Senior Named Account Executive, South Africa

About Us

At Cloudflare, we are on a mission to help build a better Internet. Today the company runs one of the world’s largest networks that powers millions of websites and other Internet properties for customers ranging from individual bloggers to SMBs to Fortune 500 companies. Cloudflare protects and accelerates any Internet application online without adding hardware, installing software, or changing a line of code. Internet properties powered by Cloudflare all have web traffic routed through its intelligent global network, which gets smarter with every request. As a result, they see significant improvement in performance and a decrease in spam and other attacks. Cloudflare was named to Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top Company Cultures list and ranked among the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company. 

We realize people do not fit into neat boxes. We are looking for curious and empathetic individuals who are committed to developing themselves and learning new skills, and we are ready to help you do that. We cannot complete our mission without building a diverse and inclusive team. We hire the best people based on an evaluation of their potential and support them throughout their time at Cloudflare. Come join us! 

Available Locations: London or Dubai

About the Department

Account Executives, Business Development Representatives, Solution Engineers, channel managers and Customer Success - all working together to help our customers adopt Cloudflare, build great Internet-enabled experiences and help them on their digital transformation journey. 

The sales team at Cloudflare helps customers take on real, technical problems while building the revenue streams that help the company provide services to millions in our community.

About the Role

Based out of the Dubai or London office, you will manage and drive sales into the largest enterprise accounts in the Sub Saharan Africa region with a focus on South Africa. Such accounts include, but are not limited to MNC’s, large enterprise companies and organizations that have substantial requirements for Cloudflare solutions. 

Your enterprise selling activities will include a "hunter" type activities to proactively penetrate the targeted list of named accounts, detailed account planning, focused relationship building and leading effective sales campaigns to successful closure. You should demonstrate the capability to work with the extended teams, both internally involving cross-functional resources and externally involving channel and alliance partners.

The ideal candidate will possess a named enterprise accounts direct-touch sales experience in a related Cybersecurity cloud based technology area that enables them to drive engagement with senior level decision makers within Cloudflare’s target customers and prospects. Industry experience selling into public sector, manufacturing, BFSI, Energy and other Enterprise verticals in the assigned territory is required in this role.

As a Senior Named Account Executive, you'll be responsible for developing and executing against a sales strategy/plan for the assigned accounts to achieve revenue targets and other key objectives required from this role. Therefore, you must have an intuitive understanding and experience with the key business and technical needs of these large accounts and will create and deliver compelling value propositions to them for the different Cloudflare solutions.

Additional responsibilities will include

• Manage complex sales cycles and contracts negotiations
• Develop and maintain a robust sales pipeline
• Develop long-term strategic relationships with key accounts
• Work with channel and alliances within the territory, whenever appropriate
• Engage the necessary resources within the extended team whenever required
• Accurate reporting and forecasting for the state of business within the assigned territory

Examples of desirable skills, knowledge and experience

• Fluent in English
• Proven direct touch selling experience across South Africa
• 15+ years of technology selling experience with 8+ years direct experience selling similar technologies such as SASE, ZT, FAAS, CASB, WAF, SWG, RBI, DDOS is required
• At least 8 years of selling to similar accounts, managing all milestones of a sales cycle, uncovering the opportunities, qualifying, developing and closing
• Understanding of computer networking and “how the internet works”
• Computer engineering or computer science or equivalent background with ability to sell highly technical solutions, ability to scale up with evolving technologies and an always learn aptitude for new technical concepts & solutions 
• Strong interpersonal communication (verbal