Vice President, Global Incentives Strategy & Operations

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Were obsessed with making hard work pay off for our people our customers and the world around us. As a Fortune 500 company and a leading AI platform for managing people money and agents were shaping the future of work so teams can reach their potential and focus on what matters most. The minute you join youll feel it. Not just in the products we build but in how we show up for each other. Our culture is rooted in integrity empathy and shared enthusiasm. Were in this together tackling big challenges with bold ideas and genuine care. We look for curious minds and courageous collaborators who bring sun-drenched optimism and drive. Whether youre building smarter solutions supporting customers or creating a space where everyone belongs youll do meaningful work with Workmates whove got your return well give you the trust to take risks the tools to grow the skills to develop and the support of a company invested in you for the long haul. So if you want to inspire a brighter work day for everyone including yourself youve found a match in Workday and we hope to be a match for you too.

About the Team

About the Role

At Workday incentives are one of the most important mechanisms we have to translate company strategy into field execution. We are looking for a Vice President Global Incentives Strategy & Operations to lead the strategy design support governance and operational delivery of incentive programs across our global revenue organization.

This leader will own the incentive operating model for a broad and complex set of populations including Sales Leadership quota-carrying sellers sales support teams such as Presales Value Management and Customer Success as well as our partner organization including GPO. The role sits at the center of company strategy field behavior financial rigor and operational execution.

The person in this role will help shape how Workday motivates growth balances company priorities supports different go-to-market motions and executes incentive programs at global scale. This is a senior leadership role requiring strong business judgment deep compensation expertise operational precision and the ability to influence across Revenue Finance People & Purpose Accounting Legal and systems teams.

About the Role

As the leader of the global incentives strategy and operations function you will serve as the primary architect and executor of a comprehensive compensation framework designed to align the companys go-to-market priorities with the performance of all revenue-facing roles including Sales Customer Success and the Global Partner Organization. By partnering with executive leadership to define compensation philosophy and plan architecture you will oversee the entire annual lifecyclefrom complex financial modeling and goal sheet automation to global rollout and change managementensuring that incentive structures are scalable effective and geographically nuanced. Your mandate includes driving operational excellence through systems integration and rigorous reporting while maintaining a robust governance model for policy interpretation and exceptions. Ultimately you will foster field trust through transparent communication and modern support tools all while leading a high-performing team dedicated to transforming incentives into a strategic lever that drives predictable high-quality revenue growth.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and support incentive strategies across a wide range of field roles with different objectives sales motions and success measures

• Ensure plans are aligned to Workdays business priorities financially sound behaviorally effective and operationally scalable

• Partner with senior leaders to calibrate measures mix weightings accelerators gates crediting frameworks and role-specific mechanics

• Balance consistency and fairness with the realities of different field roles from direct sellers to overlays leaders support teams and partner motions

Sales Leadership Plan Strategy:

• Own the incentive strategy and plan support for Sales Leadership roles

• Ensure leadership measures reinforce enterprise priorities including revenue outcomes renewal performance pipeline quality product focus and organizational execution

• Help senior leaders understand tradeoffs and implications of leadership plan design decisions

Seller Plan Strategy and Operations:

• Oversee incentive support for quota-carrying sales roles across segments territories and go-to-market motions

• Ensure plans are understandable executable and aligned to the desired field behaviors

• Support annual and in-year plan changes with appropriate modeling controls communications and readiness

Sales Support Customer Success and Non-Quota Field Roles:

• Lead the incentive strategy and operational framework for Presales Value Management Customer Success and other supporting field teams where variable compensation is used

• Build role-appropriate plan approaches that reflect business impact partnership with sales customer outcomes and operational realities

• Ensure support roles are treated with rigor and consistency rather than as exceptions to the broader compensation framework

Partner Organization Incentive Strategy:

• Oversee incentive frameworks and operational support for partner-facing roles and organizations including GPO

• Help define clear principles for crediting role clarity channel alignment and compensation treatment in partner-influenced and partner-led motions

• Partner with leadership to manage complexity where direct and indirect motions intersect

Global Operations and Annual Readiness:

• Lead all activities required for a successful annual launch including planning design support testing documentation goal sheet generation and deployment

• Reduce operational risk and improve execution quality across one of the most visible annual processes in the revenue organization

• Establish disciplined operating plans milestones controls and contingency measures

Governance Policy and Exception Management:

• Build and run strong governance processes for plan interpretation compensation policy exception requests escalations and executive decision-making

• Partner with Finance Accounting People & Purpose and Legal to ensure sound policy application compliance and auditability

• Drive consistency and discipline in how compensation issues are reviewed and resolved

Communications Enablement and Field Trust:

• Improve the way incentive plans are communicated to leaders sellers and support teams

• Oversee the development of field-facing materials such as plan guides FAQs calculators enablement sessions and office hours

• Raise trust in the incentives function through greater clarity responsiveness and consistency

Systems Controls and Transformation:

• Strengthen the systems and processes that support incentive execution including integration with platforms such as Xactly Salesforce Clari and related reporting tools

• Improve reporting on plan performance payout patterns field behavior exceptions and operational health

• Simplify workflows reduce manual interventions and increase data quality and transparency

About You

Key Qualifications

• 15 years of experience in sales compensation incentive strategy revenue operations finance or a related field with substantial senior leadership experience

• Proven success leading complex global incentive programs across multiple role types including sales sales leadership overlays support teams customer-facing post-sales roles and partner organizations

• Deep expertise in compensation design goal setting crediting governance exception management and operational execution

• Strong executive presence and the ability to influence senior stakeholders across Revenue Finance HR Accounting and Legal

• Exceptional analytical and strategic problem-solving skills with the ability to connect incentive design to business performance and field behavior

• Strong operating discipline and experience leading large-scale annual cycles with high accuracy and tight timelines

• Experience building scalable processes strong controls and high-performing teams in a complex enterprise SaaS environment

• Excellent communication skills especially the ability to explain complex compensation topics in a clear and credible way to executives and field teams

• Ability to handle ambiguity complexity and competing stakeholder priorities without losing rigor

• Direct experience across both direct and indirect go-to-market models

• Experience with compensation for partner organizations and channel-related crediting complexity

• Familiarity with systems such as Xactly Salesforce Clari and enterprise reporting platforms

• Experience leading compensation governance boards escalation forums and executive review processes

• Background spanning both strategy and operations rather than narrow plan administration

Workday Pay Transparency Statement

The annualized base salary ranges for the primary location and any additional locations are listed below. Workday pay ranges vary based on work location. As a part of the total compensation package this role may be eligible for the Workday Bonus Plan or a role-specific commission/bonus as well as annual refresh stock grants. Recruiters can share more detail during the hiring process. Each candidates compensation offer will be based on multiple factors including but not limited to geography experience skills job duties and business need among other things. For more information regarding Workdays comprehensive benefits please click here.

Our Approach to Flexible Work

With Flex Work were combining the best of both worlds: in-person time and remote. Our approach enables our teams to deepen connections maintain a strong community and do their best work. We know that flexibility can take shape in many ways so rather than a number of required days in-office each week we simply spend at least half (50%) of our time each quarter in the office or in the field with our customers prospects and partners (depending on role). This means youll have the freedom to create a flexible schedule that caters to your business team and personal needs while being intentional to make the most of time spent together. Those in our remote home office roles also have the opportunity to come together in our offices for important moments that matter.

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