The Executive Director, Sales is a field-based sales leader responsible for translating the neffy® brand strategy into flawless field execution across the ARS Pharmaceuticals portfolio. Reporting into commercial leadership, this role will own key decisions in customer targeting and segmentation, sales force effectiveness, field messaging execution, and payor pull-through and serves as the critical link between brand vision and field execution, ensuring every element of the strategy comes to life consistently and effectively in the field. This role will lead the Sales organization for the Western US. Ideal candidate locations are metro areas in close proximity to major airports including but not limited to Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, or Seattle.
As a leader of the national sales organization, this individual is accountable for building and sustaining a high-performing team, including recruiting, hiring, developing, and retaining top talent, and fostering a culture of accountability, urgency, and excellence that inspires the team to achieve and exceed performance goals.
Beyond field leadership, the Executive Director, Sales will be a strategic voice at the commercial leadership table, providing critical input into budget planning, incentive compensation design, overall compensation strategy, competitive response, strategic shifts in messaging, and the evolution of neffy’s brand positioning. The role partners closely with Marketing, Market Access, Medical Affairs, Strategy, and Commercial Operations to align priorities, leverage analytics and insights to drive performance and resource allocation and shape the annual brand plan.
All activities will be conducted with the highest standards of integrity and in full compliance with Federal, State, and Local regulations and company policies.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES
SALES MANAGEMENT:
- Provides strategic direction and inspirational leadership to the national sales organization, role modeling the behaviors and standards that reflect ARS Pharmaceuticals’ corporate vision, commercial strategy, and neffy® brand priorities.
- Accountable for delivering revenue and market share targets through disciplined execution of selling strategies that reflect strong business acumen and a deep understanding of the market.
- Partners with Commercial Operations to analyze sales performance, trends, competitive dynamics, and emerging opportunities, and translates those insights into clear, actionable field direction.
- Leads, coaches, and develops Area Sales Managers, holding them accountable for the performance and growth of their teams.
- Ensures training initiatives translate into real-world selling effectiveness, so that disease state knowledge, clinical messaging, and brand strategy are applied consistently in customer interactions.
- Leads national sales meetings and oversees large-scale business and development training. Supports commercial leadership in determining optimal field force sizing, structure, and territory alignment to maximize customer reach and resource efficiency.
- Builds and maintains relationships with key regional thought leaders, collaborating with Medical Affairs and other internal partners to ensure engagement is compliant and aligned with brand objectives.
BUDGET MANAGEMENT:
- Manages the sales budget to maximize return on investment, monitoring spend monthly and reallocating resources as needed to support business priorities. Ensures direct reports’ travel, expense, and promotional spending complies with company policies and reimbursement guidelines.
MARKET ACCESS COLLABORATION:
- Partners with Market Access, Supply Chain, and field counterparts to support customer and payer strategies, providing voice-of-customer insights from the field to inform access priorities, particularly in geographies with opportunities for improved coverage.
- Owns the execution of pull-through tactics at the national and area levels, ensuring the field effectively communicates and leverages access wins.
- Fosters strong cross-functional collaboration to achieve efficient, coordinated coverage of target accounts.
MARKETING COLLABORATION:
- Collaborates closely with Marketing to ensure the neffy® brand strategy is translated effectively into field execution.
- Provides voice-of-customer insights and field intelligence to help inform brand positioning, messaging evolution, promotional resources, and competitive response.
- Owns field adoption of brand messaging and tactics and provides timely feedback on their effectiveness to support ongoing refinement of the brand plan.
COMMERCIAL OPERATIONS COLLABORATION:
- Partners with Commercial Operations to leverage analytics, reporting, and performance tools that drive field effectiveness and informed decision-making.
- Provides input into incentive compensation design, goal setting, and annual business planning, ensuring plans reflect field realities and motivate the right behaviors.
- Collaborates on targeting, call planning, and territory alignment, and uses performance insights to monitor resource utilization and identify opportunities for improvement.
HUMAN RESOURCES & COMPLIANCE:
- Partners with Human Resources Business Partner to hire, develop, train, and retain a highly productive and motivated sales team.
- Ensures the fair, objective, and consistent resolution of Employee Relations issues by effectively coaching management and leveraging Human Resources and Compliance guidance on compliance infractions, and performance issues.
- Strategize with HR Business Partner to identify and address strengths and gaps, enhance employee engagement, and drive coaching excellence through building line management capabilities and developing talent.
- Monitor National compliance of Field Sales promotional activity, ensuring appropriate reporting procedures are taking place.
EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:
- Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university, preferably in business or life sciences; equivalent combination of education and experience will be considered. MBA or MS is preferred.
- Minimum 10 years of pharmaceutical/biotech industry experience with a strong track record of sales leadership and performance.
- Second-line leadership experience is strongly preferred but not required; candidates with significant field leadership, cross-functional influence, or demonstrated readiness for expanded leadership responsibilities will be considered. Experience executing or training against leadership development principles.
- Strongly preferred: experience in Allergy/Immunology. Working knowledge of marketing, analytics, targeting strategies, emotional intelligence principles, and challenger selling
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES:
- Strong business acumen, including the ability to build business plans based on analysis of key performance metrics and the understanding of marketplace opportunities and barriers.
- Ability to identify areas of opportunity for ARS to maximize return on investment for promoted products, with a good understanding of the allergy market and competition.
- Understanding of the reimbursement landscape and expertise within traditional retail as well as specialty pharmacy/distribution models.
- Account selling, knowledge of centers of excellence, key academic medical centers, and patient referral approaches.
- A proven track record of success in developing and implementing a sales strategy and driving revenue growth and expansion.
- Aptitude to develop relationships and collaborate both internally and externally.
- Demonstrated ability to apply innovative ways of thinking and resolve issues as they arise.
- In-depth knowledge of pharmaceutical marketing principles and the demonstrated ability to learn new disease-state information, with the ability to transfer knowledge to peers and direct reports.
- Able to travel by car and by plane up to 60% throughout assigned territories and for national conferences and meetings as necessary.
- May need to meet credentialing requirements for access to academic institutions, medical facilities, and organizations that are in the assigned region. These credentialing requirements may include, but are not limited to, background checks, drug screens, and proof of immunization and/or vaccinations. Failure to meet all requirements may prevent an employee from performing all job responsibilities.
