Head of Southern Europe, SMB & Commercial

About Stripe

Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. Millions of companies - from the world’s largest enterprises to the most ambitious startups - use Stripe to accept payments, grow their revenue, and accelerate new business opportunities. Our mission is to increase the GDP of the internet, and we have a staggering amount of work ahead. That means you have an unprecedented opportunity to put the global economy within everyone's reach while doing the most important work of your career.

About the team

Stripe’s SMB and Commercial Sales organization helps ambitious businesses adopt Stripe’s financial infrastructure and accelerate their growth. The team is responsible for acquiring new users, expanding Stripe’s relationships with existing users, and building durable partnerships across a diverse and fast-moving market.

We’re looking for an experienced second-line sales leader to lead our SMB and Commercial business across Southern Europe. You will manage a team of sales managers and Account Executives, set the regional strategy, and be accountable for delivering sustainable growth across multiple countries, customer segments, and sales motions.

This is a highly visible leadership role requiring strong commercial judgment, operational discipline, and the ability to develop leaders. You will work closely with regional and global Sales leadership and cross-functional partners across Marketing, Partnerships, Product, Solutions Architecture, Customer Success, Deal Pricing, and Operations.

As Head of Southern Europe, SMB & Commercial, you will own the strategy, performance, and development of a complex, multi-market sales organization. You will build and lead a high-performing leadership team, translate Stripe’s broader strategy into clear regional priorities, and create the operating environment required to deliver consistent results at scale.

You will combine strategic leadership with hands-on involvement in the business. You’ll help your managers raise the performance of their teams, engage directly in the region’s most important opportunities, and represent Southern Europe in regional and global planning.

Responsibilities

• Own the overall strategy and commercial performance of Stripe’s SMB and Commercial business across Southern Europe.

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of sales managers and Account Executives across multiple countries, segments, and sales motions.

• Build a strong leadership bench by hiring exceptional managers, setting clear expectations, and creating development and succession plans.

• Establish a clear regional vision and translate it into country, segment, and team-level plans with measurable outcomes.

• Deliver ambitious revenue, acquisition, expansion, and activation goals while building a healthy and sustainable long-term business.

• Create a rigorous operating cadence across forecasting, pipeline generation, territory planning, performance management, and business reviews.

• Hold managers accountable for team performance while coaching them to diagnose challenges, make sound decisions, and lead independently.

• Identify differences across Southern European markets and adapt coverage, capacity, and go-to-market strategies accordingly.

• Build executive relationships with strategic customers and prospects, stepping into critical opportunities and negotiations when leadership involvement can materially improve the outcome.

• Improve sales productivity and effectiveness by identifying systemic opportunities across process, tooling, enablement, segmentation, and coverage.

• Partner closely with Marketing, SDR, Product Sales, Solutions Architecture, Customer Success, Partnerships, Deal Pricing, and Operations to deliver an integrated regional strategy.

• Represent the needs of Southern European users and sales teams to Stripe’s regional and global leadership.

• Provide clear, evidence-based forecasts and communicate business performance, risks, and opportunities to senior stakeholders.

• Foster an inclusive, high-accountability culture in which managers and sellers can do the best work of their careers.

• Serve as a senior leader for Stripe in Southern Europe, contributing beyond the immediate sales organization to the health and growth of the broader regional business.

You are an experienced second-line sales leader who has successfully grown a complex business across multiple markets, teams, or customer segments. You know how to lead through managers rather than relying on direct intervention, while remaining close enough to customers and the field to make high-quality decisions.

You can move comfortably between long-term strategy and operational execution. You bring structure to ambiguity, communicate clearly with senior stakeholders, and build organizations that deliver both near-term results and durable growth.

Minimum requirements

• 12+ years of relevant sales or commercial experience in technology, financial services, payments, or another fast-growing industry.

• A proven track record as a second-line manager, with meaningful experience leading and developing sales managers as well as Account Executives.

• Demonstrated success growing a complex business across multiple countries, customer segments, products, or sales motions.

• Experience owning a significant regional or multi-market revenue target and delivering sustained performance against ambitious growth goals.

• A strong record of building high-performing organizations, including hiring and developing leaders, managing performance, and creating succession plans.

• Demonstrated ability to translate company strategy into clear regional priorities, operating plans, and measurable team goals.

• Experience running a disciplined sales organization, including forecasting, pipeline management, capacity planning, territory design, and performance reviews.

• Strong executive presence and a track record of building trusted relationships with senior customer and internal stakeholders.

• Excellent commercial judgment, including the ability to evaluate complex opportunities, allocate resources, and balance short-term execution with long-term growth.

• Experience leading through periods of rapid growth, organizational change, or significant ambiguity.

• Ability to influence across a highly cross-functional and matrixed organization without relying solely on formal authority.

• Strong analytical skills and the ability to use data to identify patterns, challenge assumptions, and make informed decisions.

• A commitment to building inclusive teams and creating a culture of high standards, continuous improvement, and shared accountability.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience leading SMB and Commercial sales teams with distinct coverage models, sales cycles, and customer needs.

• Experience managing a geographically distributed organization across several Southern European markets.

• Experience scaling a business through multiple phases of growth rather than inheriting a mature and stable organization.

• A track record of successfully leading both new-business acquisition and existing-customer expansion motions.

• Experience in payments, fintech, financial infrastructure, SaaS, or another technically complex industry.

• Familiarity with platform, marketplace, subscription, or usage-based business models.

• Experience working in a global organization and influencing regional and global go-to-market strategy.

• Professional fluency in one or more Southern European languages.

• Experience engaging with founders, CEOs, CFOs, and other C-level decision-makers.

• A strong understanding of the economic, regulatory, and competitive dynamics affecting businesses across Southern Europe.