Sales Strategy & Operations Lead, Agency Sales

Overview

You'll be the strategic operations partner for Pinterest's Agency Sales team, working directly with Jason Huang. You own territory design, compensation planning, process optimization, and cross-functional initiatives that help the Agency team hit their 2026 targets. You're the person who builds the operating system that lets Agency AEs focus on selling instead of fighting internal friction.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Public (Pinterest acquired tvScientific)

Size: 153 employees (tvScientific), part of larger Pinterest organization

Growth: Building out dedicated Agency sales team as strategic priority for 2026

Market Position: Pinterest has strong brand recognition with agencies; adding tvScientific's CTV capabilities to sell performance-driven Connected TV advertising to agency buyers

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Strategic Projects (35%) | Process/Systems Work (25%) | Planning & Analysis (20%) | Cross-functional Meetings (20%)

Key Activities

• Territory & Capacity Planning: Design territory assignments for Agency AEs. You're deciding which reps cover which agencies/verticals, modeling how many reps you need to hit revenue targets, and rebalancing territories when things aren't working. Expect political pushback when you reassign accounts.
• Compensation Design: Build and iterate on comp plans for Agency sellers. This includes quota setting, commission structures, SPIFs, and accelerators. You'll model different scenarios to balance aggressive targets with achievable plans, then defend your recommendations to finance and sales leadership.
• Sales Process Optimization: The Agency sales motion involves multiple stakeholders (media buyers, planners, strategists, clients). You map the current process, identify where deals stall, and design interventions—maybe it's better sales collateral, clearer pricing, or a new approval workflow.
• Cross-Functional Projects: Partner with Marketing (to improve Agency lead quality), Product (to prioritize features agencies need), Legal (to streamline contract terms), Finance (for deal desk support). You're the translator between sales and everyone else.
• QBRs & Planning Cycles: Run quarterly business reviews with Agency leadership. Analyze what worked and what didn't, set next quarter's priorities, present results to Pinterest executives.
• Enablement Support: Work with enablement team to train Agency reps on new products, messaging, tools. You identify what training is needed based on performance gaps.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Competing Interests: Reps want bigger territories and easier quotas. Finance wants aggressive targets. Leadership wants growth but also wants fair comp plans. You're constantly mediating competing priorities with imperfect data.
• Change Management: Reps resist new processes, especially if it means more administrative work. Rolling out a new sales methodology or CRM workflow requires constant reinforcement and dealing with pushback.
• Build vs Maintain: You're building processes for a growing team while also keeping current operations running. New hire onboarding is breaking while you're trying to design next year's comp plan.
• Data Limitations: You need to make strategic recommendations (like territory design) but the data is incomplete. Agencies don't always map cleanly to Salesforce accounts. Historical win rates might not apply to new products.
• Executive Visibility: Your work directly impacts revenue and rep morale. When quota attainment is low or comp plan rollout is messy, leadership notices immediately.
• Scope Ambiguity: "Strategy & Operations" means you get pulled into everything. Sales leader needs help with a board presentation, urgent request to model a new pricing structure, fix a broken commission calculation—all urgent, all your problem.

What Success Looks Like

• Agency sales team hits 95%+ quota attainment because territories are balanced and targets are realistic
• You redesign the Agency sales process and reduce average sales cycle by 2 weeks
• Comp plan rollout happens smoothly with minimal rep confusion or complaints
• Cross-functional partners (Product, Marketing) proactively involve you in planning because you've become trusted strategic advisor
• Agency reps spend more time selling and less time on internal escalations because you've removed common blockers

Who You Work With

Primary Stakeholders:

• Jason Huang (your direct partner, Agency Sales Strategy & Ops Lead)
• Agency Sales leadership (VPs, Directors)
• Finance/FP&A (for planning, forecasting, comp)
• Marketing (for Agency lead generation and campaigns)
• Product (for Agency feature prioritization)
• Legal (for contract optimization)
• Sales Enablement (for training and onboarding)

What They Care About:

• Sales Leadership: Hitting revenue targets, removing blockers for reps, scaling the team efficiently
• Finance: Accurate forecasts, cost-effective GTM model, clean comp calculations
• Marketing: Clear feedback on lead quality and Agency campaign performance
• Product: Understanding what features will unlock more Agency revenue

Requirements

• 5-8 years in sales operations, revenue operations, or strategy (consulting/investment banking backgrounds common)
• Experience designing territories, comp plans, and sales processes for B2B teams
• Strong financial modeling skills - you're building quota capacity models in Excel
• Salesforce admin experience or deep familiarity with CRM data structures
• Project management skills - you're running multiple concurrent initiatives
• Ad tech or media sales experience strongly preferred (you need to understand how agencies buy)
• Ability to influence without authority - most stakeholders don't report to you
• Comfort with ambiguity and changing priorities in a growth environment