What type of skill sets and experiences do I need to build in order to strengthen my career and move from being a Sr. Revenue Operations Manager to Director level and above?

The leap from a Senior Revenue Operations Manager to a Director-level position hinges significantly on the breadth of your current responsibilities and the nature of the organizations you aim to join. The scope of responsibility for managers and directors can vary greatly depending on the size and maturity of the organization. For instance, smaller, earlier-stage companies often afford managers and senior managers broad responsibilities that allow for significant business impact. Conversely, being a director in these smaller companies means addressing challenges that more mature organizations might already have overcome. Firstly, evaluate the types of organizations you aspire to be part of—consider their growth stage and market position as this will provide clearer guidance on what experiences you need to accumulate.

• For those aiming to excel in larger organizations, experiences that showcase your ability to navigate complex mergers, spearhead large-scale integrations, or manage significant go-to-market expansions are invaluable. For instance, playing a key role in the integration of systems post-merger, leading the strategic planning process during a major product launch, or developing and executing a multi-regional expansion strategy could demonstrate your readiness for a director-level role.

• Conversely, if your goal is to step into a leadership role at a smaller, growth-stage company, you should focus on acquiring experiences that align with rapid scaling and operational agility. This could involve leading the implementation of a CRM system to support a growing sales team, architecting a data-driven sales strategy from scratch, or overseeing the deployment of a new go-to-market model that doubles the company's market reach. These experiences should show your capability to apply scalable solutions that drive substantial business growth.

• Additionally, being part of a team that navigates a company through a significant revenue milestone, such as growing from $50M to $100M ARR, provides a solid foundation for a director role. Experiences like redesigning sales territories to maximize market coverage, optimizing compensation plans to drive performance, or leading a cross-functional project that results in a 30% increase in sales productivity, all demonstrate your ability to deliver impactful outcomes at scale.

Essentially, your experiences should demonstrate your ability to lead through complexity, drive significant business outcomes, and adapt strategies to diverse business contexts.

Moving from manager to director is a big step in operations. You have to think about things differently - managing existing workflows and people management is critically important, but the director level will introduce a new way of operating - essentially, you are directing growth, efficiency, team structure and change that your manager layer will execute. It will be important to think not only of your team (which is critically important) but also about the company health - how your org can better tie to the goals of the overall company objectives. To prepare for this switch, start talking to other Dir+ leaders about how they ensure they incorporate company metrics into their planning cycle and how they orient their functional directives to these bigger picture measures. In short, you're switching from status-quo management to visionary/growth leadership which requires a broader view of impact.