Sales Director-Payments
Our client is hiring a Regional Sales Director-Payments to lead commercial growth across the Middle East, with a focus on complex enterprise sales into banks, financial institutions, processors and large-scale payment ecosystem partners.
About the Role
As the region continues to accelerate its payments modernisation agenda, this role is focused on building executive-level relationships, leading a high-performing sales team, and driving strategic revenue growth across existing and prospective customers. This is a senior leadership opportunity for someone with deep experience in enterprise payments, banking technology or financial software, and a proven track record of operating successfully across the Middle East.
Responsibilities
- Sales strategy & planning
- Define and execute the regional sales strategy across the Middle East
- Deliver annual, quarterly and monthly sales plans, tracking performance against revenue, margin and pipeline targets
- Lead strategic and tactical planning for key markets including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and wider GCC
- Develop structured account and territory plans to support new business growth and expansion across existing customers
- Drive accurate forecasting, pipeline management, reporting and risk tracking
- Identify market opportunities across financial institutions, processors, merchants and other strategic customer segments
- Shape pricing, commercial strategy and customer engagement models in partnership with internal stakeholders
- Work closely with marketing and regional leadership to define market opportunity and support demand generation
- Monitor competitor activity, sector trends and customer feedback to inform go-to-market strategy
Leadership & team development
- Lead, coach and motivate a regional enterprise sales team to achieve and exceed revenue targets
- Build a high-performing sales culture focused on accountability, customer outcomes and consistent execution
- Set clear standards around prospecting, account planning, executive engagement, pipeline development and deal progression
- Provide hands-on coaching to help the team develop senior C-level and executive relationships
- Support team members in progressing complex, long-cycle opportunities through to close
- Recruit, develop and retain strong sales talent as the regional business scales
- Drive sales discipline through structured cadence, performance reviews and best-practice adoption
- Create a collaborative and engaged team environment across multiple Middle East markets
Client relationship & service
- Build and maintain trusted relationships with senior stakeholders across banks, financial institutions and major enterprise customers
- Act as a strategic partner to customers navigating payments transformation and long-term platform decisions
- Support the team in managing complex enterprise sales cycles involving multiple stakeholders and long decision timelines
- Ensure a high standard of customer experience throughout the full sales cycle
- Protect and improve customer satisfaction, loyalty and long-term account value
- Escalate and resolve any issues that could impact customer relationships, delivery confidence or commercial outcomes
- Develop account strategies that move relationships from transactional engagement to long-term strategic partnerships
Product, pricing & portfolio support
- Work closely with product, solutions, services and finance teams to ensure customer propositions are commercially strong and operationally deliverable
- Support pricing strategy and commercial models for key enterprise opportunities
- Translate customer needs and regional market insight into clear internal feedback
- Partner with internal teams to ensure payment software solutions are positioned competitively and strategically
- Support the development of customer proposals, value propositions and executive-level presentations
Partnerships & market engagement
- Develop relationships with channel partners, ecosystem players and industry stakeholders to support regional growth
- Represent the business at relevant banking, fintech and payments events across the Middle East
- Use market insight and senior relationships to identify new opportunities and strengthen regional positioning
- Collaborate with internal teams to support partner-led or channel-influenced opportunities
On-site delivery
- Attend key client meetings, executive briefings, roundtables and industry events across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the wider Middle East
- Support strategic customer engagement and senior stakeholder meetings where required
- Travel across the region to support team performance, customer relationships and market development
Qualifications
- 10+ years experience in financial payments, banking technology, financial software or enterprise technology sales
- 5+ years experience in a sales leadership or sales management role
- Strong track record selling enterprise-level payment software or complex financial technology solutions
- Experience selling into banks, financial institutions, processors, merchants or other payment ecosystem customers
- Proven success leading sales teams across the Middle East region
- Demonstrable experience building long-standing relationships with senior client stakeholders
- Strong track record of delivering revenue growth, developing pipeline and closing complex enterprise deals
- Experience operating across UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain or wider GCC markets is highly advantageous
- Arabic language skills would be beneficial but are not essential
Required Skills
- Strong commercial mindset with excellent sales, negotiation and relationship-building skills
- Credible and confident engaging with C-level stakeholders across financial services
- Strategic, patient and consultative approach to complex, long-cycle enterprise sales
- Strong leadership capability with a track record of motivating, developing and attracting high-performing sales talent
- Highly disciplined around forecasting, account planning, pipeline management and CRM accuracy
- Customer-focused, with the ability to balance revenue growth with long-term relationship quality
- Collaborative and able to work effectively across sales, marketing, product, finance and delivery teams
- Resilient, accountable and comfortable operating with significant regional responsibility
- Able to combine strategic leadership with hands-on commercial execution in a fast-moving market
