Head of Sales

Head of Sales – Cybersecurity
Location: Pune, Maharashtra
Markets: India and International
Employment Type: Full-time
Industry: Cybersecurity / Enterprise Technology
About the Company
Innvikta is a fast-growing cybersecurity startup with ambitious plans to build a strong presence in India and international markets. The company is looking for an experienced and entrepreneurial Head of Sales who can establish the sales function, build a high-performing team, create a predictable revenue pipeline, and position the organization as a trusted cybersecurity brand.
Role Overview
The Head of Sales will have end-to-end responsibility for the company’s sales strategy, revenue growth, team development, sales processes, and market expansion.
This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who can build the sales function from the ground up while actively developing relationships, creating opportunities, conducting customer meetings, and closing strategic deals.
The ideal candidate will have a successful track record in cybersecurity or enterprise technology sales, an established network of relevant decision-makers, and experience selling to customers in India and international markets.
Key ResponsibilitiesSales strategy and revenue growth
Develop and execute the company’s sales strategy for domestic and international markets.
Establish revenue plans covering target markets, customer segments, industries, territories, and sales channels.
Build a predictable and scalable pipeline of qualified opportunities.
Own the complete sales cycle, from prospecting and qualification to demonstrations, proposals, negotiations, closure, and account expansion.
Identify new markets, revenue streams, strategic accounts, channel opportunities, and partnerships.
Develop market-entry plans for priority international regions.
Work closely with the founders and leadership team to align sales activities with the company’s business objectives.
Sales process and operations
Design and implement a structured, repeatable, and measurable sales process.
Define processes for lead generation, qualification, discovery, demonstrations, proposal management, follow-ups, forecasting, closure, and customer handover.
Select, implement, and manage the company’s CRM and supporting sales technology.
Ensure accurate and timely recording of leads, opportunities, interactions, forecasts, and deal stages.
Establish sales dashboards and reporting systems that provide clear visibility into performance and pipeline health.
Develop sales playbooks, scripts, qualification frameworks, proposal templates, pricing processes, and account plans.
Build a strong coordination process between sales, marketing, product, technical, and customer-success teams.
Pipeline development and deal closure
Build and maintain a healthy pipeline across India and selected international markets.
Leverage an existing professional network of CISOs, CIOs, IT leaders, security professionals, channel partners, consultants, and enterprise decision-makers.
Develop strategic relationships with key accounts and senior stakeholders.
Personally lead high-value and complex enterprise opportunities.
Conduct discovery meetings, solution presentations, product demonstrations, commercial discussions, and contract negotiations.
Collaborate with technical teams to understand customer requirements and present appropriate cybersecurity solutions.
Maintain a disciplined approach to opportunity qualification and pipeline progression.
Improve sales velocity, conversion rates, average deal value, and customer acquisition efficiency.
Team building and leadership
Build the sales organization based on the company’s growth plan.
Recruit, onboard, train, mentor, and manage sales and business development professionals.
Define individual and team roles, territories, targets, responsibilities, and incentive structures.
Set ambitious but achievable sales targets and create action plans to achieve them.
Conduct regular pipeline reviews, performance reviews, forecasting meetings, and coaching sessions.
Create a high-accountability, performance-driven, and customer-focused sales culture.
Develop future sales leaders as the company expands into new markets.
International business development
Develop and execute sales strategies for selected international markets.
Identify suitable customer segments, channel partners, distributors, consultants, and strategic alliances.
Understand regional buying behaviour, competition, sales cycles, and customer expectations.
Build relationships with international customers and partners through virtual and in-person engagement.
Represent the company at relevant international conferences, trade shows, delegations, and networking events.
Work with the leadership team on region-specific pricing, positioning, partnerships, and market-entry decisions.
Events, partnerships and market presence
Represent the company at cybersecurity conferences, exhibitions, roundtables, customer forums, and networking events.
Identify relevant speaking, sponsorship, partnership, and lead-generation opportunities.
Build relationships with cybersecurity associations, professional communities, industry influencers, system integrators, and channel partners.
Develop and manage strategic alliances that generate qualified opportunities and expand the company’s reach.
Ensure that leads generated through events and partnerships are systematically followed up and converted into pipeline.
Brand building and market positioning
Work with the marketing team to strengthen the company’s brand and market credibility.
Contribute customer and market insights to the company’s positioning, messaging, content, campaigns, and go-to-market strategy.
Help position the company and its leadership as trusted voices in cybersecurity.
Participate in webinars, panel discussions, podcasts, interviews, industry forums, and thought-leadership initiatives.
Build customer references, testimonials, case studies, and success stories.
Ensure that sales communication consistently reflects the company’s brand, value proposition, and technical credibility.
Targets, forecasting and performance
Define annual, quarterly, and monthly revenue targets for India and international markets.
Translate company revenue goals into clear team and individual targets.
Establish KPIs covering pipeline coverage, qualified opportunities, conversion rates, sales cycles, deal values, revenue, and retention or expansion.
Maintain accurate revenue forecasts and communicate risks, gaps, and opportunities to the leadership team.
Take corrective action when performance falls behind plan.
Track customer acquisition costs, sales productivity, and channel performance.
Take full ownership of achieving the company’s sales and revenue targets.
Candidate Requirements
Significant experience in enterprise sales, business development, or sales leadership within cybersecurity, SaaS, or enterprise technology.
Strong preference for candidates with direct cybersecurity sales experience.
Proven success in building or scaling a sales function within a startup or growth-stage company.
Demonstrated experience designing and implementing sales processes, playbooks, reporting systems, and CRM workflows.
Experience recruiting, managing, and developing high-performing sales teams.
A strong existing network within the cybersecurity and enterprise technology ecosystem.
Experience building pipelines and closing complex B2B or enterprise deals.
Experience selling in the Indian market and developing business in international markets.
Strong understanding of CRM systems, sales automation, lead-generation platforms, and pipeline analytics.
Ability to understand cybersecurity solutions and communicate their business value to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Strong commercial judgement, negotiation ability, and relationship-management skills.
Experience conducting product demonstrations, executive presentations, and commercial negotiations.
Ability to set clear targets, hold teams accountable, and consistently deliver revenue results.
Strong communication, leadership, planning, and stakeholder-management skills.
Comfortable operating in a fast-paced startup environment with a high level of ownership.
Must be based in Pune or willing to relocate to Pune.
Preferred Qualifications
Existing relationships with CISOs, CIOs, IT heads, security leaders, enterprise buyers, channel partners, and system integrators.
Experience selling cybersecurity products, managed security services, security consulting, or enterprise security platforms.
Familiarity with cybersecurity areas such as cloud security, application security, network security, vulnerability management, threat intelligence, data protection, or managed detection and response.
Experience launching sales operations in new international markets.
Experience building channel, reseller, referral, and technology partnerships.
Previous responsibility for sales budgets, revenue forecasting, pricing, and incentive structures.
Experience contributing to brand building, thought leadership, PR, events, and industry positioning.
What Success Looks Like
The successful candidate will:

Work arrangement
Hybrid