Senior Vice President, Sales Strategy, Commercial Excellence & Transformation

Lumen is the trusted network for the AI‑powered world, connecting people, data, and applications through our expansive fiber network and connected ecosystem. We enable secure, high‑performance connectivity across cloud, edge, and AI workloads for enterprises, governments, and communities. At Lumen, you’ll work on infrastructure customers rely on today and build for what’s next, where performance, security, and resilience matter. This is a high accountability environment where bold ideas drive real innovation for our customers, partners, and industry. The work is challenging, expectations are clear, and trust is built into how we operate. If you’re ready to take ownership, deliver meaningful impact, and help shape the future of AI‑ready connectivity, join us today. About Lumen Lumen connects people, data, and applications quickly, securely, and effortlessly. As enterprises accelerate their adoption of AI, cloud, edge, security, and next-generation connectivity solutions, Lumen is evolving its commercial model to help customers operate with greater speed, intelligence, and confidence. Lumen is seeking a transformational senior commercial leader to serve as Senior Vice President, Sales Strategy, Commercial Excellence & Transformation. This is a highly visible executive role reporting to the Chief Revenue Officer and serving as a strategic operating partner to the go-to-market leadership team. Why Lumen, Why Now Lumen is at a rare, once ‑ in ‑ a ‑ career inflection point. We have completed the hardest part of our turnaround, stabilizing the business, strengthening the balance sheet, and sharpening our strategy and we are now reinventing ourselves as the trusted network for AI. As AI reshapes how enterprises move data across clouds, data centers, and the edge, traditional networks are no longer fast, flexible, or secure enough. Lumen is solving this problem at global scale, building a next ‑ generation, fiber ‑ rich, programmable network platform designed specifically for AI workloads. With billions of dollars in AI ‑ driven enterprise deals already signed and thousands of Network ‑ as ‑ a ‑ Service customers onboarded, Lumen has moved decisively from defense to offense and into a phase of durable growth. For leaders, this moment matters. Joining Lumen now means building, not managing decline; shaping platforms, operating models, and culture rather than inheriting legacy playbooks. Leaders have real ownership, real influence, and visible, market ‑ defining impact helping determine how the AI economy actually works at scale. Role Overview The Senior Vice President, Sales Strategy, Commercial Excellence & Transformation will own the end-to-end commercial blueprint for Lumen’s go-to-market organization. This leader will be responsible for shaping multi-year commercial strategy, driving execution discipline, modernizing sales operations, strengthening customer and partner engagement models, and leading large-scale transformation across a complex enterprise environment. This role is designed for a senior executive who can operate as a COO-like partner to the Chief Revenue Officer, translating enterprise priorities into a clear commercial agenda, scalable operating model, and measurable growth outcomes. The leader will play a central role in redesigning Lumen’s commercial engine to support future-state growth across recurring revenue, consumption-based models, platform economics, partner ecosystems, and modern enterprise selling. The ideal candidate brings a rare combination of strategic depth, operational rigor, executive presence, and enterprise transformation experience. They will be equally comfortable engaging with the Board and senior executives, partnering cross-functionally with Finance, Product, Talent, Sales Enablement, Technology, and Customer Success, and leading teams through high-impact change. Key Responsibilities Define and operationalize Lumen’s multi-year commercial strategy in partnership with the Chief Revenue Officer and executive leadership team. Redesign the go-to-market operating model to support recurring revenue, consumption-based selling, platform-oriented growth, and enterprise customer needs. Develop a clear commercial playbook that integrates strategy, sales motions, segmentation, coverage models, talent, incentives, technology, partners, and execution governance. Translate market insights, customer needs, and business priorities into focused growth agendas and scalable commercial capabilities. Partner closely with Finance to strengthen revenue planning, forecasting, performance management, and investment prioritization. Lead enterprise-wide commercial transformation efforts designed to modernize Lumen’s sales engine and improve execution discipline. Drive Phase 1 of the transformation agenda, including stabilizing execution, modernizing sales platforms, aligning stakeholders, and building the foundation for scalable growth. Reevaluate the full sales lifecycle, including presales, sales motions, customer success, partner engagement, and post-sale expansion. Establish clear operating rhythms, accountability mechanisms, and performance metrics across the go-to-market organization. Ensure transformation initiatives are translated into sustained adoption, behavioral change, and measurable business outcomes. Partner with Sales Enablement, Talent, Compensation, and business leaders to reshape the salesforce for future-state selling. Help define the capabilities, roles, responsibilities, incentives, and enablement model required to support SaaS-oriented and consumption-based commercial motions. Improve sales productivity, forecasting accuracy, pipeline quality, customer engagement, and overall go-to-market performance. Lead initiatives to strengthen commercial discipline, customer experience, and repeatable execution across sales teams. Support the development of a more modern, agile, data-driven, and customer-centric sales organization. Drive modernization of sales platforms, tools, data infrastructure, and analytics capabilities, including continued evolution of Salesforce and related commercial systems. Ensure commercial technology investments directly support sales effectiveness, leadership visibility, operational discipline, and customer experience. Partner with technology and operations teams to improve data quality, workflow design, reporting, and decision-making across the revenue organization. Use data and insights to identify performance gaps, prioritize initiatives, and guide executive decision-making. Strengthen Lumen’s partner strategy and ecosystem approach as a key lever for future growth. Align partner motions, direct sales coverage, and customer engagement models to support enterprise growth priorities. Improve the end-to-end customer experience by ensuring strategy, sales execution, service delivery, and customer success are tightly