Director, Business Operations

Overview

You run business operations for a revenue segment at Dialpad—upmarket, channel, or post-sales. You own forecast accuracy, pipeline discipline, and operational rigor for your GTM leader. You're in deal reviews, QBRs, board prep, and every strategic planning conversation. You make the call on whether deals are real or sandbagging.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Late-stage (1,400+ employees, well-funded)

Size: 1,448 employees

Growth: Scaling GTM, hiring across rev ops roles, leaning into AI differentiation

Market Position: Challenger in crowded UCaaS space (competing with RingCentral, Zoom Phone, 8x8, Microsoft Teams). Differentiation is AI-native platform vs bolted-on AI features.

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• Mix of inbound (PLG motion with free trials, marketing-generated leads) and outbound (AEs prospecting into accounts)
• Channel/partner motion for enterprise deals
• Product-led growth creates some velocity in SMB/mid-market

Segment Structure:

• Upmarket team (enterprise)
• Channel/International team (partner-driven)
• Post-sales team (renewals, expansion)

You support one of these segments with dedicated focus.

Systems Stack: Salesforce, Clari/forecast tool, BI tools, likely Gong/Chorus for conversation intelligence

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: RingCentral, Zoom Phone, 8x8, Microsoft Teams, Five9 (contact center)

How They Differentiate: AI-native platform (built-in transcription, real-time coaching, sentiment analysis) vs competitors adding AI features to legacy systems

Common Objections: "We already have Teams/Zoom", pricing vs incumbents, switching costs/risk

Win Themes: AI capabilities, ease of use, integrated stack (phone + contact center + sales tools)

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Forecast/Pipeline Reviews (30%) | Systems/Process Work (25%) | 
Strategic Projects (25%) | Meetings/Coordination (20%)

Key Activities

• Weekly Forecast Calls: You run the forecast review with your segment leader. You challenge deals, push for commit vs upside categorization, and make the call on what's real. You own the number.
• Pipeline Health Analysis: You monitor coverage ratios, stage conversion rates, velocity by rep/segment. You spot when teams are sandbagging or when there's a coverage problem 2 quarters out.
• Deal Reviews: You sit in on big deal reviews. You ask the hard questions: "Who's the economic buyer? When was the last conversation? What's blocking legal review?" You're the BS detector.
• Systems Governance: You own data hygiene in Salesforce. You build reporting, enforce field updates, train reps on process. You're the one who makes sure opportunity stages actually mean something.
• GTM Planning: You model capacity planning (how many reps do we need?), quota setting, territory design, comp plan impact. You own the spreadsheet work behind strategy.
• Product Launch Support: When product ships a new feature, you operationalize it—sales deck, Salesforce fields, comp treatment, enablement coordination.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• You're the bad cop: Sales wants to mark everything as "commit." You have to push back and defend forecast integrity. It's uncomfortable.
• Firefighting vs strategic work: You'll get pulled into crisis mode (deal stuck in legal, Salesforce broke, someone needs an urgent report) and it eats your time for proactive work.
• Cross-functional friction: Getting finance, product, legal, enablement, and marketing to move at sales' speed is constant herding. Everything takes longer than it should.
• Data quality is never perfect: You'll spend way more time cleaning data and chasing reps to update Salesforce than you want to. It's grunt work.
• You don't close deals: You make recommendations, but you're not the final decision-maker on strategy. You influence, but don't control.

What Success Looks Like

• Your segment's forecast variance is <5% over 3+ quarters
• Pipeline coverage ratios are healthy and predictable
• Sales leaders trust your analysis and use it to make decisions
• The business scales without adding chaos—new reps onboard faster, systems work, process is followed

Who You Report To

Direct Manager: VP of Revenue Operations (Vasanth - the poster)

Who They Report To: Likely CRO or CFO

Team Structure: You're one of several Directors supporting different segments. You'll collaborate with other Rev Ops Managers and Directors.

Requirements

• 7-10+ years in Rev Ops, Sales Ops, or FP&A in B2B SaaS
• You've owned forecast for a sales org doing $50M+ ARR
• You're highly analytical—advanced Excel/Sheets, SQL is a plus, comfortable building models from scratch
• You've implemented or governed Salesforce at scale
• You can present to executives without hedging—you have a point of view and defend it
• You've worked in a high-growth environment where things change fast and you adapt