In the world of B2B sales, driving growth requires more than just a solid product—it's about having the right leadership at the helm.
As companies scale, the role of the VP of Sales becomes crucial in navigating complex markets, building high-performing teams, and consistently hitting revenue targets.
To share some insights and inspiration, we've analyzed the profiles of VPs of Sales from twenty high-growth B2B companies.
These leaders are not just driving success; they're redefining what it means to lead in today's competitive landscape.
Whether you're new to sales, or sales legends looking for inspiration we hope these profiles offer a wealth of knowledge and inspiration to help you elevate your own strategy.
A few insights:
71% that have gone to business school
76% that have started their career in sales
51% that have worked at another unicorn company before
100% that have been previously in a leadership sales role
55% have a tenure in the company > 2 years 55%, 4% only have a tenure in the company > 5 years 4%, 28% with tenure in the company less than 2 years
90% with education in the USA
Only 2 womens
Main points
🎯 VP of Sales leadership drives growth by setting strategy, building teams, and owning revenue outcomes.
📊 Data: 71% biz school; 76% started in sales; 51% at unicorns; 100% had leadership roles.
🧭 Role: sets targets, manages pipeline and forecasting, and aligns with marketing and customer success.
🛠️ Considerfolk CRM to unify pipeline, forecasting, and collaboration for 20–50 person sales teams.
👥 Profiles: 21 leaders show varied paths; 55% tenure >2y; only 2 women — highlighting a diversity gap.
👉🏼 Try folk now to unify pipeline and forecasting for 20–50 person sales teams.
What does a VP of sales role look like?
A Vice President (VP) of Sales in a B2B setting is a senior executive responsible for leading the sales strategy and execution for the company. They typically report to the CEO or CRO.
This role typically involves setting revenue targets, developing sales plans, and managing a sales team to achieve those goals. The VP also oversees the entire sales process, from lead generation to closing deals, and works closely with other departments like marketing and customer success to ensure alignment. For teams of 20-50 people, this coordination becomes especially critical—having the right CRM platform like folk CRM can make the difference between scattered efforts and a unified revenue engine that scales efficiently.
VPs play a key role in building and maintaining relationships with key clients, analyzing market trends, and adjusting strategies to stay competitive. Ultimately, their focus is on driving revenue growth and ensuring the company's sales objectives are met.
Title variations of a VP of Sales
Depending on the company structure, you may have a Vice President of Sales, or a:
Sales Director/Director of Sales
Vice President of Business Development
Head of Sales
A closer look at VP sales from 21 high growth B2B companies
We'll be exploring their education, past experiences and tenure at the company in more detail.
1. Michael Manne, VP Sales at Ramp
Michael leads the sales team at Ramp, a finance program providing corporate cards and spend management services. He's responsible for building and leading the sales team, driving revenue growth and expanding their customer base across multiple industries and segments.
He has over fifteen years of experience as a go-to-market leader and advisor, with a track record of scaling revenue and growth at cloud-based technology companies.
At a glance
Education: BSc, Finance and International Business from Georgetown University; MBA Business Administration and Management Stern School of Business, NYU.
Past experiences: Chief Revenue Officer at Ocrolus and Reonomy, Co-Founder FiDi Ventures, Board Member at Pearl, Founding Member Revenue Collective.
Mike is the Senior Sales Director at Deel, where he's responsible for leading North America's SMB sales. He's accountable for leading eight managers and 60+ Account Executives. Mike joined Deel as a Sales Manager in 2021, before being promoted to Sales Director of the SMB North America function later that year.
At a glance
Education: BSc, Business Administration and Accounting and Masters in Taxation, Business and Accounting both from California Polytechnic State University.
Past experiences: Sales Manager, SMB and mid-market at Flexport, Account Executive at Zenefits.
Pravesh Mistry is the Head of Global Sales at Notion, where he leads the global sales, sales development, customer success and professional services teams. Prior to joining Notion, he was the Chief Revenue Officer of Truework where he lead the GTM functions, and Head of Global Sales at Thousand Eyes, which is part of Cisco.
At a glance
Education: BCom Marketing, IT and Finance from the University of the WItwatersrand.
Past experiences: Chief Revenue Officer at Truework, Head of Global Sales at Thousand Eyes, VP Enterprise Sales at Rackspace.
Kyle Parrish is the VP of Sales at Figma, where he joined as Figma's first sales hire in his capacity as Head of Sales and helped build the company's zero-to-one sales engine from scratch. They now have more than 3 million monthly users. Before joining Figma, Kyle was at Dropbox where he joined as a Sales Manager for SMB and mid-market before becoming Head of Sales shortly after.
At a glance
Education: BSc Finance from the University of Arizona
Past experiences: Head of Sales at Spoke (acquired by Okta), Sales Manager then later Head of Sales at Dropbox, Account Executive at ADP Inc.
Kevin Ebert is the Head of Global Sales at Airtable, where he joined initially as the VP of Enterprise Sales. Kevin is responsible for leading global revenue teams including majors, strategic, large, commercial and SMB as well as overseeing RevOps and sales and demo engineering.
