Director, Pre-Sales, EMEA

Welcome to Planet. We believe in using space to help life on Earth. Planet designs, builds, and operates the largest constellation of imaging satellites in history. This constellation delivers an unprecedented dataset of empirical information via a revolutionary cloud-based platform to authoritative figures in commercial, environmental, and humanitarian sectors. Customers and users across the globe use Planet's data to develop new technologies, drive revenue, power research, and solve our world’s toughest obstacles.

About The Role

The Director of Pre-Sales will be responsible for leading Pre-Sales Solution Architects in the EMEA region, providing leadership excellence in technical sales, account planning and strategy, relationship building, and solution selling. The mission of Pre-Sales is to provide trusted technical advice, enabling customers to maximize their investment in Earth Observation and achieve better outcomes. The ideal candidate will be an accomplished people manager, a geospatial expert with strong business acumen, and possess proven experience scaling high performing technical teams and implementing technical sales best practices.

Impact You’ll Own

• Create the conditions for high performance; recruit resources, define staff learning and development areas, and provide ongoing feedback, coaching and training.
• Support internal sales teams and authorized partners providing quality technical sales capacity and capability to drive revenue in new and existing accounts.
• Drive best practice with emphasis on customer centricity, sales excellence and consultative selling, outcome focus, and data driven decision making.
• Apply expertise in remote sensing and geospatial technologies to develop trusted customer relationships and help them successfully adopt Planet solutions.
• Provide high quality customer engagement including meetings, presentations and demonstrations, commercial proposals writing, workshops, pilots, and events.
• Collaborate closely with the EMEA Services Director to conduct technical assessments and deliver successful projects that exceed customer expectations.
• Provide customer insights and feedback to product development and marketing organizations, to improve customer engagement, and drive sales revenue.
• Establish global relationships with peers in other Geos to share best practices and drive high standards and execution excellence.
• Be a member of the Global Pre-Sales & Services leadership team and actively contribute to strategic planning, meetings and to execute team initiatives.

What You Bring

• 6+ years of experience managing a successful technical sales team.
• 8+ years of experience working in software or technical sales.
• Solid technical fluency with system architectures, cloud environments, complex data pipelines, and technical proposal writing.
• Ability to effectively engage customers at the executive level to clearly articulate technical complexity and strategic business value.
• Consultative selling experience with a proven track record of success.
• Customer centric and data-driven, able to turn insights into meaningful actions.
• Excellent human skills: organizer and prioritizer, problem-solver, assertive and proactive, curious and adaptable, communicator and presenter.
• Ability to partner with Product, Marketing, and Sales leadership.
• Bachelor's degree in Business, Management, GIS/Remote Sensing, or comparable combination of technical education and relevant work experience.

What Makes You Stand Out

• Strategic leadership and commercial acumen: ability to manage teams selling complex solutions to governments and/or large enterprise customers, demonstrating excellent commercial and business acumen.
• Sales methodology expertise: experience working with Sales Qualification frameworks and methodologies e.g., MEDDPICC, Force Management.
• Geospatial market, industry, and competitor knowledge (highly preferred).
• Ability to lead customer engagements and facilitate workshops.
• Experience managing or working with/in a Professional Services organization or delivering complex consulting services.
• Negotiation and influencing skills used to align stakeholders.
• Experience working with GIS tools (Esri/QGIS), developing applications/scripts (e.g., Python), and utilizing AI for impact in real-world applications.

Benefits While Working At Planet

• Paid time off including vacation, holidays and company-wide days off.
• Employee Wellness Program.
• Home Office Reimbursement.
• Monthly Phone and Internet Reimbursement.
• Tuition Reimbursement and access to LinkedIn Learning.
• Equity Volunteering Paid Time Off.

Why We Care So Much About Belonging.

We’re dedicated to helping the whole Planet, and to do that we must strive to represent all of it within each of our offices and on all of our teams. That’s why Planet is guided by an ultimate north star of Belonging—dreaming big as we approach our ongoing work. If this job intrigues you, but you’re thinking you might not have all the qualifications, please do apply! At Planet, we are looking for well-rounded people from around the world who can contribute to more ways than just what is listed in this job description.

EEO Statement

Planet is committed to building a community where everyone belongs and we invite people from all backgrounds to apply. Planet is an equal opportunity employer, and committed to providing employment opportunities regardless of race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other protected classification, in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws.

Accommodations

Planet is an inclusive community and we know that everyone has their own needs. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation during the hiring process, please reach out to accommodations@planet.com or contact your recruiter with your request. Your message will be confidential and we will be happy to assist you.