EMEA Commercial Leader · Amsterdam

Shivam
Kumar

Sales Manager · Sales Director · Head of Sales · Consultancy

Most companies entering new markets think they need more pipeline. They don't — they need clarity on who they're actually selling to. At Equinix, I inherited a segment with clients across Southern Europe, MENA and Emerging Markets, but no shared ICP and no real strategy. I defined who we were going after, reallocated the team around it, and built the playbook from there. $32M ARR, five countries, four years.

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Shivam Kumar
~115%
Avg Attainment
$32M
ARR
50→92%
Forecast
5
AE Promotions
01

The Story

The mandate

Bring order to a fragmented segment

In 2021 I inherited the Growth & Emerging Markets segment at Equinix — clients across SEUR, MENA and Emerging Markets, but no shared ICP, no resource prioritisation, and no common playbook. The market existed. The strategy didn't.

The execution

Define the ICP. Build everything around it.

First move: identify which customer profiles actually converted and expanded, then reallocate AE resources to those segments. Once the ICP was defined, we built the playbook, coverage model, and comp structure around it. Then forecast discipline — 50% to 92%. Then a ramp framework that cut onboarding from 3 months to 6 weeks.

The result

A team that consistently delivers

Four consecutive years of quota attainment averaging ~115%. 80%+ of the team exceeding quota. Five AE promotions. +22% YoY ACV growth. President's Club 2023. Manager of the Year 2023.

The insight

Channel follows lighthouse deals

The non-obvious GTM truth: going channel-first into a cold market is the most common failure mode. You need direct lighthouse wins first to prove the motion — then channel becomes a genuine force multiplier.

02

The Numbers

~115%
4-Year Quota Attainment105% · 130% · 91% · 132% across SEUR, MENA & Emerging Markets
50→92%
Forecast AccuracyRebuilt pipeline governance and forecasting cadence from scratch
3→6wk
AE Ramp TimeStructured onboarding framework that halved time-to-productivity
+22%
YoY ACV GrowthShifted deal prioritisation toward higher-complexity opportunities
$32M
ARR AccountabilityFull ownership across five countries and emerging market territories
+20%
Partner-Sourced PipelineBuilt from zero via joint GTM with channel and marketing
80%+
Team Quota AttainmentConsistent performance across the full team, not just top performers
5
AE PromotionsPerformance frameworks that created real career pathways
03

Experience

Nov 2021 — Present
Commercial Sales Manager — Growth & Emerging Markets
Equinix · Amsterdam
Led 5 AEs across SEUR, MENA, and Emerging Markets. Defined the ICP, reallocated resources, and built the segment playbook, coverage model, and comp structure from the ground up. $32M+ ARR. President's Club 2023. Manager of the Year 2023.
Oct 2019 — Nov 2021
Mid-Market Sales Executive — Southern Europe & MENA
Equinix · Amsterdam
Achieved 190% of MRR and 130% of annual revenue goals. Managed $4.3M annual portfolio, expanding regional customer base by 15%. Led ABM campaigns for high-value acquisition.
Nov 2016 — Oct 2019
Sales Development Representative — Southern Europe & MENA
Equinix · Amsterdam
Exceeded all lead generation and pipeline KPIs. $50K+ in closed-won MRR in 2018. Onboarded and trained 8 SDRs, establishing EMEA best practices for outbound.
Awards
President's Club 2023 Manager of the Year 2023 Sales MVP 2021 CSO Excellence 2019
Languages
English — Fluent Italian — Fluent Hindi — Fluent
Certifications
MEDDIC 2024 Revenue Architecture 2025 Challenger Sales 2025 Northwestern — Leadership & Negotiation 2025 SLII Blanchard 2025
04

Open To

🎯
Role
Sales Manager · Sales Director · Head of Sales
Leadership mandate, not IC
🏢
Sector
AI Infrastructure · Cloud · Enterprise SaaS
€500M–€5B company size
🌍
Geography
EMEA — open globally
Based Amsterdam · London-flexible
🤝
Advisory
GTM & Revenue Advisor
Open to advising early-stage companies on EMEA GTM, ICP definition, and commercial build-out
05

The Person

Where I am from

Parma to Amsterdam, via the world

Born in Italy with Indian roots, I grew up in Parma for 21 years — the kind of city that teaches you to care deeply about craft and quality. I moved to the Netherlands to study in Breda, then stayed for work, and Amsterdam has been home ever since. Three cultures, three languages, one worldview: that context matters, and that understanding where someone comes from shapes how you work with them.

What drives me

Building things that didn't exist before

I'm energised by a goal and the daily discipline of moving toward it. What got me out of bed at Equinix wasn't the quota — it was watching the GEMs segment take shape from a fragmented set of accounts into something with structure, direction, and a team that believed in it. Building gives me energy. So do the people I build with.

How I lead

Trust first. Accountability always.

I lead with trust — I hire people who want to build something, give them the room to do it, and hold them to a high standard. I'm not interested in managing effort. I'm interested in developing people who grow beyond the role I hired them into. Five AE promotions in four years isn't a metric I'm proud of — it's a philosophy made visible.

Outside work

Football, padel, and good bread

Lifelong Inter Milan supporter — the suffering builds character. Padel-obsessed, which turns out to be excellent training for reading opponents and adapting mid-game. On weekends, my wife and I hunt down new restaurants and bakeries across Amsterdam. Discovering how different cultures eat, think, and live is something I've never got tired of — it's probably why I ended up building teams across five countries.

Let's
Talk.

If you're building a sales function in EMEA and need someone who's done it before — from a fragmented base to a structured, scalable motion — I'd like to hear about it.

✉ shivam@hotmail.it in linkedin.com/in/shivamkumar ☎ +31 6 48376720