At a glance
Education: BSc, Business from UNH Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics.
Past experiences: Regional VP of Enterprise Sales and Director of Enterprise Sales at Datadog, VP, East Sales at Tenfold (LPSN company), VP, East Sales at Fuze.
6. Ronal Karia, VP of Sales – Central and Northern Europe, Slack
Ronal is the VP of Sales overseeing the Central and Northern Europe regions at Slack, where he leads the Go to Market team. He's accountable for accelerating growth throughout these regions while working with Salesforce, who recently acquired Slack. This involves partnering with business development, marketing, pre-sales, and services teams to provide cross functional support for their customers across the regions.
At a glance
Education: BSc, Computer Science from Kingston University.
Past experiences: Head of New Business (UK&I) and Regional Lead, Emerging Markets at Adobe, Director of Business Development at Salesforce, Head of Professional Services at Microsoft.
Adam is the Head of Global Sales at Miro where he oversees the global sales team of 300 plus people across 12 global offices. He also leads several business functions including sales, solutions engineering, and channel partnerships. He initially joined as the VP of Global Sales before his promotion to his current role.
At a glance
Education: MBA from the University of California School of Management.
Past experiences: Limited Partner at GTMfund, Advisor at Sendoso, VP of Sales at Classy.org (acquired by GoFundMe).
9. Mark Barry, VP of Sales and Managing Director, EMEA at HubSpot
Mark is the Vice President of Sales and the Managing Director of the EMEA region at HubSpot, where he's responsible for helping HubSpot customers in the region to grow. He also leads the GTM function in the region.
At a glance
Education: BSc, Business and IT from Trinity College Dublin.
Past experiences: Head of EMEA Startup and SMB, Stripe, Head of Media Buying Solutions for DoubleClick at Google.
10. Debbie McClure, Global Head of Sales at Dropbox
Debbie is the Global Head of Sales at Dropbox, where she initially joined as the VP of Sales in the Americas. Debbie is also a Member of the Board of Advisors at UC Santa Barbara and GTM Council Member at Greycoft.
At a glance
Education: BA, Liberal Studies from UC Santa Barbara.
Past experiences: VP of Sales, Americas at Dropbox, North America Sales Leader at Cisco,
11. Matt Bauman, Global Vice President of Sales at ClickUp
Matt is the Global VP of Sales at ClickUp where he leads the commercial and SMB business functions in AMER. He initially joined ClickUp as the Senior Director of Sales (head of equivalent) before being promoted to the VP of Sales. At ClickUp, he's been responsible for building all of ClickUp's commercial Revenue infrastructure from the ground up and fuelled every level of ClickUp's PLG engine to become a full-scale Revenue engine to get to $100M+ ARR.
At a glance
Education: BSc, Business Management and Finance from Brigham Young University and MBA from Stanford University.
Past experiences: Head of Global Digital Sales at Snowflake, Head of SMB Sales at Pinterest.
Yann just joined Lemlist as the Head of Sales in July. He's also the Co-Founder of Billspot. Prior to Lemlist, Yann was the Head of Sales focused on France at Tellent and a Sales Director at HubSpot where his main focus was on small businesses in France.
At a glance
Education: BSc, Cost control and Accounting from the Université de Franche-Comté, and MSc in Digital Marketing and Sales from MBS School of Business.
Past experiences: Co-Founder at Billspot, Head of Sales France at Tellent, Sales Director of Small Business in France at HubSpot where he joined as an International Business Developer.
Beau is the Head of Sales at Calendly, where oversees the sales, solutions engineering, revenue enablement and revenue operations teams. Beau initially joined Calendly as the Director of Enterprise Sales before his current role.
At a glance
Education: BBA in Entrepreneurial Studies from Millsaps College.
Past experiences: Director of Enterprise Sales at WP Engine where he joined initially as the Agency Sales Manager, Manager of Marketing Programs at Khoros.
14. Gordon Tobin, VP of Global Sales at TestGorilla
Gordon is the VP of Global Sales at Test Gorilla, where he leads the global sales function. Before joining Test Gorilla, he was the VP and General Manager of EMEA at G2 where he initially joined as the VP of Commercial Sales.
At a glance
Education: Post Graduate Higher Diploma in Business Studies and Masters in Business Management from University College Dublin.
Past experiences: Head of Sales, North America at Headspace Inc, Sales Leader - Sales Solutions business at LinkedIn where he joined as Global Head of Business Leadership Program.
Tom is the Senior Vice President of Sales at Chili Piper, where he leads a 50-person revenue function including SDRs, AEs, and AM) from $12M to $30M+ of ARR. Before joining Chili Piper, he was the VP of Sales at Caroo (Formerly Snack Nation). Managing a revenue team of this size requires exceptional operational discipline—leaders like Tom often rely on folk CRM to streamline their pipeline management, automate follow-ups, and maintain visibility across their entire sales organization without the complexity of enterprise-level platforms.
At a glance
Education: BSc in Public Relations from the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse.