connected. Build scalable commercial approaches that enable Lumen to serve complex enterprise customers with greater consistency and impact. Serve as a trusted advisor and operating partner to the Chief Revenue Officer. Lead cross-functional transformation in a matrixed enterprise environment with multiple stakeholder groups and competing priorities. Build alignment across senior leaders, reinforce accountability, and help teams move from strategy to execution. Communicate with clarity and credibility across executive, board-level, and frontline audiences. Create momentum, remove barriers, and embed durable change across the organization. Ideal Candidate Profile The ideal candidate is a senior commercial executive with experience leading strategy, operations, sales transformation, or commercial excellence at scale. They will have demonstrated success operating in complex, matrixed organizations and driving enterprise-wide change that materially improves growth, productivity, and execution. Strong candidates may come from technology, cloud, SaaS, enterprise infrastructure, cybersecurity, data platforms, networking, telecommunications, or other scaled B2B environments with sophisticated go-to-market models. Experience with recurring revenue, consumption-based models, platform businesses, partner ecosystems, or modern enterprise sales motions is highly relevant. Required Experience & Qualifications 10+ years in senior leadership experience in commercial strategy, sales operations, revenue operations, business transformation, go-to-market strategy, or commercial excellence. Proven track record designing and executing large-scale transformation across a complex enterprise environment. Experience supporting or leading commercial models tied to recurring revenue, consumption-based revenue, SaaS, cloud, platform, or enterprise technology businesses. Demonstrated ability to partner with a Chief Revenue Officer or senior executive team to translate strategy into execution. Strong understanding of sales lifecycle design, segmentation, coverage models, forecasting, sales enablement, customer success, partner strategy, and performance management. Experience modernizing commercial systems, sales tools, data platforms, and operating rhythms. Strong financial and analytical orientation, with the ability to connect commercial strategy to revenue performance, investment decisions, and ROI. Executive presence and credibility with senior leadership, board-level audiences, customers, and cross-functional partners. Experience leading teams and influencing across a matrixed organization without relying solely on direct authority. Demonstrated success building scalable operating models, governance mechanisms, and transformation playbooks. Preferred Experience Background in enterprise technology, cloud, SaaS, AI infrastructure, networking, cybersecurity, telecommunications, or related sectors. Experience in organizations undergoing significant business model evolution or commercial transformation. Exposure to large global partner ecosystems and indirect/channel growth strategies. Experience with Salesforce modernization or broader revenue technology transformation. Prior COO, Chief Transformation Officer, Chief Revenue Operations Officer, Sales Strategy, Commercial Excellence, or senior GTM operations leadership experience. Experience engaging with Boards, executive committees, and external customers or partners. Compensation This information reflects the anticipated base salary range for this position based on current national data. Minimums and maximums may vary based on location. Individual pay is based on skills, experience and other relevant factors. Location Based Pay Ranges $279,263 - $372,351 in all states. Lumen offers a comprehensive package featuring a broad range of Health, Life, Voluntary Lifestyle benefits and other perks that enhance your physical, mental, emotional and financial wellbeing. We're able to answer any additional questions you may have about our bonus structure (short-term incentives, long-term incentives and/or sales compensation) as you move through the selection process." Learn more about Lumen's: Benefits Bonus Structure Requisition #: 343257 Life at Lumen Life at Lumen is human and connected, even in a fast moving, AI‑focused organization. We set clear expectations and trust people to meet them. With real support and shared accountability, teams collaborate better, move faster, and deliver meaningful outcomes. Our Lumen 8 behaviors guide how we interact, make decisions, and work together, shaping a culture built to perform and win. To learn more about Life at Lumen and how we live the Lumen 8, please visit: https://jobs.lumen.com/global/en/life-at-lumen Background Screening If you are selected for a position, there will be a background screen, which may include checks for criminal records and/or motor vehicle reports and/or drug screening, depending on the position requirements. For more information on these checks, please refer to the Post Offer section of our FAQ page . Job-related concerns identified during the background screening may disqualify you from the new position or your current role. Background results will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. Equal Employment Opportunities We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all persons regardless of race, color, ancestry, citizenship, national origin, religion, veteran status, disability, genetic characteristic or information, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, family status, pregnancy, or other legally protected status (collectively, “protected statuses”). We do not tolerate unlawful discrimination in any employment decisions, including recruiting, hiring, compensation, promotion, benefits, discipline, termination, job assignments or training. Privacy Notice Lumen is committed to protecting the privacy and security of personal information collected during the recruitment and hiring process. Our Applicant Privacy Notice explains how we collect, use, disclose, and protect applicant information, as well as how individuals may request access to or deletion of their personal data. To review Lumen’s Global Employment Applicant and Talent Community Privacy Notice, please visit: https://jobs.lumen.com/global/en/privacy-notice Disclaimer The job responsibilities described above indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees within this classification. It is not intended to include a comprehensive inventory of all duties and responsibilities for this job. Job duties and responsibilities are subject to change based on evolving business needs and conditions. In any materials you submit, you may redact or remove age-identifying information such as age, date of birth, or dates of school attendance or graduation. You will not be penalized for redacting or removing this information. 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