Chief Revenue Officer at Canonical

Chief Revenue Officer

Location: Home based - EMEA (remote; candidate must be located in the EMEA region)

Role overview

Canonical is hiring a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) to lead and scale our global revenue organisation, including enterprise sales, sales development, partner and channel teams, alliances, customer success and field engineering. Reporting to the CEO, the CRO will combine operational discipline with inspirational leadership to drive sustainable growth across our portfolio of open source products and services.

Key responsibilities

• Define and execute go-to-market strategy: prioritise markets and sectors, identify organisational gaps and lead hiring to close them.
• Build rigorous planning and execution processes: set cascading targets, review progress monthly/quarterly, and correct course where needed.
• Sponsor and support leaders to close large enterprise deals (>$10M ARR) with Global 10k enterprises and major technology partners.
• Capture and share customer and partner insights to broaden commercial awareness across Canonical.
• Oversee recruitment, selection and onboarding for the revenue organisation and drive productivity, career development and continuous improvement.
• Design metrics, programmes and compensation to recognise and reward high performance and alignment with company goals.
• Cultivate a high-performance culture: transparent communications, accountability, trust and operational rigor.
• Work closely with product, engineering and alliances teams to align commercial strategy with product and partner roadmaps.

Organisation you will lead

• Direct enterprise sales (VP Enterprise Sales reports to the CRO): hiring sales leaders, building region/sector/product targets and ensuring pipeline quality.
• Alliances, channels and partnerships (VP Alliances reports to the CRO): ISVs, IHVs, silicon providers, cloud partners, VARs and GSIs.
• Sector go-to-market leads: develop sector-specific investments (telco, finance, automotive, energy, retail, health) and expand expertise.
• Field engineering (VP Field Engineering reports to the CRO): expert implementers who accelerate customer adoption and delivery.
• Customer success (Head of Customer Success reports to the CRO): grow processes and relationships for post-sales success.
• Potential revenue operations function: ensure accurate pipeline reporting, contracting processes, and commercial governance.

Required experience & attributes

We are seeking an accomplished, operational leader with deep commercial experience in enterprise software and infrastructure markets, and a strong appreciation for open source.

• University degree (preferably CS/STEM plus business disciplines) or a compelling alternative background.
• Progressive leadership experience in high-growth, recurring-revenue global technology companies.
• Track record of leading sales, partnerships or field engineering organisations to world-class performance and maturity.
• Insight into enterprise software and infrastructure buying dynamics, strategy and competition.
• Software engineering or architecture experience or fluency to work credibly with technical teams.
• Deep understanding of open source history, dynamics and strategy.
• Operational discipline: program, process and metric-oriented with strong planning and execution skills.
• Inspirational leadership and strong communication skills; ability to travel internationally up to four times a year for events (up to two weeks each).

What we offer

Canonical shapes compensation based on geography, experience and performance. In addition to base pay, we offer a performance-driven annual bonus and a benefits package tailored to local markets. We balance global fairness with local needs.

• Distributed work environment with twice-yearly in-person team sprints.
• Personal learning and development budget of USD 2,000 per year.
• Annual compensation review and recognition rewards.
• Annual holiday leave, maternity and paternity leave.
• Employee assistance and wellness programmes.
• Opportunity to travel and Priority Pass / travel upgrades for long-haul company events.

About Canonical

Canonical is the company behind Ubuntu, a leading open source platform used across public cloud, AI, IoT and enterprise initiatives. Founder-led and profitable, Canonical is a global, distributed organisation with teams in many countries. We set high standards for performance and hire globally to deliver open source software and services at scale.

Equal opportunity & accessibility

Canonical is an equal opportunity employer. We foster a workplace free from discrimination and provide fair consideration for candidates of all identities. If you require travel accommodations related to a physical disability, please notify us during the hiring process.

Application notes

When applying, indicate your university grading result (or expected result) and the grading system used. For work history, focus on the last ten years since leaving undergraduate studies; count companies accordingly and exclude university jobs or internships. If you ran a company or did private contracting alongside employment, count that as one company. Please select your current location when applying.

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Requisition ID: 1148

How to apply

Apply via Canonical's careers site for this role: https://canonical.com/careers/5750137