Director, Sales Development (Upmarket)

At Vanta, our mission is to help businesses earn and prove trust. We believe that security should be monitored and verified continuously, and we empower companies to practice better security and prove it with ease. Vanta has a kind and talented team, and while some have prior security experience, many have been successful at Vanta without it. This role requires an in-office hybrid schedule, with 3 days per week in the SF or NY office with preference for NY. We are seeking an experienced Director of Sales Development (Upmarket) to drive pipeline generation and new business acquisition across our Commercial, Enterprise and Strategic segments . This leader will be responsible for a significant portion of our quarterly new business. You’ll lead, develop, and scale a team of 3 Front Line Managers and over ~30 Sales Development Reps, consistently meeting monthly, quarterly, and annual revenue targets. In this role, you’ll have a direct impact on near term outcomes at a high-growth company, while influencing how we build and support our customers' future success. What you’ll do as a Director, Sales Development at Vanta: - Build sales development organizations from the ground up: creating playbooks, processes, and outbound motions rather than only inheriting and running existing ones - Define and communicate a clear vision for the SDR organization, developing multi-year outbound and pipeline generation strategy aligned to GTM objectives, and evolving the motion as the market shifts - Design, document, and operationalize repeatable sales development playbooks; continuously test, measure, and iterate on messaging, sequencing, territories, and workflows - Build AI-powered workflows that automate research, prioritization, outreach, coaching, and administrative work, leveraging tools like Nooks, Clay, 6sense, Gong, Outreach, or similar, and thinking in terms of agent orchestration rather than just adding headcount - Own ongoing hiring, mentoring, and development of SDR Managers and SDRs, including recruiting, hiring, and training new members, and creating clear career paths into AE and leadership roles - Deliver against a series of monthly and quarterly revenue and pipeline generation goals, driving activity, pipeline, weekly forecasts, and closed deals to ensure quota attainment - Regularly report on team and individual results through pipeline management, forecasting, and strategic initiative reporting - Partner with senior sales management, marketing, RevOps, product marketing, and enablement to build and align teams around a unified GTM and pipeline generation strategy - Lead the org through transformation: scaling teams through periods of rapid growth, reorganization, or market change, and creating clarity amid ambiguity How to be successful in this role: - Proven, repeated track record as a builder: building organizations rather than inheriting them, creating playbooks from scratch, introducing new technology and AI into workflows, and scaling from one stage of growth to the next - Deep understanding of AI-first sales motions and how to apply them to improve efficiency and pipeline generation - Deep expertise in outbound prospecting strategy, account-based motions, intent data, buying signals, and multi-threading; obsesses over pipeline quality, not just activity metrics - Rigorous command of the key metrics of the business; uses data to diagnose issues, prioritize investments, forecast outcomes, and build business cases that influence executive stakeholders - Excellence in forecasting accuracy - Master of the prospecting process in high velocity orgs (deal cycles less than 6 months) - Mastery of coaching to value-based selling methodology (such as Command of the Message) - Strong executive presence: confidently communicates strategy, performance, recommendations, and investment plans to senior leadership, and influences without authority while building trust across the org - A high bar for inspection, evolution, and execution in th…