VP of Sales

Vice President of Sales

Company: Scholarly

Location: Denver metro area; open to remote for exceptional candidates

Reports to: CEO & Co-Founder

Compensation: $175,000 - $215,000 base salary, based on experience; on-target earnings (OTE) of $300,000 - $400,000; substantial equity

About Scholarly

Scholarly is building the next generation of AI-powered software for higher education with a faculty-first focus. As institutions face a wave of digital transformation, our mission is to become the AI-native system of record for faculty data. Our platform unifies fragmented workflows into a single, intelligent system that powers annual reviews, promotion & tenure, appointment tracking, and more, while eliminating manual data entry and improving decision-making for institutions. We’re a mission-driven, product-focused team shaping the future of higher education.

Position Overview

Scholarly is seeking a Vice President of Sales to own new-logo revenue and build a repeatable, scalable sales engine as we grow. This is an ideal role for a proven higher education or EdTech sales leader who has closed complex institutional deals, built and coached a high-performing team, and wants to have a direct, visible impact at a fast-growing startup.

This role is a mix of hands-on selling, team leadership, and go-to-market building. You’ll lead our team of Account Executives and Sales Development Representatives, personally engage in our most strategic pursuits (R1 research universities, academic medical centers, multi-campus systems, and formal RFPs), and build the process, forecasting discipline, and playbook that let the team scale behind you.

We’re looking for someone who is comfortable switching between a meeting in the provost’s office, a procurement negotiation, and a pipeline review with their team.

Key Responsibilities

Revenue & Pipeline Ownership

• Own the company’s new-logo ARR target, pipeline generation, and sales forecast.
• Personally lead or co-lead strategic pursuits at large accounts, engaging provosts, vice provosts for faculty affairs, deans, CIOs, and procurement teams.
• Navigate long, multi-stakeholder higher education buying cycles, including RFPs, consortium contracts, and fiscal-year budget timing.
• Build accurate weekly forecasting and pipeline discipline in our CRM (HubSpot).
• Partner with the CEO on pricing, packaging, and deal strategy for complex opportunities.

Team Leadership

• Lead, coach, and develop Account Executives and SDRs; set clear quotas, activity standards, and territory plans.
• Recruit, hire, and onboard new sales team members as the team grows.
• Run deal reviews and call coaching, and establish a consistent sales methodology across the team.

Go-to-Market Building

• Build and continuously improve the Scholarly sales playbook, including ideal customer profile and segment definitions, qualification criteria, discovery and demo standards, proposal and RFP processes, and competitive positioning.
• Define and track the metrics that matter (e.g., pipeline coverage, win rate, sales cycle length, average contract value, quota attainment, SDR-to-AE conversion) and drive improvements against them.
• Partner with marketing on outbound, events, and account-based campaigns targeting priority institutions.

Internal Collaboration

• Ensure clean handoffs to Implementation and Customer Success, with accurate expectations on scope and timeline.
• Bring customer and market feedback to Product and Engineering to shape the roadmap.
• Work with Customer Success to identify and close expansion opportunities within existing accounts.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• 10+ years of B2B SaaS sales experience, including 4+ years leading a quota-carrying team.
• Track record selling enterprise software into higher education strongly preferred; experience with other complex institutional buyers (academic medicine, healthcare, public sector) also considered.
• Consistent record of meeting or exceeding quota and closing six-figure, multi-year deals with long sales cycles.
• Experience responding to and winning formal RFPs and navigating public procurement.
• Experience building sales process at an early- or growth-stage company; comfortable operating without a large support structure.
• Strong command of CRM tools and pipeline forecasting.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; executive presence with senior academic leaders.
• Passion for higher education, EdTech, or mission-driven software preferred.

Compensation & Benefits

• Base salary: $175,000 - $215,000, depending on experience.
• On-target earnings (OTE): $300,000 - $400,000, including base salary and variable compensation.
• Variable compensation: Paid primarily on company net-new ARR, with a portion tied to quarterly business objectives. Uncapped, with accelerators for performance above plan.
• Substantial equity in a fast-growing startup.
• Health, dental, and vision insurance.
• Flexible work environment with hybrid options.

Why Join Scholarly

• Take on a highly visible leadership role that directly shapes the company’s growth. This role will be critical to the company’s future success.
• Work directly with the founders and senior leadership team.
• Build and lead the sales organization at an early, formative stage.
• Opportunity to grow into a broader revenue leadership role as the company scales.