Commercial Director, Adaptive ERP

  • Full-time
  • Employee Type: Employee
  • Time Type: Full Time
  • Department: Sales
  • Location: United States of America - Illinois

Company Description

QAD is building a world-class SaaS company, providing enterprise software solutions globally. We are a virtual-first company, enabling our team to work primarily from home, while fostering a collaborative culture focused on growth, innovation, and well-being. We value diversity and strive for an inclusive environment where everyone feels empowered to contribute to our success.

Job Description

This is a rare role for a commercially sharp, process-obsessed operator who wants to sit at the centre of a high-performing enterprise software business. As Commercial Director, you will be the right hand of the General Manager — the person who ensures the business runs with discipline, that every forecast is defended with evidence, and that no deal, pipeline risk, or process gap goes unaddressed.

QAD is a global ERP leader with over 30 years of purpose-built manufacturing domain expertise, now supercharged by Champion AI — a genuinely differentiated AI solution embedded into the core product. Backed by private equity, the business operates with the urgency, rigour, and performance expectations that come with that environment. This is not a role for someone who needs to be managed. It is a role for someone who manages everything around them.

You will work alongside a newly appointed VP of Sales, playing a critical role in building the commercial infrastructure that will underpin the next phase of growth. You will support the forecasting process end-to-end, partner deeply with Marketing and Sales leadership, and ensure that the GM has the clarity, data, and process confidence to make fast, well-grounded decisions.

Proximity to power and decision-making.

You will work directly with the General Manager with genuine influence over commercial strategy, not just operational execution. Where the GM goes into the room, you ensure the numbers are right, the process is airtight, and nothing has been left unchallenged before the conversation happens. Your work will be visible, your impact measurable, and your mandate real.

Reporting Line: General Manager, QAD ERP  ·  Close collaboration with VP of Sales, Marketing, and Finance

The discipline this role demands — and rewards.

Our PE sponsor expects rigour, pace, and results. Short planning cycles, tight performance accountability, and an investment thesis built around rapid ARR growth. The Commercial Director is the internal guardian of that rigour — ensuring the forecast is credible, the process is followed, and every number presented to leadership can be defended to the granular level.

Forecast Accuracy  ·  Deal Discipline  ·  Process Adherence  ·  Board-Ready Reporting


What You Will Own

You will be accountable for the commercial operating infrastructure of the QAD ERP business — from forecast accuracy and pipeline integrity through to process adherence and cross-functional alignment with Sales and Marketing.

Forecasting & Revenue Visibility

  • Support the end-to-end forecasting process for the QAD ERP business  from pipeline entry through to committed revenue, ensuring every number is earned, not assumed, before it reaches the GM or investors.

  • Support weekly, monthly, and quarterly forecast cadences preparing the data, validating assumptions, stress-testing deal timelines, and ensuring the numbers presented are accurate and defensible.

  • Build and maintain forecast models that give the GM real-time visibility into revenue risk, upside, and coverage ratios across segments, geographies, and product lines.

  • Analyse forecast variances and support root cause reviews identifying whether shortfalls are a pipeline problem, a conversion problem, a deal management problem, or something else entirely.

  • Partner with Finance to align commercial forecasts with financial plans, ensuring the business operates from a single source of truth.

Commercial Operations & Deal Management

  • Act as the operational backbone of the commercial team  supporting the processes by which deals are qualified, reviewed, escalated, and closed, and ensuring consistent adherence across the Sales organisation.

  • Support the deal review process: prepare pipeline reviews, challenge deal hygiene in advance, ensure CRM data integrity, and make certain that every deal above a defined threshold has a clear next action and credible close plan before each review session.

  • Partner with the VP of Sales to embed commercial discipline across the Sales organisation — setting standards for opportunity management, qualification frameworks (MEDDIC / MEDDPICC or equivalent), and forecasting accountability.

  • Identify and resolve process gaps that cause forecast slippage, missed handoffs, or revenue leakage; implement fixes and track adherence over time.

  • Ensure that sales process milestones are consistently applied and that the business has clear, auditable stage definitions from first meeting to signed contract.

Supporting the Incoming VP of Sales

  • Serve as an active partner to the new VP of Sales during their onboarding and ramp — providing context on the business, the pipeline, the team, and the commercial processes in place.

  • Work alongside the VP to assess the current Sales motion, identify gaps, and build a prioritised improvement agenda grounded in data and process observation.

  • Act as the connective tissue between the VP of Sales and the GM — ensuring alignment on targets, priorities, and commercial strategy across all stakeholder touchpoints.

  • Support the VP in building a high-performance team culture grounded in accountability, data, and process discipline from day one.

Marketing & Sales Alignment

  • Partner with the Marketing team to ensure pipeline generation activity is planned, tracked, and accountable against agreed coverage targets — typically 3–4x funnel at all times.

  • Provide Marketing leadership with regular, commercially grounded feedback on pipeline quality, ICP fit, and campaign effectiveness as measured by deal outcomes, not lead volume alone.

  • Work with both Marketing and Sales to develop and maintain a unified view of the customer journey from first touch to close, identifying friction points and designing improvements.


Business Performance & Reporting

  • Design and maintain the commercial reporting framework for the GM — weekly operating reports, board-ready pipeline summaries, and ad hoc analytical requests completed with accuracy and speed.

  • Build dashboards and reporting tools that give leaders instant access to the metrics that matter: ARR, pipeline coverage, conversion rates, average deal size, sales cycle length, and win/loss analysis.

  • Prepare the GM for all internal and PE stakeholder reviews — ensuring the commercial story is coherent, the data is clean, and the narrative reflects both the opportunity and the risk honestly.

