine commercial priorities, identify opportunities for expansion, and contribute to the continued evolution of the organization’s publishing activities.

• Establish and manage the overall institutional sales plan, translating organizational revenue objectives into actionable goals for individual team members, territories, countries, and regions; monitor progress against targets and adjust priorities as needed
• Expand the organization’s customer base internationally by pursuing institutional opportunities, including open-access publishing arrangements, while exploring markets beyond the organization’s traditional technical communities and identifying high-growth opportunities in countries such as India
• Provide leadership for a small, geographically focused sales team, including regular performance reviews, coaching, professional development, territory planning, quota setting, and identification of gaps or opportunities within assigned markets
• Build productive relationships with libraries, institutions, subscription agents, consortia, and other strategic customers; ensure that the sales organization provides timely proposals, quotations, follow-up, and resolution of customer issues
• Take responsibility for negotiations involving major institutional accounts, consortia, and multi-site customers, working closely with the Chief Publishing Officer and other internal stakeholders to reach appropriate business and licensing terms
• Assess changing conditions across scholarly communications, including customer expectations, competitive offerings, pricing developments, and new business models; use this intelligence to recommend adjustments to the publishing division’s sales and market strategy
• Develop annual sales forecasts, revenue plans, and supporting budgets; establish the programs and priorities required to deliver expected results and identify corrective actions where performance is below plan
• Evaluate the performance and commercial potential of existing products and packages; recommend pricing changes, new bundles, and other product strategies, using market and financial analysis to support recommendations and working with marketing and analytics colleagues on renewals
• Oversee the full lifecycle of institutional licensing arrangements, including new agreements, renewals, annual contracts, and multi-year consortium deals; coordinate with legal counsel and the Chief Publishing Officer to ensure agreements are appropriately structured and…