Manager, Deal Desk & Contracts Exceptions | Hybrid | Reston, VA

Together We Are Powering The Future Of Higher Education

Ellucian powers innovation for higher education, partnering with approximately 3,000 customers across 50 countries, serving more than 21 million students. Ellucian's AI-powered platform, trained on the richest dataset available in higher education, drives efficiency, personalized experiences, and strengthened engagement for all students, faculty and staff. Fueled by decades of experience with a singular focus on the unique needs of learning institutions, the Ellucian platform features best-in-class SaaS capabilities and delivers insights needed now and into the future. These solutions and services span the entire student lifecycle, including data-rich tools for student recruitment, enrollment, and retention to workforce analytics, fundraising, and alumni engagement. Ellucian's innovative solutions, vast ecosystem of partners and user community of more than 45,000 provides best practices leading to greater institutional success and achieving better student outcomes.

About The Opportunity

The Deal Desk & Contract Exceptions Manager leads and owns a team that works cross-functionally with Revenue Operations, Contracts, Finance, and Legal to provide strategic deal structuring, pricing governance, and contract exception management in support of the Global Revenue organization.

This role serves as the escalation point for complex, high-value, or non-standard deals and contract exceptions, ensuring alignment with Ellucian's pricing policies, financial controls, and risk standards while enabling revenue growth.

The Manager supports the deal and exception lifecycle by partnering with internal teams on opportunity packaging and pricing strategy; advising on deal economics and risk; and communicating decisions clearly to internal stakeholders and, when appropriate, external customers.

Successful candidates demonstrate strong issue identification and resolution skills, an extremely high bar for customer service, and the ability to balance commercial flexibility with discipline and compliance in a fast-paced, fluid environment.

Where You Will Make An Impact

• Serve as the primary escalation point and decision-making authority for deal support and contract exception requests from Sales and Customer Success
• Analyze & investigate existing contracts to understand the full picture before making a recommendation for an exception resolution
• Drive resolution of high-impact customer challenges by aligning stakeholders, mitigating risk, and delivering solutions that strengthened long-term customer relationships
• Review, approve, and edit sales quotes involving custom pricing, non-standard terms, and complex commercial structures
• Partner with Revenue Leadership, Legal, Finance, Revenue Accounting, and Customer Success to ensure negotiated deals and contract exceptions are properly documented, auditable, and aligned with Ellucian policies
• Create and oversee quotes, schedules, and contract amendments reflecting product upgrades, renewals, and add-ons, including cumulative and enterprise-level discounting structures
• Develop and maintain deep expertise in Ellucian's pricing models, approval frameworks, and contract exception practices, identifying trends and opportunities for policy or process improvement
• Lead, coach, and develop team members; establish standards, training, and best practices
• Track and report on deal metrics including cycle time, exception volume, margin impact, and risk exposure to inform leadership decision-making
• Identify and propose process and workflow changes and identify areas where we can better use Technology and AI to improve all processes, deliverables and metrics

What You Will Bring

• 7–10+ years of experience in Deal Desk, Sales Finance, Revenue Operations, or Commercial Finance within an enterprise environment
• 3+ years of experience leading or mentoring teams in a high-volume, deadline-driven environment
• Strong experience supporting transactions of varying complexity using CRM and CPQ/ERP systems
• Proven ability to analyze and recommend courses of action for complex pricing, licensing, and contract exception scenarios
• Strong understanding of SaaS, cloud-based solutions, and subscription commercial models
• Expert knowledge in Microsoft Excel, including financial modeling and deal scenario analysis
• Experience drafting and reviewing customer proposals, amendments, and non-standard commercial terms
• Resolved complex customer issues efficiently by identifying root causes, coordinating cross-functional teams, and delivering timely, customer-focused solutions
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to influence cross-functional stakeholders
• Highly organized, proactive, creative, and results-oriented with strong judgment and attention to detail
• Service-minded approach to internal and external customer support, delivering excellence with consistency
• Flexibility to work varied hours to support sales cycles, seasonal volume fluctuations, and time-sensitive escalations
• Willingness to go the extra mile with a strong work ethic; self-directed and resourceful

What Makes #Ellucianlife

• Comprehensive health coverage: medical, dental, and vision
• Flexible time off
• Thrive Flex Lifestyle Account (LSA) that allows you to contribute towards your health, financial or learning interests
• 401k w/ match & BrightPlan - to help you save for the future
• Parental Leave
• 5 charitable days to support the community that supports us
• Telemedicine
• Wellness
• Headspace Care (mental health)
• Wellbeats (virtual fitness classes)
• RethinkCare & Wellthy– caregiver support
• Diversity and inclusion programs which provide access to internal employee resource groups
• Employee referral bonuses to encourage the addition of great new people to the team
• We Foster a learning culture with:
• Education Assistance Program
• Professional development opportunities