Director, Sales - SLED

The Role

The Regional Director of Sales for SLED East will lead a team of Strategic Account Executives serving State, Local, Higher Education, and K–12 customers across the Eastern United States. This leader owns regional strategy, pipeline creation, forecast discipline, deal execution, partner activation, customer relationships, and team development to deliver profitable revenue growth and durable new-logo attainment for Ping Identity.

The successful candidate is a customer-centered, outcomes-oriented sales leader who can translate identity security into mission value: modernizing legacy environments, enabling Zero Trust, strengthening identity assurance, protecting citizen and student services, securing workforce and third-party access, reducing fraud, and improving resilience across hybrid and cloud environments.

Reports to: VP, Public Sector Sales
Location: Field-based; Eastern U.S. preferred
Travel: Regular travel across the territory and to customer, partner, and industry events; up to 50% as needed

You Will

• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team of Strategic Account Executives; set clear expectations for new-logo growth, pipeline creation, forecast accuracy, customer engagement, partner leverage, and deal execution.
• Create and execute the SLED East go-to-market strategy, including territory design, account segmentation, whitespace analysis, state-by-state priorities, coverage plans, and quarterly operating rhythms aligned to Ping Identity’s broader public-sector strategy.
• Build early-stage demand and new-logo pipeline before formal solicitations through executive outreach, mission-led account hypotheses, customer referrals, partner intelligence, associations, events, digital programs, and responsible use of AI and data signals.
• Position Ping Identity’s identity-security platform against SLED priorities such as legacy modernization, Zero Trust, identity proofing and assurance, phishing-resistant authentication, workforce and contractor access, citizen and constituent services, student and faculty access, fraud reduction, privacy, auditability, and operational resilience.
• Lead disciplined opportunity execution from discovery through award and expansion, including qualification, stakeholder mapping, technical validation, demonstrations, proofs of value, RFI/RFP responses, contract-vehicle strategy, pricing, negotiation, procurement, and close plans.
• Maintain an accurate, evidence-based forecast that reflects funding and budget authority, compelling events, decision criteria, stakeholder support, procurement route, contract vehicle, competitive position, partner role, implementation readiness, and timing risk.
• Build trusted relationships with state CIO, CISO, CTO, digital-service, security, identity, education, procurement, finance, program, and executive stakeholders. Expand relationship coverage beyond a single office or incumbent contact.
• Develop and activate a national and regional partner ecosystem, including contract holders, distributors, resellers, systems integrators, advisory firms, cloud and technology partners, higher-education and K–12 ecosystem partners, and public-sector associations. Establish joint account maps, pursuit plans, executive engagement, enablement, co-marketing, procurement paths, and partner-sourced or partner-influenced pipeline goals.
• Work with key national and regional partners and associations—including relevant cooperative purchasing and contract-vehicle communities, NASPO, E&I, NASCIO, NASTD, Carahsoft, and regional government-technology and education networks—to deepen customer relationships, create trusted introductions, shape demand, and expand reach into new logos.
• Orchestrate the cross-functional pursuit team across Sales Engineering, Solutions Specialists, Customer Success, Professional Services, Business Value, Marketing, Channel, Product, Finance, Legal, and executive sponsors. Ensure one customer narrative, one account plan, and clear ownership of next actions.
• Coach the team on public-sector buying behavior, SLED budget cycles, cooperative purchasing, state and local contracting, education procurement, ethics and engagement boundaries, value selling, MEDDPPICC, mutual action plans, and close-plan discipline.
• Represent Ping Identity with credibility at customer briefings, executive roundtables, public-sector associations, partner events, and education forums; bring field intelligence back to Product, Marketing, Channel, and Public Sector leadership.

You Have

• 8+ years of enterprise software, SaaS, cybersecurity, or technology sales experience, including 3–5 years leading quota-carrying sales teams.
• A consistent record of meeting or exceeding revenue targets and developing new public-sector logos in complex, multi-stakeholder sales cycles.
• Direct SLED experience, leading a SLED sales team across multiple states and account segments.
• Strong relationships and market knowledge across the Eastern U.S. SLED landscape, with the ability to build access in state agencies, municipalities, counties, school districts, community colleges, universities, and higher-education systems.
• Working knowledge of SLED and education budget cycles, procurement, contracting, cooperative purchasing, contract vehicles, reseller models, systems-integrator motions, and partner-led delivery.
• Demonstrated success creating and progressing opportunities before an RFI/RFP, influencing requirements, building consensus, and closing new logos through customer value rather than product positioning alone.
• Experience leading executive conversations with CIOs, CISOs, CTOs, chief digital officers, superintendents, higher-education technology and security leaders, procurement executives, and mission owners.
• Strong understanding of identity security, IAM, CIAM, workforce identity, authentication, authorization, federation, identity governance, fraud and verification, Zero Trust, cloud and hybrid architectures, and subscription software models.
• Ability to connect identity strategy to SLED mission outcomes, including public safety, benefits and constituent services, workforce productivity, student success, research, privacy, accessibility, and resilience.
• Familiarity with relevant public-sector and education frameworks, including CISA Zero Trust guidance, NIST Digital Identity Guidelines, CJIS, FERPA, state privacy requirements, and applicable cloud-security or accessibility requirements.
• Strong leadership, communication, presentation, negotiation, inspection, and change-management skills; credible with customers, partners, and senior internal stakeholders.
• Fluency with Salesforce and related sales, forecasting, account-planning, and productivity tools; analytical and data-driven decision-making.

Preferred:

• Experience selling or leading in identity security, cybersecurity, IAM, CIAM, fraud prevention, identity verification, or adjacent cloud-security markets.
• Experience with higher-education consortia, K–12 districts, state education agencies, or multi-campus environments.
• Established relationships with national and regional public-sector resellers, distributors, systems integrators, advisory firms, cloud providers, technology alliances, and education ecosystem partners.
• Familiarity with emerging identity requirements for AI agents, non-person identities, automated workflows, and machine-to-machine access.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience; relevant identity, cybersecurity, public-sector, or sales leadership certifications are a plus.

What Success Looks Like

• The team consistently meets or exceeds quota, new-logo, pipeline, and expansion objectives across state, local, higher-education, and K–12 segments.
• SLED East has a current, executable territory plan that links priority accounts to mission hypotheses, budget timing, procurement routes, contract vehicles, partner coverage, executive relationships, and next actions.
• New logo pipeline is created early, with measurable partner-sourced and partner-influenced contributions and opportunities that are shaped before formal solicitation whenever appropriate.
• Forecasts are accurate, conservative, and explainable; every material opportunity has verified funding, decision criteria, stakeholder coverage, procurement path, competitive strategy, close plan, and timing risk.
• Customers experience one coordinated Ping team and see identity security connected to measurable mission, security, service, privacy, and resilience outcomes.
• National and regional partnerships produce stronger customer access, useful market intelligence, effective co-selling and procurement execution, and a growing pipeline of qualified new logos.
• Strategic Account Executives demonstrate disciplined account planning, discovery, qualification, value selling, stakeholder expansion, proposal leadership, negotiation, and post-award expansion planning.
• The team develops talent, shares field intelligence, uses data and AI responsibly, and operates with accountability, ethics, customer focus, and continuous improvement.

Base Hiring Range:  $136,850.00 - $195,500.00 + Commission 

In accordance with Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act (SB 19-085) the approximate compensation range for this role in Colorado is listed above. Final compensation for this role will be determined by various factors, such as knowledge, skills, and abilities.