Context Overview
High-potential employees, future sales leaders, mentors and internal experts need opportunities to practise broader responsibilities while remaining active in the field. We strengthened the talent development ecosystem by connecting identified potential with on-the-job experience and readiness for role transitions.
In partnership with HR and commercial leaders, I designed and managed on-the-job development programmes combining role design, assessment, mentoring, coaching, cross-functional projects and SME communities. The system made progression and coaching coverage visible: around 35% of mentoring participants subsequently moved into roles with greater responsibility.
Stakeholders
HR stakeholders; Sales Leadership; Marketing Leadership; Commercial Excellence Leadership; line managers; Corporate Academy; Subject Matter Experts.
Deployment
- Establish the Mentoring Program: select, assess and prepare around 25 experienced sales professionals each year for stretch assignments mentoring new hires and supporting local capability delivery.
- Design Senior Individual roles as an intermediate leadership layer between Sales Managers and teams, with responsibilities for coordination, new-hire coaching and area strategy execution.
- Create structured assessments for internal and external Sales Manager candidates using business cases and exercises on business acumen, activity planning, sales methodology, product knowledge, commercial programmes, team management and coaching.
- Use buddy and cross-functional project work to connect colleagues across teams and enable practical knowledge exchange and skill transfer.
- Design and facilitate global continuous improvement programmes around customer centricity, product lines, service excellence and other strategic priorities.
- Connect a Subject Matter Experts Community with the Corporate Academy so SMEs can develop micro-learning, provide 1:1 support, share practices and sustain online communities through channels such as Viva Engage.
Metrics & Results
- Mentoring Program: 20–30 participants annually over six years; around 35% subsequently moved into roles with greater responsibility, including first-line management, more complex commercial assignments or Sales Training.
- Senior Territory Manager role: approximately two per market and around 60 people promoted, expanding coaching coverage across the sales population.
- After 12 months, 80% of sales employees received at least one coaching session every three months with a direct manager or Senior Territory Manager.
- 50% of Sales Managers were developed and trained internally.
- Buddy programme: 12–15 cross-functional projects delivered each year.
- Continuous improvement: six global projects delivered annually.
- SME Community: around 65 members, with 80% engagement against total available capacity.
Competencies, Frameworks and Tools
Talent development strategy; programme design and governance; competency and assessment frameworks; leadership pipeline development; mentoring and coaching models; cross-functional learning; community activation; impact measurement.
Competency mapping; structured assessment; Agile project approach; Coaching for Performance; best-practice sharing; SharePoint; Viva Engage.