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Salary: USD 136,850 - 195,500 / annual
Ping Identity is seeking a Director of Sales for SLED (State, Local, Education, and K–12) to lead a regional sales team across the Eastern United States. The role reports to the VP of Public Sector Sales and is field-based with regular travel (up to 50%) across the territory and to customer, partner, and industry events.
You will lead and develop a high-performing team of Strategic Account Executives, creating and executing the SLED East go-to-market strategy including territory design, account segmentation, and quarterly operating rhythms. Key responsibilities include building early-stage demand and new-logo pipeline through executive outreach, mission-led account hypotheses, customer referrals, partner intelligence, and responsible use of AI and data signals. You will position Ping Identity's identity-security platform against SLED priorities such as legacy modernization, Zero Trust, identity proofing, phishing-resistant authentication, workforce and contractor access, citizen services, student access, fraud reduction, privacy, and operational resilience.
You will lead disciplined opportunity execution from discovery through award and expansion, including qualification, stakeholder mapping, technical validation, demonstrations, proofs of value, RFI/RFP responses, contract-vehicle strategy, pricing, negotiation, and close plans. You will maintain an accurate, evidence-based forecast reflecting funding, budget authority, compelling events, decision criteria, stakeholder support, procurement route, contract vehicle, competitive position, partner role, implementation readiness, and timing risk.
Building trusted relationships with state CIOs, CISOs, CTOs, digital-service, security, identity, education, procurement, finance, program, and executive stakeholders is critical. You will develop and activate a national and regional partner ecosystem including contract holders, distributors, resellers, systems integrators, advisory firms, cloud and technology partners, higher-education and K–12 ecosystem partners, and public-sector associations. You will work with key national and regional partners and associations including NASPO, E&I, NASCIO, NASTD, Carahsoft, and regional government-technology and education networks.
You will orchestrate cross-functional pursuit teams across Sales Engineering, Solutions Specialists, Customer Success, Professional Services, Business Value, Marketing, Channel, Product, Finance, Legal, and executive sponsors. You will coach the team on public-sector buying behavior, SLED budget cycles, cooperative purchasing, state and local contracting, education procurement, ethics, value selling, MEDDPPICC, mutual action plans, and close-plan discipline. You will represent Ping Identity with credibility at customer briefings, executive roundtables, public-sector associations, partner events, and education forums, bringing field intelligence back to internal leadership.
Success looks like the team consistently meeting or exceeding quota, new-logo, pipeline, and expansion objectives; SLED East having a current, executable territory plan; new-logo pipeline created early with measurable partner contributions; accurate, conservative, explainable forecasts; customers experiencing one coordinated Ping team; strong national and regional partnerships producing customer access and qualified new logos; Strategic Account Executives demonstrating disciplined account planning and execution; and the team developing talent, sharing field intelligence, and operating with accountability, ethics, and continuous improvement.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 8+ years of enterprise software, SaaS, cybersecurity, or technology sales experience, including 3–5 years leading quota-carrying sales teams
- Consistent record of meeting or exceeding revenue targets and developing new public-sector logos in complex, multi-stakeholder sales cycles
- Direct SLED experience, leading a SLED sales team across multiple states and account segments
- Strong relationships and market knowledge across the Eastern U.S. SLED landscape, with ability to build access in state agencies, municipalities, counties, school districts, community colleges, universities, and higher-education systems
- Working knowledge of SLED and education budget cycles, procurement, contracting, cooperative purchasing, contract vehicles, reseller models, systems-integrator motions, and partner-led delivery
- Demonstrated success creating and progressing opportunities before an RFI/RFP, influencing requirements, building consensus, and closing new logos through customer value
- Experience leading executive conversations with CIOs, CISOs, CTOs, chief digital officers, superintendents, higher-education technology and security leaders, procurement executives, and mission owners
- Strong understanding of identity security, IAM, CIAM, workforce identity, authentication, authorization, federation, identity governance, fraud and verification, Zero Trust, cloud and hybrid architectures, and subscription software models
- Ability to connect identity strategy to SLED mission outcomes including public safety, benefits and constituent services, workforce productivity, student success, research, privacy, accessibility, and resilience
- Familiarity with relevant public-sector and education frameworks including CISA Zero Trust guidance, NIST Digital Identity Guidelines, CJIS, FERPA, state privacy requirements, and applicable cloud-security or accessibility requirements
- Strong leadership, communication, presentation, negotiation, inspection, and change-management skills; credible with customers, partners, and senior internal stakeholders
- Fluency with Salesforce and related sales, forecasting, account-planning, and productivity tools; analytical and data-driven decision-making
PREFERRED:
- Experience selling or leading in identity security, cybersecurity, IAM, CIAM, fraud prevention, identity verification, or adjacent cloud-security markets
- Experience with higher-education consortia, K–12 districts, state education agencies, or multi-campus environments
- Established relationships with national and regional public-sector resellers, distributors, systems integrators, advisory firms, cloud providers, technology alliances, and education ecosystem partners
- Familiarity with emerging identity requirements for AI agents, non-person identities, automated workflows, and machine-to-machine access
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience; relevant identity, cybersecurity, public-sector, or sales leadership certifications are a plus
