Sales Team Lead - EU in London

About Ryft

Ryft is a regulated payment facilitator and authorised payment institution building the infrastructure layer for modern commerce platforms. We enable marketplaces, SaaS platforms and multi-party ecosystems to embed and monetise payments natively. Our technology handles onboarding, compliance, orchestration, split payments and revenue sharing, allowing our partners to focus on growth while we manage complexity. We are now entering the next phase of scale, expanding into new verticals and building a category-defining embedded payments platform.

About The Role

We’re looking for a Sales Team Lead to launch and grow Ryft’s presence in Europe, starting with France. You’ll carry your own number, hunt and close new business in the French market, and build and lead a small team of Account Executives as the region grows. This is a player-coach role. At first it will lean heavily towards your own selling: you’ll spend most of your week prospecting, pitching and closing deals yourself. As the EU team grows, you’ll take on more of the coaching and management. You’ll report into commercial leadership and connect the wider sales strategy to day-to-day execution in the region.

You will...

• Individual contribution
  • Open up the French market for Ryft, prospecting from a book of ICP leads and finding and qualifying your own potential clients.
  • Build relationships with decision makers, understand customer needs, deliver sales presentations, negotiate contracts and close deals, in both French and English.
  • Communicate with and influence C-suite executives to use Ryft as their payment partner.
  • Carry and hit your own sales target, which will be the main focus of the role in the early stages.
• Team leadership
  • Help build the EU sales team, supporting hiring and onboarding as the region scales.
  • Line-manage a small team of Account Executives, including 1:1s, performance reviews and career development.
  • Coach the team on pipeline generation, deal strategy, negotiation and objection handling.
  • Monitor individual and team performance against targets, and spot where to step in and support.
  • Work with commercial leadership to set team targets and build the EU sales growth plan.
  • Make sure the team uses the CRM properly and keeps pipeline data accurate and up to date.
• Cross-functional
  • Work with non-commercial teams to give European clients a smooth journey from first meeting to becoming a Ryft client.
  • Feed French and wider European market insight back into product and commercial strategy, including localisation and market-specific needs.
  • Act as an escalation point for your team’s deals when senior input is needed.

You must be comfortable building pipeline from scratch in a new market and closing deals yourself, as well as being accountable for the output of others as the team grows.

What we are looking for

• Experience
  • Fluency in English and at least one other European Language, both written and spoken (French preferred).
  • B2B sales experience selling a complex product with a longer sales cycle (3 months+).
  • Experience selling into the French market, or into Europe more broadly.
  • A consistent track record of hitting or exceeding sales targets.
  • Experience where generating pipeline was a core part of the job, not just managing inbound.
  • Experience prospecting, building relationships and negotiating deals through to close.
  • Prior experience managing, mentoring or leading other salespeople.
  • Experience using CRM systems to track progress and contribute to a sales growth plan.
• Skills that will help you succeed
  • Self-driven, with the ability to prioritise your own selling time against team management demands.
  • Strong communication skills with clients and with your team, in both languages.
  • The ability to show product and industry knowledge persuasively to clients.
  • The ability to coach others rather than just do the work for them.
  • A creative approach to sales and the sales cycle.
  • Strong commercial acumen and a desire to find new ways to grow the business.
  • Comfortable operating with relative autonomy, including in a market where Ryft is still building its name.

Please note these are not all absolute requirements. We value attitude and cultural fit as much as experience, so if you don’t match all of the above but are interested in the role, please don’t hesitate to apply.