About the Client
Our Client is a strategic advisory and institutional intelligence firm serving governments, regulated enterprises, and the partners who serve them. It works where institutional decisions carry consequence and where outcomes are examined - by boards, regulators, inspectors general, and auditors. The firm competes on senior judgment and a proprietary governance doctrine, not on methodology or price. It is fully built and operational, ahead of its first engagements; this search is for the leadership to convert that capability into revenue.
The Role
The Director of Sales, International owns the non-US market end to end - originating, advancing, and closing engagements with sovereign governments, foreign ministries, state-owned enterprises, central banks, regulatory authorities, and multilateral institutions - and reports directly to the Executive Chairman. The mandate includes the structural decisions international engagements require: geography and partner strategy, contracting jurisdiction, currency, payment terms, and compliance posture under US and host-country law.
The Buyer
Ministers, agency and program leadership, sovereign program executives, and senior advisors - the population that authorizes engagement of foreign advisory firms on institutional reform, modernization, and anti-corruption programs.
Target Candidate Profile
■ Senior partners or BD executives at international advisory firms with sovereign or development-bank experience.
■ Former diplomats, foreign-service officers, or development executives who have moved into commercial advisory work.
■ Senior executives from multilateral institutions (World Bank, IMF, regional development banks) or major international consultancies with a personal sovereign client book.
■ BD leaders from defense, infrastructure, or institutional-services firms with sovereign government clients.
The Screen
■ An active network of senior officials, ministers, or sovereign program executives across at least one major region (Gulf, Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Europe).
■ A demonstrated history of personally originating and closing sovereign or state-affiliated engagements.
■ Fluency in the language of institutional reform, public-sector modernization, and multilateral engagement.
■ Sophisticated judgment on geopolitical, regulatory, and compliance exposure - US export and sanctions regimes, FCPA, and host-country expectations.
■ The financial position and risk tolerance to work on commission-led economics at the outset.
Compensation Structure
The structure is engineered for operators who convert their own network into revenue rather than draw a guaranteed base.
■ Commission-only at inception, at a rate set above conventional sales economics, on all originated and closed revenue.
■ A base of $10,000 per month that activates on the Director's first personally-closed engagement reaching paid status - additive to commission, with no offset.
■ Continuing commission on all subsequent originated revenue, including growth within existing accounts.
This self-selects for confident operators and screens out candidates who need a salaried seat. A small number of well-executed engagements produces economics that compare favorably to a salaried sales role at a larger firm.