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About the Role

The Strategy & Planning Theater Lead is a pivotal Business Development role within Cisco’s Canada Sales organization, serving as the key business partner to the Director of Sales for Software Buying Programs and Services in Canada. This role owns the strategy and planning function for buying programs and service sales, translating business objectives into actionable plans, financial models, and executed processes. It requires a detail-oriented individual comfortable with numbers, forecasts, and CRM tools, who is energized by ensuring smooth operations and influencing the success of a national sales team.

Responsibilities

Lead the end-to-end strategy and planning cycle for Buying Programs and Services Sales across Canada, ensuring alignment between field execution and organizational objectives.
Develop and maintain comprehensive planning frameworks that support the Director and broader sales leadership team in making informed, data-driven decisions.
Translate high-level business goals into detailed operational plans with clear milestones, owners, and timelines.
Identify gaps, risks, and opportunities in the sales strategy and proactively recommend course corrections.
Own the forecasting process for the Canada theater—building, maintaining, and updating financial models that reflect real-time pipeline dynamics and business performance.
Develop and manage goaling frameworks that set clear, equitable, and motivating targets for the sales team in partnership with sales leadership.
Design and maintain deal tracking mechanisms that provide leadership with accurate, up-to-date visibility into deal progress, pipeline health, and revenue attainment.
Produce regular financial reports and dashboards using Excel and other tools, surfacing meaningful insights rather than just raw numbers.
Define, document, and enforce the operational processes, cadences, and governance that ensure the sales team executes with consistency and accountability.
Serve as the process champion for the Canada theater—identifying inefficiencies, driving standardization, and ensuring all deadlines tied to planning cycles are met.
Maintain and optimize Salesforce and other CRM tools to ensure clean, accurate data that underpins reliable reporting and decision-making.
Act as the primary liaison between the Canada sales organization and central operations, finance, and strategy teams, ensuring information flows accurately and on time.
Support the preparation of business reviews, quarterly planning sessions, and executive presentations on behalf of the Director.

Requirements

Proven experience in a sales strategy, business planning, sales operations, or business development role—ideally within a technology company or complex B2B environment.
Strong track record supporting or partnering with senior sales leadership in a fast-paced, deadline-driven organization.
Familiarity with buying programs, services sales, or similar recurring-revenue commercial models is a strong asset.
Advanced Excel skills are essential—fluent in financial modelling, scenario analysis, pivot tables, and building executive-ready outputs from complex data sets.
Strong understanding of forecasting methodologies, quota/goaling processes, and deal-level pipeline tracking.
Comfortable working with large data sets and translating quantitative analysis into clear, actionable business insights.
Experience with Salesforce (SFDC) or comparable CRM platforms—able to extract, interpret, and act on the data within these tools.
Self-described stickler for process—believes great execution requires great systems, and builds and maintains them with care.
Exceptionally detail oriented: catches what others miss, and holds self and others accountable to accuracy.
Acute awareness of planning calendars, submission deadlines, and fiscal rhythms—proactively manages against them.
Comfortable operating with ambiguity and evolving priorities while keeping deliverables on time and on quality.
Strong written and verbal communication skills—able to synthesize complex information and present it clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
Collaborative by nature, with the ability to build trusted relationships across functions and levels of seniority.
Demonstrated ability to work effectively in a highly matrixed organization.

Skills

Sales Strategy
Business Planning
Sales Operations
Business Development
Financial Modelling
Scenario Analysis
Pivot Tables
Forecasting Methodologies
Quota/Goaling Processes
Pipeline Tracking
Salesforce (SFDC)
CRM Platforms
Process Management
Detail Orientation
Written Communication
Verbal Communication
Collaboration
Relationship Building
Matrixed Organization Navigation

Location

Canada

Work Type

Full-time

Experience Level

Mid-level
Senior-level

Salary/Compensations

$127,600.00 - $161,600.00 USD
$149,300.00 - $239,400.00 USD (New York City Metro Area)
$143,400.00 - $212,200.00 USD (Non-Metro New York state & Washington state)

Benefits

Medical Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
401(k) plan with Cisco matching contribution
Paid parental leave
Short-term disability coverage
Long-term disability coverage
Basic life insurance
10 paid holidays per full calendar year
1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees
1 paid day off for employee’s birthday
Paid year-end holiday shutdown
4 paid days off for personal wellness
16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year (non-exempt employees)
Flexible vacation time off program (exempt employees)
80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter
Up to 80 hours of unused sick time carried forward
Additional paid time away for critical or emergency family issues
Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer
Annual bonuses (for non-sales roles)
Performance-based incentive pay (for sales roles)

About the Company

At Cisco, we’re revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era – and beyond.
We’ve been innovating fearlessly for 40 years to create solutions that power how humans and technology work together across the physical and digital worlds.
These solutions provide customers with unparalleled security, visibility, and insights across the entire digital footprint.
Fueled by the depth and breadth of our technology, we experiment and create meaningful solutions.
Add to that our worldwide network of doers and experts, and you’ll see that the opportunities to grow and build are limitless.
We work as a team, collaborating with empathy to make really big things happen on a global scale.
Because our solutions are everywhere, our impact is everywhere.
We are Cisco, and our power starts with you.