Portfolio Account Executive - UK Public Sector
No salary listed
Senior
Edinburgh, UK+1 moreMore locations: Glasgow, UK
In PersonBased in Scotland or within commutable territory; travel across Scotland for customer meetings and industry engagements.
Sales & Account ManagementAccount Management
About the job
Requirements
- At least 5 years of enterprise technology sales experience, including direct field sales, quota-carrying account management, and exceeding revenue targets in enterprise technology, software, cloud, or infrastructure solutions.
- Experience leading end-to-end high-complexity deal cycles of £1M or more, navigating multi-layered stakeholder environments, governance stages, and commercial contract negotiations.
- Ability to prospect, engage, and build sustained relationships with C-suite leaders and senior executives, articulating business and operational value propositions credibly.
- Experience building structured account development strategies, identifying whitespace, and generating multi-quarter pipelines.
- Track record of leading and orchestrating matrixed cross-functional teams, including pre-sales engineering, solution specialists, customer success, and partner managers, in complex sales pursuits.
- Discipline in enterprise sales methodologies such as MEDDPICC, Challenger, or Command of the Message, and CRM systems such as Salesforce and Gong.
- Must be based in Scotland or within commutable territory and able to travel across Scotland for customer meetings and industry engagements.
Responsibilities
- Formulate, implement, and execute comprehensive multi-year territory and account plans across designated Scottish Public Sector accounts to achieve and exceed sales targets.
- Establish and sustain trusted-advisor partnerships with C-level executives and operational leaders, translating complex technical architectures into measurable public value, clinical outcomes, and citizen safety.
- Position Cisco end-to-end architectures—including Enterprise Networking, Zero Trust Security and SASE, Splunk and Full-Stack Observability, and Hybrid Work and Collaboration—into cohesive digital transformation roadmaps.
- Orchestrate and close complex commercial transactions of £1M or more, positioning Cisco Enterprise Agreements, software subscriptions, and outcome-based consumption models.
- Work with Cisco channel partners, service providers, and system integrators to build joint go-to-market initiatives, identify whitespace, and accelerate deal velocity.
- Mobilise and lead extended virtual teams of Specialist Systems Engineers, Technical Solution Architects, Customer Success Executives, Renewals Managers, and CX Professional Services to ensure deal execution and customer value realisation.
- Execute sales qualification methodologies and maintain forecast predictability across monthly forecasts, weekly commits, and pipeline progression in Salesforce and Gong.
Desired Qualifications
- Experience selling into the UK Public Sector, including Healthcare/NHS, Emergency Services/Blue Light, Justice, Transport, or Local/Central Government, and familiarity with Scottish public procurement frameworks and governance.
- Working knowledge of Cisco's core architecture domains—Enterprise Networking, Cybersecurity/SASE, Splunk/Observability, and Collaboration—or equivalent enterprise infrastructure and SaaS platforms.
- Familiarity with structuring multi-year Enterprise Agreements, software licensing models, and as-a-service consumption frameworks.
- Proven success collaborating with UK or Scottish channel partners, telecommunications carriers, and system integrators in joint customer engagements.
- Strong communication, executive presentation, and storytelling capabilities, including the ability to simplify complex concepts into actionable business strategies.
About the company
Cisco makes the switches and routers that connect offices, data centers, and cloud services, and it also sells cybersecurity tools and Webex video meetings to businesses and governments. It was one of the first companies to sell routers that let different kinds of computer networks exchange data, and in 2000 it briefly became the world's most valuable company. Customers run its network gear, from Wi-Fi access points to AI data center systems, with Cisco software that sets up and secures the network, while its Splunk unit searches computer logs to catch outages and attacks. Cisco earns money from hardware sales, software subscriptions, and support contracts. It was founded in 1984 and is based in San Jose, California.
Company Size
10,001+
Company Stage
IPO
Headquarters
San Jose, California
Founded
1984
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Cloud giants fuel growth: they ordered $9.3 billion of Cisco's AI gear in the year to July 2026, up 4.5-fold.
- Stock awards gained value: Cisco shares rose 63% in the year to October 2026, four times the S&P 500's 15%.
- Signed deals steady the business: Cisco had $46.7 billion of contracted sales still to deliver in July 2026, up 7%.
What critics are saying
- Record sales didn't stop layoffs: Cisco cut nearly 4,000 jobs, just under 5% of staff, in May 2026.
- Rivals lead in data center switches: in the June 2026 quarter, Nvidia held 20.4%, Arista 18.7% and Cisco 18.2%.
- Hardware-heavy AI growth squeezes profit: Cisco's gross margin fell to 66.3% from 68.4% in the July 2026 quarter.
What makes Cisco unique
- Cisco still sells the most network switches: it took 28.7% of worldwide switch sales in the June 2026 quarter.
- Cisco designs its own networking chips: Microsoft and Alibaba signed on early for its Silicon One P200, launched October 2025.
- Cisco trains future network engineers: its Networking Academy has taught over 28 million learners in 195 countries since 1997.
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Benefits
- Paid Vacation
- Hybrid Work Options
- Flexible Work Hours
- Professional Development Budget