Sales Strategy & Operations Manager

Job Title: Sales Strategy & Operations Manager

Reports to: Director of Sales Strategy & Operations

Location: Alameda, CA

Founded in 2010, Terviva is an agriculture and biotech startup commercializing sustainable biofuels and food ingredients derived from pongamia. Pongamia is a leguminous, native-to-Asia “super tree,” lauded for its carbon-storing and nitrogen-fixing capabilities, as well as its drought and salinity tolerance. We have an ambitious but achievable mission to plant millions of these trees, for the benefit of farmers and the environment, to fuel greener transportation, and support nutritious diets.

The Sales & Marketing department at Terviva spans many functional areas, including business development, partnerships and pricing strategy, evaluating new market entry, and developing the go-to-market approach for all products in our portfolio. We are seeking a Manager, Sales Strategy & Operations to bring analytical rigor, strong interpersonal skills, and the ability to produce polished, high-quality deliverables. This person will spend up to 50% of their time as a project manager for the relationships and joint strategic initiatives for a handful of Terviva’s key customer accounts. 

This will be a challenging but rewarding role for a candidate who is intellectually curious, detail-oriented, and intrinsically motivated to “move the needle” in the climate tech and sustainability spaces. Expect a wide variety of assignments, some on short deadlines or with imperfect information, generally with the goal of spurring Terviva’s business leaders to choose a course of action or to evaluate prevailing strategy. Cross-functional internal stakeholders for this position will include Product, Marketing, Finance, Legal, Supply Chain, and Terviva’s executive team. Given that many Terviva employees and much of our customer base are distributed around the world, this role has a decidedly international lens.

The position is based in Alameda, CA, and reports to the Director of Sales Strategy & Operations. The hiring manager and the head of department both prize mentorship and career development; each has experience at Fortune 500 companies, top-ranked business schools, and were early-stage employees at startups that scaled massively. A high degree of trust and autonomy will be given to the successful candidate for this role. They will have many opportunities to advance both technical and soft skills, as well as contribute to building a “high impact / low ego,” empathetic, and fun culture at the company.

Responsibilities

• Regularly write management-facing memos and slides recommending a sales strategy, capital expenditure, or change to internal processes or policy
• Interview technical and non-technical stakeholders per the requirements of any given project, to obtain information, test hypotheses, and/or secure buy-in
• Create and maintain spreadsheet models, dashboards, and other visualizations of key metrics and business drivers for senior management
• Conduct high-quality market research and competitive analyses through publicly available sources and from leveraging industry contacts
• Interface with prospective and existing customers as part of sales pitches and account management including maintaining offtake relationships with a complex and sophisticated set of global customers
• Run our sales enablement function, including product marketing strategy work (positioning, competitive analysis, market conditions) and asset development (e.g., presentations and sales materials)

Sample (hypothetical) projects

• Write and distribute an evaluation of the desirability of partnering with a major multinational on selling one of our products in a new geographic region, encompassing details like market size and growth rates, competitive landscape, price structure and trends, and distribution channels
• Vet internal data and interview stakeholders to update yield and cost assumptions in a manufacturing model, in order to better understand COGS, pricing, and sales ramp of a forthcoming product
• Develop a project plan and act as the project manager for achieving key requirements for selling into different geographies or channels—including navigating differences in requirements, certifications, subsidies etc. 
• Create in-depth strategic account plans for key accounts; write and deliver quarterly and/or annual business reviews 

Requirements

• 5-7 years work experience. A diverse set of backgrounds may be suitable for this role, including those with experience at a top-tier management consulting firm or corporate strategy team. Also, or alternatively, experience in startups that have scaled significantly (typically Series C or later) in roles in sales operations, “BizOps,” or customer insights is desirable.
• Top-decile spreadsheet skills in Excel and Sheets. At a minimum, this includes proficient usage of index matches and lookup functions, data validation, error handling, comfort with using inherited financial or operational models, and building new models in an accessible and “user-proof” manner for cross-functional use.
• Strong written and oral communication skills. Looking for a strong intuition for matching communication style, length, and level of detail for each occasion as appropriate, coupled with demonstrable experience effectively presenting data-driven insights to company leaders and/or external customers.

Compensation

• Annual salary of $145,000, potential for an annual bonus, and a meaningful stock options grant

Benefits

• The opportunity to make an impact in a fast-growing, mission-driven company
• Medical, Dental, Vision, FSA, HSA, Commuter, Life, and Disability Benefits
• Retirement 401k
• 4 weeks paid time off annually
• 10 paid company holidays
• Cell phone stipend