Presales head - India (HCM Functional presales)

Darwinbox; Gurugram District; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 7,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Darwinbox is seeking a Presales leader to head the India presales organization, guiding a 10–15 member team and collaborating with Sales and senior leadership to craft strategic enterprise and mid-market deals.

You will translate business problems into compelling Darwinbox solutions and business cases, acting as a transformation advisor and deal strategist to influence product direction and market success.

Responsibilities

• Shape the deal before the demo. Partner with Sales from the earliest conversations to understand the account, shape the buying journey, qualify opportunities, and build a differentiated solution and value story.
• Be a CXO-level transformation advisor. Engage business leaders across functions, understand their strategic priorities, and connect HCM transformation to measurable business outcomes.
• Make complexity simple. Translate complex enterprise requirements into clear solution narratives, compelling demonstrations, POCs, and transformation roadmaps.
• Lead the India Presales engine. Set the strategy, operating rhythm, standards, resource model, and talent agenda for a 10-15-member organization; build capability and future leaders.
• Create a winning market motion. Define solution-led GTM strategies for new markets and product lines, strengthen competitive positioning, and identify what will move enterprise buyers.
• Turn the market into product insight. Bring customer and competitive intelligence into Product, influence roadmap discussions, and ensure market needs are represented in product decisions.
• Build AI-native presales. Use AI and modern tooling to improve research, discovery, solutioning, demos, POCs, and presales productivity—and help the organization operate differently as Darwinbox becomes AI-native.
• Drive initiatives. Participate and lead organizations initiatives as they come up from time to time.

Job description

Darwinbox is competing for the most complex enterprise HCM transformations in the market and the conversation is changing. As we move toward an AI-native HCM future and launch Cortex, our AI product, we need a Presales leader who can connect business problems, enterprise transformation, product capability, and commercial value into a story CXOs cannot ignore.

What This Role Is

• You will lead India Presales and a team of ~10-15, partnering closely with Sales and senior leaders to shape strategic enterprise and mid-market deals. You will be the person in the room who can understand what a business is trying to change, challenge the way it is thinking about the problem, and translate that into a compelling Darwinbox solution and business case.
• This is equal parts transformation advisor, deal strategist, and presales leader with the opportunity to influence how Darwinbox takes its next generation of HCM and AI capabilities to market.

What Work Looks Like

• Shape the deal before the demo. Partner with Sales from the earliest conversations to understand the account, shape the buying journey, qualify opportunities, and build a differentiated solution and value story.
• Be a CXO-level transformation advisor. Engage business leaders across functions, understand their strategic priorities, and connect HCM transformation to measurable business outcomes.
• Make complexity simple. Translate complex enterprise requirements into clear solution narratives, compelling demonstrations, POCs, and transformation roadmaps.
• Lead the India Presales engine. Set the strategy, operating rhythm, standards, resource model, and talent agenda for a 10-15-member organization; build capability and future leaders.
• Create a winning market motion. Define solution-led GTM strategies for new markets and product lines, strengthen competitive positioning, and identify what will move enterprise buyers.
• Turn the market into product insight. Bring customer and competitive intelligence into Product, influence roadmap discussions, and ensure market needs are represented in product decisions.
• Build AI-native presales. Use AI and modern tooling to improve research, discovery, solutioning, demos, POCs, and presales productivity—and help the organization operate differently as Darwinbox becomes AI-native.
• Drive initiatives. Participate and lead organizations initiatives as they come up from time to time.

Role expectations

• Think beyond the RFP. Help customers rethink the problem before responding to the requirement.
• Own the commercial outcome. Balance customer value, solution quality, deal strategy, and presales investment to improve revenue, win rates, and sales velocity.
• Raise the talent bar. Build a high-performing team through coaching, capability building, succession planning, and strong standards for enterprise solution consulting.
• Influence without waiting for authority. Work across Sales, Product, Engineering, Marketing, and leadership to move strategic opportunities and market priorities forward.
• Have a point of view. Bring conviction on enterprise HCM trends, competitive dynamics, AI, and how customers will buy and operate differently in the future.

What We’re Looking For

• 12–15+ years of experience with significant enterprise presales / solution consulting leadership; proven ability to lead and scale presales teams.
• strong understanding of HCM and enterprise technology; exceptional executive presence and storytelling; strong deal strategy and cross-functional influence; and a demonstrated ability to use AI and modern tooling to improve how presales operates.

Why this role is different

You won’t just help sell what Darwinbox has built. You’ll help shape how the market understands where enterprise HCM is going—and how Darwinbox, including Cortex, can lead that shift.

About Darwinbox:

Darwinbox is Asia's fastest-growing HR technology platform, designing the future of work by building the world's best HR tech, driven by a fierce focus on employee experience and customer success, and continuous, iterative innovation. We are the preferred choice of 1400+ global enterprises to manage their 4 million+ employees across 130+ countries.

Our vision of building a world-class product company from Asia is backed by marquee global investors like Microsoft, Salesforce, Sequoia Capital, TCV, KKR, and Partners Group.