About this Account Executive - Portfolio role at Cisco
Join a dynamic sales team that serves as the primary driver for Cisco’s core secure networking portfolio, including switching, wireless, and routing technologies. We operate as strategic orchestrators, aligning complex cross-portfolio solutions with the unique business goals of our Commercial Select Accounts. Our team bridges the gap between customer roadmaps and market-leading innovations, ensuring our clients achieve measurable outcomes through sustainable growth. You will collaborate closely with Portfolio Solution Engineers and specialist teams to deliver technical expertise and competitive positioning in a fast-paced environment. This is an exciting opportunity to influence major purchasing decisions and shape the digital transformation of industry-leading organizations.
Your Impact:
- Manages a defined set of accounts serving as the primary influencer in purchasing decisions. Builds and sustains strong, long-term relationships with customers.
- Collaborates with customers to understand their business goals, identify opportunities for upsell/cross-sell additional solutions, and create demand based on what's possible in customer roadmaps.
- Serves as the Account Orchestrator, aligning and integrating solutions with customer needs, driving sustainable cross-portfolio growth through coordination and competitive deal packing.
- Typically serves multiple domains or product areas across a portfolio or set of accounts.
- Maintains a comprehensive understanding of Cisco’s full product portfolio to articulate Cisco's overall product strategy and how it is differentiated in the market in response to customer outcomes.
- Has a deep focus on core secure networking technologies including switching, wireless, and routing.
- Engages Portfolio Solution Engineers to enhance the sales process.
- Engages specialist teams, particularly in non-core secure networking areas, where deep competitive positioning and technical expertise is required.
- Builds the sales funnel through good opportunity prospecting and drives opportunities through to sales completion to achieve revenue goals.
- Ensures funnel is accurately represented in Cisco's CRM tools.
- Analyses data and creates forecasts to set weekly, monthly, and quarterly sales commitments.
- Stays informed about industry trends, market dynamics, and competitive landscapes.
- Specialization and Focus - Generalist, with knowledge of the full product portfolio but with expertise in the core secure networking portfolio including switching, wireless, routing and firewall. Additional dependencies on size and complexity of account, particular franchise focus (architectural, product or opportunity aligned ) may be relevant
What You'll Do:
- Manages end-to-end deal cycles of moderate to high complexity independently. Typically prospects new deals and develops accounts:
- Within a large regional or small national area associated with mid-to-high Cisco segmentation tiers (e.g., Major Accounts)
- With senior level management to C-suite leaders
- Provides insight/feedback into dynamic data sources to ensure high-value prospecting, strategic outreach, and a strong forecast and pipeline
- Develops in-depth understanding of customer(s) product(s), organization, industry, challenges, to align Cisco’s solutions with decision-makers; researches other relevant solutions as required
- Leverages market insights, emerging technologies, and competitive analysis in customer-facing materials, demos etc.
- Uses broad and targeted discovery to uncover nuanced customer needs, and coordinate tailored solutions
- Builds trust with customers by actively listening, providing relevant insights, and strengthening relationships with key organizational influencers
- Independently negotiates standard deals by articulating compelling value propositions, addressing customer priorities, and ensuring follow-through on commitments that balance customer needs with Cisco's profitability
- Manages the account planning process with own team; works with SE and others to develop prospect proposal or customer/account plans
- Uses standard and occasional non-standard methods to describe Cisco solution value and address customer challenges in discovery conversations
- Identifies and documents inefficiencies in internal sales processes, and implements improvements to internal approval workflows, and operational tools
- Engages with sales operations and finance teams to resolve deal-processing roadblocks before they impact revenue timelines
- Actively collaborates with colleagues to solve customer challenges
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelors + 5 years of related experience, or Masters + 3 years of related experience, or PhD + 0 years of related experience.
Why Cisco?
At Cisco, we’re revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era – and beyond. We’ve been innovating fearlessly for 40 years to create solutions that power how humans and technology work together across the physical and digital worlds. These solutions provide customers with unparalleled security, visibility, and insights across the entire digital footprint.
Fueled by the depth and breadth of our technology, we experiment and create meaningful solutions. Add to that our worldwide network of doers and experts, and you’ll see that the opportunities to grow and build are limitless. We work as a team, collaborating with empathy to make really big things happen on a global scale. Because our solutions are everywhere, our impact is everywhere.
We are Cisco, and our power starts with you.
Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:
The starting salary range posted for this position is $214,300.00 to $270,700.00 and reflects the projected salary range for new hires in this position in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including incentive compensation*, equity, or benefits.Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location, market conditions, job-related skillset, experience, qualifications, education, certifications, and/or training. The full salary range for certain locations is listed below. For locations not listed below, the recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.
U.S. employees are offered benefits, subject to Cisco’s plan eligibility rules, which include medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability coverage, and basic life insurance. Please see the Cisco careers site to discover more benefits and perks. Employees may be eligible to receive grants of Cisco restricted stock units, which vest following continued employment with Cisco for defined periods of time.
U.S. employees are eligible for paid time away as described below, subject to Cisco’s policies:
10 paid holidays per full calendar year, plus 1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees
1 paid day off for employee’s birthday, paid year-end holiday shutdown, and 4 paid days off for personal wellness determined by Cisco
Non-exempt employees** receive 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at rate of 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees
Exempt employees participate in Cisco’s flexible vacation time off program, which has no defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use (subject to availability and some business limitations)
80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter, and up to 80 hours of unused sick time carried forward from one calendar year to the next
Additional paid time away may be requested to deal with critical or emergency issues for family members
Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer
For non-sales roles, employees are also eligible to earn annual bonuses subject to Cisco’s policies.
Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components, subject to the applicable Cisco plan. For quota-based incentive pay, Cisco typically pays as follows:
.75% of incentive target for each 1% of revenue attainment up to 50% of quota;
1.5% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 50% and 75%;
1% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 75% and 100%; and
Once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap on incentive compensation.
For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay 0% up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.
The applicable full salary ranges for this position, by specific state, are listed below:
New York City Metro Area:
$214,300.00 - $315,000.00Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:
$204,400.00 - $297,100.00* For quota-based sales roles on Cisco’s sales plan, the ranges provided in this posting include base pay and sales target incentive compensation combined.
** Employees in Illinois, whether exempt or non-exempt, will participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements.
