Senior Director, Sales Development

Job Overview

Coursera’s Enterprise Marketing and Sales Development team helps organizations around the world unlock human potential through learning. We connect businesses, universities, and governments with our world-class content, cutting-edge AI-enhanced platform, and innovative learning solutions to upskill workforces and empower lifelong learning at scale.  The Enterprise Sales Development function is a critical growth engine within our Enterprise Business, driving new customer acquisition and expanding relationships with existing clients. Through strategic marketing programs, data-driven outreach, and a customer-first mindset, the team plays an essential role in increasing awareness, building pipeline, and accelerating Coursera’s market share across all enterprise segments.

As the Sr. Director, Global Sales Development, you will serve as a key member of the Enterprise Marketing leadership team, reporting directly to the VP of Enterprise Marketing. You will lead a high-performing, globally distributed team of Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) who are responsible for generating qualified pipeline through both inbound and outbound efforts. Your mission will be to ignite growth by driving demand from new accounts and deepening engagement with current customers through strategic cross-sell and upsell initiatives. You will be a strategic leader and operational expert—shaping the global SDR strategy, building scalable programs and processes, and ensuring alignment across Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success. Your leadership will empower the team to exceed performance targets while maintaining a culture of learning, innovation, and collaboration.

The ideal candidate will have global leadership experience, experience building and managing high performing SDRs, be data-driven, and collaborate effectively with partners across marketing, sales and customer success. If you are excited by the fast pace of building a global business that is having an impact on the world, we’d love to hear from you!

Responsibilities

• Define and execute a global inbound and outbound Sales Development strategy that supports Coursera’s growth objectives and aligns with regional go-to-market priorities.
• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing SDR organization across multiple geographies; establish clear performance expectations, career development plans, and a culture of accountability and success.  
• Partner with Enterprise Marketing, Field Sales, and Customer Success to ensure seamless orchestration between marketing campaigns, lead qualification, and sales follow-up, driving strong conversion rates and pipeline growth.
• Use data, metrics, and market insights to optimize SDR programs, forecast pipeline performance, create incentives to drive behaviors, and identify new opportunities for process improvement and automation.
• Collaborate with Enablement and Operations teams to implement tools, training, and best practices that enhance productivity and outbound effectiveness. Provide feedback to marketing teams to optimize lead generation programs based on lead conversion success.
• Champion innovation, testing new approaches and technologies that improve lead generation, personalization, and customer engagement globally.
• Represent Sales Development as a strategic voice in enterprise planning, helping to shape campaigns, messaging, and revenue strategies that accelerate Coursera’s enterprise expansion.

Basic Qualifications

• 15+ years experience scaling global SDR organizations in fast growth Enterprise SaaS environment
• 7+ years of sales development management experience or similar management experience 
• Highly collaborative and true team player (we before me) with a deep sense of ownership and accountability
• Executive presence and engagement skills
• Analytical skills and ability to leverage data to make business cases and decisions
• Strong verbal and written communication skills

Preferred Qualifications 

• You have built and led global SDR organizations with 35+ individual contributors
• You have a proven record of sales success and possess strong collaboration and communication skills
• You identify and communicate organizational roadblocks and are able to work through them
• You have a robust Salesforce analysis and reporting skill set and have detailed knowledge of the SaaS tech stack including sourcing, prospecting, and outreach technologies
• You are comfortable in a fast-paced environment that requires the ability to work independently and adaptively, anticipate and mitigate friction points, and take initiative to promptly resolve and learn from challenges.
• Proven experience helping build/scale businesses

If this opportunity interests you, you might like these courses on Coursera:

• Groundwork for Success in Sales Development
• Boosting Productivity through the Tech Stack
• Conversational Selling Playbook
  

Compensation

Compensation for this role is location-based using four U.S. pay zones (see below).  Base pay aligns to your zone and will also reflect your experience and role level. Your recruiter will confirm your zone and the applicable range early in the process; we disclose pay ranges where required.

US Zone 1  - San Francisco Bay Area

This role is not available in Zone 1

US Zone 2 - NYC and Seattle Metro Area

This role is not available in Zone 2

US Zone 3 - CA, WA, NY, NJ, CO, CT, DC, GA, IL, MA, MD, OR, RI, TX, VA

$196,222 - $230,850

US Zone 4 - All other U.S. states not listed above

$182,495 - $214,700

The range(s) listed above is the expected annual base salary for this role, subject to change.

Salary is just one component of Coursera’s total rewards package. All regular employees are also eligible for a bonus program and equity in the form of RSUs.

A number of factors are taken into account when determining pay, which includes: job level, location, training/education, business need, skill set, and internal equity.