Director, Sales (Core & Supplemental)

Why You’ll Love This Role

Newsela is seeking a strategic, high-growth Director of Sales to lead, scale, and inspire our Core Curriculum and Supplemental sales organization. Reporting directly to the Senior Director of Sales, you will oversee the Sales Managers and Account Executives driving the expansion of Newsela’s core curriculum and Newsela supplemental portfolios with an immediate strategic focus on navigating California’s complex state adoption landscape.

In this role, you will lead through frontline managers to build high-performing sales teams, architect regional go-to-market strategies, and partner with district- and state-level education leaders. You will foster a positive, "people-first" high-performance culture while establishing predictable revenue models, refining enterprise sales plays (utilizing MEDDPICC), and positioning Newsela as the premier core curriculum partner across school districts.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Strategic Leadership & Revenue Growth
• Drive Regional Strategy & Quota Achievement: Accountable for consistently meeting or exceeding regional and state core curriculum sales targets across new logo acquisition, expansion, and multi-year state adoption campaigns.
• Build & Scale Talent: Recruit, hire, coach, and retain top-tier frontline Account Executives. Build a scalable org structure capable of expanding from localized California core adoption initiatives into multi-state core curriculum opportunities.
• Pipeline Oversight & Strategic Forecasting: Deliver precise, reliable monthly, quarterly, and annual regional revenue forecasts to executive leadership. Maintain rigorous pipeline discipline across teams, ensuring a minimum of 2.5x pipeline-to-quota coverage at all times.
• Management Coaching & Operational Excellence
• Cultivate a High-Performance, "People-First" Culture: Lead through frontline leaders by creating an environment that empowers teams, celebrates wins, and establishes repeatable best practices across territories.
• Manager & Deal Coaching: Conduct regular deal and pipeline reviews with Sales Managers and Senior AEs. Leverage methodologies like MEDDPICC and insights from tools such as Gong to coach on complex K-12 procurement, school board approval navigation, and multi-year adoption cycles.
• Performance & Territory Management: Guide managers in designing and executing comprehensive regional territory plans. Oversee team performance management on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis, providing actionable feedback and establishing gap-to-goal strategies when necessary.
• Market Execution & Field Engagement
• Executive & Field Modeling: Travel up to 30–40% within the region to co-sell, model leadership behaviors in the field, and build executive relationships with key district superintendents, county office leaders, and state adoption decision-makers.
• GTM & California Adoption Alignment: Shape Newsela’s go-to-market approach for core subjects (including Core ELA/ELD). Continuously align strategy with California’s unique K-12 demographics, funding shifts, state initiatives, and adoption frameworks.
• Cross-Functional Executive Partnership: Serve as the strategic voice of the field to executive leadership, Product, Field Marketing, Customer Success, Enablement, Finance, and Operations teams to inform future core product development and streamline go-to-market alignment.
• Data-Driven Operations: Oversee accurate CRM usage (Salesforce) and leverage modern AI sales tools to optimize territory prioritization, deal flow analytics, and operational efficiency across the leadership hierarchy.

About You

10+ years total K-12 Sales Experience:

Deep expertise in the K-12 EdTech and instructional material space, with a minimum of 5+ years directly focused on K-12 core curriculum sales (ELA/ELD highly preferred).

4+ years Sales Leadership Experience:

Proven track record as a second-line leader or Senior Sales Manager leading quota-carrying teams to a collective annual revenue target of $8M+.

California Adoption Mastery:

Demonstrated experience leading teams or directly executing multi-year core curriculum adoption campaigns aligned with California state board approvals, district funding streams, and complex procurement cycles.

Enterprise Deal Leadership:

Extensive track record navigating large enterprise district accounts (20,000+ students) and managing high-stakes school board and state-level approval processes.

Framework & Tool Mastery:

Deep proficiency in structured sales methodologies (MEDDPICC, Challenger) and sales tech stack execution (Salesforce, Gong, Salesloft, and AI-driven workflow optimization).

Travel:

Willingness to travel up to 30–40% to meet with district/county leaders and support managers in field execution.

Education & Authorization:

Bachelor’s degree in Business, Education, or related field (or equivalent practical experience); legally authorized to work in the US.

All offers of employment are contingent upon the successful completion of a background check as part of our pre-employment process.

This role is classified as an exempt salaried role and is not eligible for overtime.

Why you’ll love working at Newsela:

Health & Wellness:

Comprehensive medical benefits with employer contribution to premiums and to HSA accounts. Additional benefits such as gym reimbursement, pet insurance, free access to the Calm app, Rocket Lawyer and more to help you stay healthy: mind, body, and soul.

Work From Home:

We are a fully remote company. We provide a monthly tech stipend to support your WFH needs!

Supporting ALL Families:

Inclusive benefits to support you and your family, including parental leave, fertility support, adoption, and more!

Financial Wellbeing:

Invest in your future with our 401(k) plan, which includes a employer match to help you build long-term financial security.

Time Off:

Flexible PTO, paid sick time off, company holidays plus winter break (Dec 24th - Jan 1st).

Professional Development:

Newsela offers an annual learning and development allowance to employees to attend external training sessions, classes, workshops, conferences, and educational materials to foster professional growth within their current role and career aspirations at Newsela.

Make A Difference:

No matter your role or department, the work you do each day helps share the future of education and improves the lives of students and teachers.

About Newsela:

Newsela is a leading education technology company dedicated to meaningful classroom learning for every student. We deliver integrated, AI-powered solutions designed to unlock student engagement, empower teachers, and drive meaningful learning outcomes. Our suite of products supports knowledge and skill development, writing practice, daily instruction, assessment, and data-informed decision-making across K–12 classrooms.

Grounded in learning science research, Newsela’s solutions integrate content, assessment, and analytics to help educators track progress, understand student outcomes, and deliver high-impact instruction that supports every learner.

Base salary:

$150,000 - $160,000, depending on prior experience

On-target commission (OTC):

• $110,000 - $130,000, depending on prior experience
• On-target earnings (OTE)
• : $260,000 - $290,000

Final compensation will be determined based on the candidate’s individual skills, qualifications, and experience. Total compensation for this role also includes incentive stock options and benefits. This role will also will also be eligible for variable compensation.

On-Target Earnings (OTE) Range

$260,000 — $290,000 USD