  • Lead analysis of win/loss patterns and competitive positioning, translating findings into actionable recommendations for Sales, Marketing, and Product.

 

Forecast Cycle

Weekly · Monthly · Quarterly

Deal Coverage

3–4× Funnel Maintained

Stakeholder Cadence

GM · VP Sales · Board

CRM Platform

Salesforce (MEDDIC / MEDDPICC)

Qualifications

What We Are Looking For

Commercial Rigour & Analytical Depth

  • You are comfortable at the most granular level of a deal and the most strategic level of a business — and you know when to operate at each.

  • You have a deep understanding of enterprise software sales cycles — how deals are won and lost, what a healthy pipeline looks like, and where the common failure modes sit.

  • You can build a forecast model, validate every assumption within it, and tell a story from the numbers that is both honest and actionable under pressure.

  • You have experience with formal sales methodologies (MEDDIC, MEDDPICC, Force Management or similar) and know how to embed them operationally, not just conceptually.

Process Discipline & Operational Drive

  • You do not accept vague process or inconsistent execution — you design systems that work and hold people to them with respect and persistence.

  • You are energised by the detail by clean CRM data, by rigorous stage definitions, by supporting forecast calls with analysis that is thorough enough to withstand challenge and accurate enough to be trusted.

  • You have built or significantly improved commercial operating processes in a previous role and can point to measurable outcomes as a result.

PE-Backed Environment & Pace

  • You understand what it means to work in a private equity-backed business: the cadence of reporting, the expectations around performance, the scrutiny of assumptions, and the urgency of execution.

  • You thrive under this kind of pressure. You do not need the pace to be set for you, you set it for the people around you

  • You are commercially fluent enough to represent the business credibly in investor reviews and board settings without the GM needing to hold your hand.

Leadership & Influence Without Authority

  • You have the gravitas to challenge Sales leaders when the forecast is not credible, and the communication skills to align Marketing and Sales around shared goals.

  • You are a builder of relationships as well as processes the people you work with trust you because you are rigorous, fair, and always focused on the outcome rather than the credit.

  • You can operate as a true partner to the GM: anticipating what they need, flagging what they have not yet seen, and acting decisively in their absence.

Self-Starting & Results-Driven

  • This role comes with significant autonomy and significant expectation. Nobody will define your agenda for you beyond the outcomes you are accountable for.

  • You are intrinsically motivated by building something that works,  a forecast that is trusted, a process that sticks, a business that performs against its plan.

  • You take ownership of problems that are not technically yours to solve, because you care about the outcome more than the organisational boundary.

Experience & Background

  • 8–15 years of commercial experience in enterprise software, SaaS, or ERP environments — with meaningful time in sales operations, commercial finance, or a Chief of Staff / Commercial Director type role.

  • Proven track record of supporting and improving forecasting accuracy in a multi-million dollar ARR business, with direct ownership of the data and the story behind it.

  • Direct experience working alongside senior Sales leadership (VP or above) in a high-growth or transformational context, ideally including a new hire onboarding period.

  • Familiarity with ERP, manufacturing software, or supply chain technology is advantageous; the ability to learn a complex domain quickly is essential.

  • Experience in a PE-backed or similarly performance-driven environment is strongly preferred.

  • Advanced proficiency in Salesforce CRM, Excel or Google Sheets modelling, and business intelligence / reporting tools.

  • Degree-level education or equivalent professional experience; MBA, finance qualification, or revenue operations background is an advantage.

 

PE-Backed Environment Expectations

Our PE sponsor expects rigour, pace, and results. You are comfortable operating with short planning cycles, tight performance accountability, and an investment thesis built around  ARR growth. You understand what it means to run a tight ship  lean, data-driven, and always focused on unit economics alongside top-line momentum.

In this role specifically, that means a forecast the board can trust, a pipeline the GM can defend, and a commercial process that is followed consistently not because it is mandated, but because you have made the case for why it matters and built the discipline to make it stick. You will be measured not just on what the numbers say, but on how reliably you called them.

Additional Information

Compensation Package:

  • Our range for this position is $180K - 210K USD Base annually. 

  • This role is eligible for the annual Company Bonus Plan.

  • Placement within our pay range will vary based on knowledge, skills, experience, and market location variations as well as internal peer equity.

  • U.S. benefits package includes medical, dental and vision coverage, a 401(k) plan with company match, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, paid-time off, parental leave, and well-being programs.

  • Your health and well being are important to us at QAD. We provide programs that help you strike a healthy work-life balance.
  • Opportunity to join a growing business, launching into its next phase of expansion and transformation.
  • Collaborative culture of smart and hard-working people who support one another to get the job done.
  • An atmosphere of growth and opportunity, where idea-sharing is always prioritized over level or hierarchy.
  • Compensation packages based on experience and desired skill set

About QAD:

QAD | Redzone is redefining manufacturing and supply chains through its intelligent, adaptive platform that connects people, processes, and data into a single System of Action. With three core pillars — Redzone (frontline empowerment), Adaptive Applications (the intelligent backbone), and Champion AI (Agentic AI for manufacturing) — QAD | Redzone helps manufacturers operate with Champion Pace, achieving measurable productivity, resilience, and growth in just 90 days.

QAD is committed to ensuring that every employee feels they work in an environment that values their contributions, respects their unique perspectives and provides opportunities for growth regardless of background. QAD’s DEI program is driving higher levels of diversity, equity and inclusion so that employees can bring their whole self to work.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class. 

#LI-Remote

By clicking the link above or any third-party link within this posting, you are leaving this site and going to a third-party website where the third-party website's terms and privacy policy apply

Privacy Notice