Principal, Sales Programs

Summary

About Guidewire
Guidewire is the platform P&C insurers trust to run, differentiate, and grow their business.

About the Role
Guidewire is building its Sales Programs discipline from the ground up, and this role owns it. Sales programs are C-suite aligned priorities agreed upon by Field and Product, whether that is a competitive takedown, a new product nurture campaign, or an adoption push in the installed base.

As Principal, Sales Programs, you will lead program selection, build the execution infrastructure, maintain the operating rhythm, and hold the accountability framework that keeps programs honest. You will work across Product Management, Product Marketing, Sales, Field Enablement, Sales Operations, Finance, and executive leadership. This role is built for a former management consultant used to working in a highly matrixed organization driving GTM motions. The work is structured problem solving against ambiguous commercial questions, opportunity sizing, executive communication, and cross-functional program leadership.

Job Description

What You'll Do
Program Selection and Prioritization. Own the intake and evaluation process for new Sales Program candidates. Apply a structured evaluation bar, assess business impact and feasibility, and bring prioritized recommendations to senior leadership with clear rationale for what gets greenlit and what gets deferred. Prioritization decisions are defensible against the financial model: expected revenue impact, pipeline coverage contribution, and cycle time improvement.

Customer Journey Analysis and Problem Framing. Every program starts with a precise read of where the problem is in the customer journey and what problem matters at that stage. Write targeted problem and opportunity statements for specific stages in Guidewire's customer journey, not generic ones. A pipeline generation program for a net-new logo and an expansion program for a live account require different positioning, different success metrics, and different field behaviors.

Program Design and Brief Development. For every approved program, develop the brief: problem statement, opportunity sizing, target segment, intended field behavior change, competitive positioning, and success metrics. Programs under your ownership span multi-quarter lifecycles, carry C-suite sponsorship, and integrate coordinated levers across PMM, enablement, marketing, and field operations. Every brief includes a financial case: what we expect the program to move, over what time horizon, against what baseline.

Program Launch and Execution. Manage the full Sales Program launch lifecycle. Coordinate core and extended teams, finalize target account lists, align inspection cadence with Sales Operations, and ensure enablement content, communications, and sales leader briefings land before the field is activated. Maintain a launch kit that makes standing up new programs faster over time.

Operating Rhythm and Governance. Run the program cadence: weekly execution reviews, quarterly steerco presentations, and annual planning contribution that sequences the portfolio against strategic priorities. Track KPIs, surface blockers, and lead goal recalibration when actuals diverge from model.

Field Activation and Incentive Design. Partner with Sales leadership and Sales Operations to design incentive structures tied to program outcomes, whether that is quota-linked incentives, recognition programs, contests, or other mechanisms that drive the specific actions a program requires.

What We're Looking For

• 10+ years combined experience across management consulting and enterprise B2B software GTM.
• Former top-tier management consulting experience (MBB, Big Four strategy, or equivalent) strongly preferred. This role is explicitly designed around a consulting skill set.
• Direct experience in GTM strategy, sales programs, revenue operations, or product marketing inside an enterprise software company.
• Fluent in the financial metrics that govern enterprise software: ARR, NRR, pipeline coverage, bookings, win rate, ASP, cycle time, LTV, expansion revenue, retention. Comfortable reading a P&L and building a defensible financial case with finance that holds up under CFO and CRO scrutiny.
• Can understand an enterprise customer journey end to end, identify where commercial leverage sits at each stage, and match the right metrics to the right stage.
• Has built and run structured GTM programs with accountability for both design and results. Knows the difference between a program that changes field behavior and one that generates a slide deck.
• Operates in a matrixed environment, influences without authority, and moves programs forward without perfect information.

Why This Role