Head of Technology Sales, EMEA

About Us

SUSE is a global leader of  enterprise open source software. By transforming community innovations into secure, sovereign and AI-ready solutions, SUSE empowers customers to escape vendor lock-in and regain control of their IT destiny. Through industry-leading Linux, Kubernetes, Edge and AI infrastructure solutions, SUSE delivers the flexibility to innovate everywhere—from the data center to multi-cloud and out to the edge. Only SUSE also manages many Linux and Kubernetes distributions. At SUSE, Choice Happens because we prioritize community, interoperability and relentless innovation. Discover how we power mission-critical resilience at www.suse.com. 

Job Description

Role Overview

SUSE's ambition in EMEA over the next three years is to win the shift to open, sovereign platform infrastructure. We want to become the primary IT platform choice as organisations redesign their estates around digital sovereignty, regulatory resilience and freedom from vendor lock-in. 

AI has created a better-informed, more self-sufficient customer who arrives further into their evaluation and relies less on vendors for technical information. As a result, they expect technical sellers to engage on business value and outcomes rather than primarily on product features and functionality. 

The Head of Technology Sales is a senior leader responsible for shaping SUSE's EMEA technical field organisation to meet customers where they are and deliver on our vision. Reporting to the EMEA General Manager, the role leads a multi-year evolution of our technical field capability. This covers how our Solution Architects and technical specialists work together, and the move toward a proactive, market-facing organisation built around customer intimacy, compelling business cases and pipeline creation, working with our workers councils where appropriate.

The role calls for a leader who brings experience of organisational change, genuine technical credibility in the market, and the commercial fluency to work as a partner to sales leadership. The leader must be able to translate technology into a quantified business case, and have the energy and resilience to deliver change at pace against an ambitious business plan.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the evolution of the EMEA technical field organisation. Own a multi-year programme that moves our technical teams from deal support into proactive, outcome-led customer engagement and pipeline creation, reflecting how today's better-informed buyers evaluate and purchase. 
• Drive growth in sovereign, cloud native and AI infrastructure. Own the technical field's contribution to pipeline and revenue across SUSE's cloud native, virtualisation and AI portfolio. Ensure the team consistently secures the technical win, and stay aligned with sales leadership and the region's commercial priorities.
• Articulate business value. Build the technical field's ability to connect SUSE solutions to customer business outcomes. Working with sales, help customers understand the value of SUSE through clear benefits such as cost savings, reduced risk, compliance and freedom from lock-in, and contribute to business cases that support winning deals.
• Evolve compensation and operating models. Redesign technical field compensation to reward proactive, self-generated pipeline and business outcomes. Deliver the change transparently across jurisdictions, working with workers councils where appropriate.
• Develop, attract and retain great technical talent. Build a capability framework that combines technical depth with business case and value-selling skills. Support every team member to grow into it, and make SUSE a career destination for top technical talent.
• Represent SUSE as a senior technical voice. Champion SUSE's technical and sovereignty position with customer executives, analysts, industry and policy communities. Build lasting relationships with senior technical and business decision-makers across key accounts and partners.
• Partner with sales and regional leadership. Act as technical counterpart to the EMEA GM and peer to the regional leaders, ensuring technical and sales teams work together with clear responsibilities.
• Engage personally in strategic pursuits. Join the virtual selling team on the region's largest opportunities. Lead the technical win and co-develop value-based business cases. Engage senior stakeholders to close business, modelling the customer intimacy we expect across the team.
• Establish measurement and governance. Define the metrics, competency frameworks and governance for the new organisation, including the use and impact of business cases on deal outcomes. Report progress to EMEA and executive leadership.

Skills & Experience

• Organisational change. Proven track record of leading multi-year change in a technical or commercial field organisation through to outcome. This includes integrating teams, hiring, developing talent and managing performance.
• Technical credibility. Credible across Kubernetes and cloud native, container security, virtualisation and migration from proprietary platforms, edge and AI infrastructure. Able to set technical direction and earn the respect of both the team and the market.
• Value creation. Proven ability to build quantified business cases that win deals, including TCO, ROI and value-based models that stand up to CFO and procurement scrutiny.
• Sovereignty and regulation. Strong grasp of digital sovereignty and European regulation. Able to translate it into customer architecture, platform strategy and business value.
• Executive and partner engagement. Trusted by senior customer and partner stakeholders. Moves comfortably between product depth, business outcomes and industry direction.
• Ecosystem experience. Experience of joint solution development and partner-led delivery with systems integrators and technology partners.
• Commercial acumen. A peer to senior sales leadership, with experience of compensation design and of shaping how technical and sales functions work together. Recent hands-on experience in virtual selling teams, securing technical wins and taking complex opportunities through to close.
• Multi-jurisdiction leadership. Experience leading organisational and compensation change across European jurisdictions, including work with workers councils.
• Leadership approach. Drives change by testing and adapting. Comfortable with ambiguity, resilient under pressure, and decisive.
• Inclusion. Committed to building inclusive, high-performing teams that value diverse perspectives.

Job

What We Offer 

We empower you to be bold, driving your career to create the future you want. We celebrate and reward your achievements.  

SUSE is a dynamic environment that is evolving rapidly, thus requiring agility, strong entrepreneurship and an open mind. 

This is a compelling opportunity for the right person to join us as we continue to scale and prosper.   

If you’re a big thinker, obsessed by execution and thrive in a dynamic environment in which you can tangibly create a lasting legacy, then please apply now!  

We give you the freedom to be yourself. You will work in a global community of unique individuals – like you – with different backgrounds, talents, skills and perspectives. A truly open community where everyone is welcome, has a voice and is encouraged to reach their full potential regardless of age, gender, race, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, religion, or any other characteristics.   

Sounds like the right fit for you? Click Apply to submit your resume. A recruiter will contact you if your skills match our current or any future positions. In the meantime, stay updated on the latest SUSE news and job vacancies by joining our Talent Community.

SUSE Values 

SUSE's culture is centered on four key values - Choice, Community, Trust, and Innovation - which are deeply integrated with our open source ethos. SUSE fosters a diverse and inclusive environment where our people are encouraged to be themselves.

Choice: 

We are continuously making choice happen 

We are accountable for our choices 

We never get complacent

Community: 

Nobody is smarter than everybody 

We embrace diversity of thought 

We are “open source first, upstream first” where collaboration benefits all

Trust: 

We are trusted to deliver with integrity 

We offer trust by default, and do not wait for it to be earned

We foster an environment where everyone trusts each other 

Innovation: 

We foster a culture of experimentation, and embrace change by challenging the norm

We are committed to continuous improvement, creativity and adaptability 

Ideas are great, but without execution they are just ideas