Priyanka Nikam
Sales Director
Navi mumbai
Summary
As a Sales Excellence Director my role is to be a driver of sales discipline and execution excellence, as well as a sales coach, accelerating business growth by translating insights into actions. I am a strategic contributor in operationalizing strategy, driving growth, increasing seller productivity, and driving cultural transformation. I strive to work with managers and sellers across the globe, and internal Sales Excellence & Operations, Finance, and other key corporate stakeholders synergically.
Overview
18
18
years of professional experience
2
2
years of post-secondary education
9
9
Certifications
Work History
Enterprise Sales Director
Lionbridge
09.2013 - Current
- Global Account Management: Leads the development and execution of account plans to meet revenue targets and customer business objectives
- Collaborates with both internal and external stakeholders to drive mutually beneficial digital transformation strategies for customers
- Global Customer Engagement: Cultivates a deep understanding of customer industry priorities and tailors Lionbridge solutions based on customer insights
- Acts as the customer's advocate internally, ensuring that the needs and requests of assigned accounts are effectively addressed
- Sales Excellence: Orchestrates and leads cross-functional virtual teams to consistently achieve market share growth across product areas
- Industry Knowledge: Continuously builds and sustains in-depth knowledge of customers' industries, business strategies, and key partners and solutions
- Coordinates with internal industry experts to enhance customer outcomes
- Sales Strategy and Planning: Develops and executes a comprehensive sales strategy for multi-domain industries, aligning with company-wide goals
- Analyzes emerging AI trends, competitor activities, and customer needs to identify opportunities and challenges
- Gen AI, LLM, and NMT Specialist: Serves as a thought leader in digital transformation across solution areas, advising customers and helping the team develop vision-driven sales plans
- Leads the team in creating close plans, managing timelines, engaging customers, securing buy-in, and ensuring predictable deal closure
- Leverages global resources to connect partner ecosystems and create new market opportunities
- Drives team performance to meet sales targets and operational standards, while maintaining key performance metrics
- Engages with corporate leadership and executive stakeholders to secure support
- Formulates competitive strategies for positioning Lionbridge products, services, and solutions
- Also responsible for people management, employee development, project execution, and performance management
- Team Leadership: Builds and motivates a high-performing sales team through creative coaching, guidance, and support to ensure both individual and collective success
- Promotes a collaborative, results-driven sales culture
- Global Relationship Management: Develops and maintains strong relationships with key decision-makers and influencers within global organizations
- Collaborates with both internal and external stakeholders to understand client needs and tailor solutions accordingly
- Revenue Growth: Drives revenue growth by consistently meeting or exceeding sales targets within the Localization, NMT, and Gen AI sectors
- Identifies new business opportunities and expansion potential within existing accounts
- Global Market Expansion: Identifies and pursues opportunities for expanding market share across diverse industries and global markets
- Develops and implements go-to-market strategies for new products and services within the sector
- Performance Measurement: Sets KPIs for the sales team and regularly monitors performance
- Implements data-driven decision-making to optimize sales efforts and drive results
- Collaboration with Other Global Departments: Works closely with marketing, product development, and customer success teams to ensure alignment in serving Fortune 500 clients
- Contributes valuable insights to product development based on market feedback and trends
- Compliance and Ethics: Ensures all sales activities are conducted in compliance with relevant industry regulations and ethical standards
- Manages the full lifecycle of client NDA and MSA contracts, including review, verification, and renewal, ensuring adherence to company policies and legal requirements
Team Lead, Inside Sales and Business Development
Dassault Systemes Subsidise Reseller Partner IDSPL
01.2011 - 01.2013
- Sales Growth and Business Planning: Drives mid-to-long-term sales growth through effective account and business planning
- Analyse market outlooks and generates business insights to benchmark performance and develop strategies for sales, organizational, and partner initiatives
- Contributes to the integration and execution of strategy components (e.g., programs, blueprints), aligning and cascading strategies across regions
- Strategy Development and Execution: Collaborates with segment leads, partners, and peers to develop comprehensive segmentation strategies, territory planning, and quota setting
- Provides feedback on proposed segmentation adjustments based on local market knowledge
- Works closely with Business and Sales Operations (BSO) to align on quota distribution strategy and timelines, and leverages segment expertise to review adjustments before final quota decisions
- Participates in sales leader and manager briefings to communicate quotas and rationale
- Business Plan Leadership: Orchestrates the Account/Portfolio Partner Business Plan and activates support from segment leaders
- Coaches managers and sales teams on business planning fundamentals, habits, and plan quality
- Drives the review and reinforcement of quality plans across regions, ensuring consistent execution
- Rhythm of Connection (RoC) Leadership: Defines and drives a predictable Rhythm of Connection (RoC) in collaboration with leadership and peers
- Leads RoC activities to ensure discipline and quality outcomes, offering in-depth business insights and actionable recommendations to foster positive change
- Coaches less experienced team members to streamline and improve RoC processes across regions
