About the award
The Modern Sales Leadership Award (MSL25) honors the revenue pioneers who are moving the industry forward. The award celebrates the achievements of these sales visionaries who go above and beyond to make a lasting impact on their teams, customers, and communities. From their purposeful, data-driven decision making, to people-first practices, these changemakers have built the blueprint for modern selling.
Presented by HubSpot, the Modern Sales Leader award celebrates leaders who inspire all of us to grow better.
To be considered, nominees must be:
- A VP+ leader in Sales or Revenue function
- From any industry and business function (ie. B2B, B2C)
- Nominated by someone other than themselves
- Nominator must provide an explanation of why this person meets the criteria of a modern sales leader
For more information contact modernsales@hubspot.com
How it works
The Modern Sales Leader Award accepts nominations of all who embody the true spirit of modern sales leadership. To ensure the list of candidates is wide-ranging and inclusive, MSL25 nominees are sourced using online submissions and a mix of industry sales publications, influencers, and third-party research.
Winners are selected by a panel of independent judges who evaluate each nominee based on factors such as role, impact on company and community, and award criteria.
The award criteria is informed by industry trends, analysis from HubSpot, and recruiting data and analysis of years of sales executive job descriptions from Heidrick and Struggles.
To learn more about the process, see our complete list of terms and conditions.
The Modern Selling Blueprint
What is modern selling?
In today's landscape where customers are more empowered and informed, traditional selling tactics are falling short. Sales reps are constantly tied up in non-selling activities, sales conversations rarely offer true connection, and adding more tools and headcount to the mix isn't improving productivity.
The solution? Modern selling—a customer-centric approach that leverages technology to create relevant and contextual customer experiences. Anchored in empathy, modern selling helps sales leaders solve challenges, provide insightful guidance, and uncover new opportunities by placing customer connections above all else. By cultivating this connection, sales teams can increase revenue, scale intentionally, and build lasting customer relationships.
What is a Modern Sales Leader?
There's a shift happening in the world of sales leadership. It's no longer about following the same old playbook. Today's top sales leaders are embracing new ways of doing things, leveraging technology, innovation, and a people-centric approach to build connections with customers and transform common sales challenges into long-term triumphs. This is what the best companies are looking for when they hire new sales leaders. It's the behavior customers want, and it's the leadership behavior that reps value today. These modern sales leaders are more than just managers. They are pioneers, champions, and catalysts who are thoughtfully and tirelessly reshaping the way we serve customers.
| Traditional Sales Leader | Modern Sales Leader |
|---|---|
| Motto: “Always be closing.” | Motto: “Always be connecting.” |
| Solves for the seller. | Solves for the buyer. |
| Technology and data is an afterthought. | Technology and data is crucial for a winning strategy. |
| Prioritizes growth at all costs. | Builds efficient and profitable growth with scalable and repeatable results. |
| Sticks to status quo playbooks. | Data-driven and seeks new ways to learn, innovate and grow. |
| Builds homogeneous teams. | Builds diverse and inclusive teams. |
| Autocratic and rigid. A leader who is tolerated. | Flexible and authentic. A leader and team player who inspires. |
| Likely comes from a traditional sales background. | Has a breadth of experience and a nonlinear career track. |
| Motivated by their job. | Motivated by community and connection. |
This view of the Modern Sales Leader is well informed by years of sales executive job descriptions and recruiting data from Heidrick and Struggles, industry trends, third-party research, peer feedback, and analysis by HubSpot.
About HubSpot
HubSpot is the customer platform that helps your business grow better. HubSpot delivers seamless connection for customer-facing teams with a unified platform that includes AI-powered engagement hubs, a Smart CRM, and a connected ecosystem with over 1,500 app marketplace integrations, a community network, and educational content from HubSpot Academy. Today, over 184,000 customers, like DoorDash, Reddit, Eventbrite, and Tumblr, across more than 120 countries use HubSpot to attract, engage, and delight customers. Learn more at www.hubspot.com.
About Heidrick & Struggles
Heidrick & Struggles (Nasdaq: HSII) is a premier provider of global leadership advisory and on-demand talent solutions, serving the senior-level talent and consulting needs of the world's top organizations. In our role as trusted leadership advisors, we partner with our clients to develop future-ready leaders and organizations, bringing together our services and offerings in executive search, diversity and inclusion, leadership assessment and development, organization and team acceleration, culture shaping and on-demand, independent talent solutions. Heidrick & Struggles pioneered the profession of executive search more than 65 years ago. Today, the firm provides integrated talent and human capital solutions to help our clients change the world, one leadership team at a time.® www.heidrick.com