Past experiences: VP of Sales at Caroo, Head of Sales at Groupon, where he joined initially as an Account Executive before getting several promotions leading him to that role.
Ryan is the Senior Vice President of Sales at Rippling where he oversees a customer-centric sales team to help them partner with businesses. Before joining Rippling, he was a Chief Revenue Officer at HouseCanary where he oversaw their GTM strategy and execution.
At a glance
Education: BA in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.
Past experiences: Chief Revenue Officer at HouseCanary, Head of North America Sales at LinkedIn, GM/Director of Cross Border eCommerce at eBay
Nick is the Vice President of Revenue at Mercury, where he leads sales, account management and partnerships. Before joining Mercury, Nick was the CEO and Founder of A07 Online Media, a passion project which he still runs today leading all aspects of strategy and hiring.
At a glance
Education: BA Manufacturing Management from University of Technology Sydney, and MBA in Finance from NYU Stern School of Business.
Past experiences: eCommerce Lead at Block, Head of Global Partnerships and Strategy at Weebly, COO at ZipList Inc.
Brett is the Sales Director at Brex where he drives strategic partnerships and innovative spend management solutions. Before joining Brex, he was the Director of Spend Management at Emburse where his team was recognized by the Presidents Club.
At a glance
Education: BA in Human Resources Management from the University of Toledo.
Past experiences: Vice President at Capital One, Business Sales Manager at Jibe Cloud Services.
Kristen is the VP of Sales at Gusto where she oversees the direct payroll sales and onboarding for clients. Kristen initially joined Gusto as the Sales Manager, before being promoted to Sales Director, Head of Small Business and Sales development, and her current capacity as VP. Prior to Gusto, she was the Regional Sales Director at Trumaker.
At a glance
Education: BA in Communication and Media Studies from Purdue University.
Past experiences: Divisional Sales Manager at Groupon where she initially joined as a Senior Account Executive.
20. Austin Brizgys, Global Head of Sales, Revenue and Finance Automation at Stripe
Austin is the Global Head of Sales, Revenue and Finance Automation at Stripe, where he is responsible for spearheading GTM initiatives and driving sales and growth for Stripe's Revenue & Finance Automation suite, which includes Stripe Billing, Invoicing, Revenue Recognition, Tax, Sigma (reporting) and Data Pipeline.
At a glance
Education: BA in Communications from Santa Clara University.
Past experiences: Head of Sales of Stripe Tax at Stripe, VP of Sales and Marketing at Booster Fuels, VP of Sales and Customer Success at Concord Worldwide Inc.
21. Nate Robbins, Global Head of Sales Development at Retool
Nate is the Global Head of Sales Development at Retool. Nate has a strong SaaS background. Before joining Retool, Nate was the Director of Sales Development at Gong and Director of Business Development at ClickUp.
At a glance
Education: Nate is self taught and holds a Real Estate License from the State of Utah.
Past experiences: Director of Sales Development at Gong, Director/Head of Business Development at ClickUp, where he initially joined as a Senior Manager for Enterprise, Global Director of Business Development at HireVue.
From these impressive profiles, it's clear that success in sales leadership isn't just about numbers—it's about vision, execution, and the ability to inspire others to achieve great things. In exploring the profiles of VPs of Sales from 21 high-growth B2B companies, we've seen how effective leadership can shape a company's trajectory.
These leaders share a common thread of resilience, strategic thinking, and a relentless focus on results. Their diverse approaches to overcoming challenges, building strong teams, and driving revenue growth offer valuable lessons for anyone in the sales profession. For sales teams of 20-50 people looking to scale effectively, having the right technology foundation becomes essential—folk CRM provides the perfect balance of customization and simplicity that growing sales organizations need to maintain momentum while building systematic processes. Whether you're looking to refine your own leadership style or gain new perspectives on sales strategy, these profiles provide a wealth of inspiration. As you move forward in your own career, consider how the insights from these top-performing VPs of Sales can be applied to your unique challenges and opportunities.
👉🏼 Try folk now to build customizable pipelines and forecast confidently as you scale.
FAQ
What does a VP of Sales do?
Owns revenue strategy and execution: sets targets, designs the org, hires and coaches, aligns with marketing and customer success, manages pipeline and forecasting, and stewards key accounts to drive predictable growth.
Is Head of Sales the same as a VP of Sales?
No. Head of Sales often leads earlier-stage teams with a narrower remit. A VP of Sales is an executive, reporting to the CEO/CRO, owning revenue targets, org design, forecasting, and cross-functional alignment.
What should a VP of Sales focus on in the first 90 days?
Audit pipeline health and conversion, validate ICP and messaging, map the sales process, set KPIs and forecast cadence, fix territory and role clarity, hire for gaps, align with marketing and CS, and meet top customers.
How can a CRM help a VP of Sales?
Centralizes contacts and deals, gives pipeline visibility, automates tasks and follow-ups, improves forecasting and coaching, and unifies GTM workflows. See folk for customizable pipelines, email, and reporting.