- Opportunity Management and Sales Strategy: Guides sales teams and leadership on sales motions and strategies for opportunity management (e.g., up-sell, cross-sell, renewal, recapture)
- Clarifies accountabilities and operationalizes prioritized sales plays and industry solutions, ensuring teams generate new business and accelerate deal closures
- Sales Coaching for Growth and Transformation: Coaches and builds relationships with sales managers to execute key priorities
- Identifies coaching opportunities based on data-driven insights and influences managers to enhance their effectiveness as coaches
- Guides sales managers to improve individual and team capabilities, increase employee satisfaction, and foster collaborative selling
- May also provide coaching for large deal pursuits
- Program Adoption and Process Optimization: Drives awareness and clarity around Corporate or TimeZone programs, promoting adoption and the creation of new habits within sales teams or partners
- Works to optimize sales processes and capabilities, anticipating customer/partner needs and applying methodologies to transform sales processes and enhance seller/partner engagement
- Models and nurtures a coaching culture focused on transformation
- Collaboration to Overcome Sales Roadblocks: Partners with Area Transformation Leads, Capability Leads, and Business and Sales Operations (BSO) to remove roadblocks, optimize investments, increase customer-facing time, and enhance sales and partner effectiveness
- Shares insights to help sales managers anticipate and mitigate risks, integrating feedback into actionable plans
- Driving Sales Process Discipline: Leads analytics on key revenue drivers (e.g., by channel, product, geography) to generate actionable data-based insights
- Develops reporting and analytical capabilities to provide visibility into revenue and sales forecasts for sellers, sales managers, leaders, and partners
- Ensures adherence to sales process standards, pipeline health, and execution excellence across segments/regions
- Tool Usage and Process Improvement: Acts as a subject matter expert on tools and processes, driving rigorous and effective usage of common and new tools to improve internal and external communication and engagements
- Provides consolidated input for feedback loops, using insights to influence the development of improved tools
- Supporting Executive Capacity: Advises segment leaders on business management aspects, including employee engagement, resource allocation, change management, and team building
- Collaborates with leadership and cross-functional teams to build high-performing teams and represents the segment as a senior internal advocate
- Cultural Leadership: Embodies and promotes the company’s culture and values, serving as a role model for both internal teams and external partners
Project Lead - Sales & Ticketing Reservations
Etihad Airways
04.2008 - 04.2009
Sales Executive
The Park
09.2006 - 02.2007
Education
Masters in Business Administration - International Business & Marketing
01.2012 - 01.2014
Masters in Business Studies - Finance - Dual Specialization
Bachelors in Organizational Psychology - undefined
University of Mumbai
Skills
Bachelor's Degree in Marketing and Finance with 13 years’ experience with active participation in sales training, sales operations/management, account management, program management, business development, marketing and consulting
Experience using data to drive business outcomes or inform business decisions
Managing relationships with stakeholders, clients, and global customers Demonstrated business acumen, knowledge of Partner operating models within the high-tech industry, and experience collaborating with Partners and customer segment sales teams
Ability to prepare business and data analysis to understand business performance and identify business risks leveraging published business intelligence
Skill in preparing business communications which enable recipients to easily understand significance, understand action needed, and motivate execution
Critical thinking skills to challenge existing business processes and identify opportunities for improvement resulting in more efficient and effective operations
Ability to work across functional teams and at varying levels from SMEs to leadership to leverage skills and perspectives to resolve issues and create successful collaboration
Proven ability to create bi-directionally valued relationships with colleagues across organizational and geographically dispersed teams
Organizational savvy with an understanding of Partner business models, inclusive of current year business priorities, context on pass business models and future partner growth strategies
Familiarity with customer and partner sales enablement tools and sales processes providing foundation to understand business blockers/challenges shared by field teams, and implement corrective actions
Ability to think strategically, making choices on issues and opportunities to prioritize in both short and long-term ranges
Manage Corporate goals in creating proactive performance insight, synthesising field blockers/challenges, clarifying drivers, and addressing issues escalated from global teams
Deliver with stakeholders Segment Business Review resources and data packs and orchestrate execution and follow-up activity inclusive of Regional quarterly business review (QBR) preparation and action item progress and closure
Certification
Applied Data Science_Gen AI ML, MIT (US), 2023 - 2024
Personal Information
Date of Birth: 07/26/1986
Languagequalifications
- French, Basic, Level 1, Let’s Talk Academy, Pune, 2012
- English, Proficiency Level 3
- Marathi, Proficiency Level 2 (Mother Tongue)
- Hindi, Proficiency Level 2 (National Language)
Timeline
Enterprise Sales Director
Lionbridge
09.2013 - Current
Masters in Business Administration - International Business & Marketing
01.2012 - 01.2014
Team Lead, Inside Sales and Business Development
Dassault Systemes Subsidise Reseller Partner IDSPL
01.2011 - 01.2013
Project Lead - Sales & Ticketing Reservations
Etihad Airways
04.2008 - 04.2009
Sales Executive
The Park
09.2006 - 02.2007
Masters in Business Studies - Finance - Dual Specialization
Bachelors in Organizational Psychology - undefined
University of Mumbai