Senior Director, Americas Carrier Operations

Cisco Systems, Inc.; Denver (CO); On-site; USD 447,000 - 564,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical Insurance

401(k) plan

Paid parental leave

Bonus program

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. seeks an Area Sales Leader / Senior Director to unify and scale the go-to-market strategy for US Carrier Operations, Canada, and LATAM.

You will own multi-year plans, lead a 37-person sales team, and align Cisco’s technology stack with customers’ capital cycles, leveraging AI to boost productivity and scale across the Americas. The role demands extensive telecom sales leadership, strong customer negotiation skills, and a track record of managing large bookings targets across

Qualifications

• 12+ years of progressive experience in technology sales and sales leadership with a Bachelor’s degree (or 10+ with a Master’s).
• 4+ years of direct experience managing people managers (leadership of leaders).
• Sales leadership experience in Telecommunications and Service Provider infrastructure domains.
• Experience managing revenue or bookings portfolios of $100M+ annually.
• Experience negotiating multi-year framework agreements with C-suite/EVP executives.

Responsibilities

• Unify and scale go-to-market strategy across US Carrier Operations, Canada, and LATAM Service Provider accounts.
• Own the 12-to-24+ month business plan and the 18-to-36 month long-range outlook.
• Lead a sales organization of 37 professionals and align Cisco's stack with customer capital planning.
• Drive AI-enabled sales productivity gains and scale across the Americas theater.

Skills

Technology sales leadership

People management

Carrier/Telecommunications sales

Contract negotiation

Education

Bachelor's degree in Business, CS or EE

Master's degree (MBA or technical)

Job description

The application window is expected to close on: 10/29/2026

Meet the Team

The Americas Service Provider organization at Cisco partners with leading telecommunications, carrier, and regional network operators across the United States, Canada, and Latin America to build the world's most secure, scalable, and automated network infrastructure. Operating across all non-Tier-1 carrier accounts, our organization delivers over $500M+ in annual bookings. In close executive partnership with our Carrier Operations Engineering leadership team, we are a "leader of leaders" organization focused on long-range planning, C-suite transformation, and fostering an inclusive, high-performance sales culture.

Your Impact

As the Area Sales Leader / Senior Director, you will unify and scale our go-to-market strategy across US Carrier Operations, Canada, and LATAM Service Provider accounts. You will build and govern a single, integrated multi-year carrier strategy, owning the 12-to-24+ month business plan and the 18-to-36 month long-range outlook. Leading a sales organization of 37 professionals, you will align Cisco's vertical technology stack with customer capital planning cycles while leveraging AI for sales productivity gains and operational scale. Success in this role is defined by achieving annual bookings quotas of $500M+ and driving architectural penetration across the Americas theater.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field AND 12+ years of progressive experience in technology sales and sales leadership; OR Master's degree (MBA or technical discipline) AND 10+ years of progressive experience in technology sales and sales leadership
• 4+ years of direct experience managing people managers (leader of leaders) within a technology sales or go-to-market organization
• Sales leadership experience in Telecommunications and Service Provider infrastructure domains (including IP Routing, Optical Networking, Metro Ethernet, Backhaul, or Carrier Transport)
• Experience managing revenue or bookings portfolios of $100M+ annually
• Experience negotiating multi-year framework agreements and enterprise software contracts with C-suite/EVP executives

Preferred Qualifications

• Commercial understanding of Routed Optical Networking (RON), Silicon One architectures, 5G transport, and IP-over-DWDM.
• Experience leveraging AI tools and sales intelligence platforms to drive productivity gains, accelerate pipeline velocity, and optimize go-to-market workflows.
• Experience leading distributed sales teams across US regional carrier, Canadian, and Latin American telecommunications markets.
• Track record partnering with carrier product teams to scale managed enterprise/B2B service offerings.
• Experience deploying structured sales qualification frameworks (e.g., MEDDPICC) and multi-year capacity modeling.
• Demonstrated commitment to building diverse leadership benches and mentoring emerging sales managers.

Why Cisco?

At Cisco, we're revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era - and beyond. We've been innovating fearlessly for 40 years to create solutions that power how humans and technology work together across the physical and digital worlds. These solutions provide customers with unparalleled security, visibility, and insights across the entire digital footprint.

Fueled by the depth and breadth of our technology, we experiment and create meaningful solutions. Add to that our worldwide network of doers and experts, and you'll see that the opportunities to grow and build are limitless. We work as a team, collaborating with empathy to make really big things happen on a global scale. Because our solutions are everywhere, our impact is everywhere.

We are Cisco, and our power starts with you.

Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:

The starting salary range posted for this position is $446,600.00 to $564,400.00 and reflects the projected salary range for new hires in this position in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including incentive compensation*, equity, or benefits.

Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location, market conditions, job-related skillset, experience, qualifications, education, certifications, and/or training. The full salary range for certain locations is listed below. For locations not listed below, the recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.

U.S. employees are offered benefits, subject to Cisco's plan eligibility rules, which include medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability coverage, and basic life insurance. Please see the Cisco careers site to discover more benefits and perks. Employees may be eligible to receive grants of Cisco restricted stock units, which vest following continued employment with Cisco for defined periods of time.

U.S. employees are eligible for paid time away as described below, subject to Cisco's policies:

• 10 paid holidays per full calendar year, plus 1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees

• 1 paid day off for employee's birthday, paid year-end holiday shutdown, and 4 paid days off for personal wellness determined by Cisco

• Non-exempt employees** receive 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at rate of 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees

• Exempt employees participate in Cisco's flexible vacation time off program, which has no defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use (subject to availability and some business limitations)

• 80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter, and up to 80 hours ofunused sick timecarried forwardfrom one calendar yearto the next

• Additional paid time away may be requested to deal with critical or emergency issues for family members

• Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer

For non-sales roles, employees are also eligible to earn annual bonuses subject to Cisco's policies.

Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components, subject to the applicable Cisco plan. For quota-based incentive pay, Cisco typically pays as follows:

• .75% of incentive target for each 1% of revenue attainment up to 50% of quota;

• 1.5% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 50% and 75%;

• 1% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 75% and 100%; and

• Once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap on incentive compensation.

For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay 0% up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.

The applicable full salary ranges for this position, by specific state, are listed below:

New York City Metro Area:

$500,600.00 - $727,300.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$473,100.00 - $705,500.00

* For quota-based sales roles on Cisco's sales plan, the ranges provided in this posting include base pay and sales target incentive compensation combined.

** Employees in Illinois, whether exempt or non-exempt, will participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements.