David Gillespie Email & Phone Number

Atlanta, Georgia, United States

A passionate partner with small to mid-sized education and ed tech companies in building sales "muscle", from strategy to structure to talent. My expertise is in sales strategy, building sales processes and infrastructure, sales L&D, pipeline growth and development, forecasting, creating sales territories and comp plans, connecting sales and marketing strategy and execution, sales talent and leadership development.

Atlanta, Ga

OceansThree is a boutique search and talent development group with over 30 years of experience in the ed tech and media space. Our mission is to help you secure, develop, and retain the best talent in the industry. We specialize in executive search, and can help you find outstanding sales, marketing, product, technology, or general management talent.
* Co-created the company mission, values, unique value proposition, and strategic road map, while building the sales, marketing, communication/social media, legal and financial infrastructure.
* Built a unique search process that included immersive client collaboration with hiring managers, a high regard for client culture and needs, and careful attention to an unparalleled candidate experience.
**** Serve as ideal partner to advise, coach, and provide strategic direction to early stage and mature ed tech companies in sales management and leadership, sales operations, go-to-market strategy, sales team organization and culture, and sales fundamentals. Clients include McGraw Hill, Real Time Cases, Teachstone, College Possible, Coton Colors.

Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Teachstone® was founded in 2008 to deliver the Classroom Assessment Scoring System® (CLASS®). Developed through years of research, the CLASS observation tool measures the interactions between teachers and children, which have been shown to drive learning and lifelong achievement. In an interim capacity, I managed all revenue generating parts of the organization, anticipating significant future growth, while providing leadership to meet immediate revenue goals by creating a more accountable sales culture.
* Increased sales bookings in 2018 by 28% over goal, and 33% over prior year, increasing revenue by 30%. Increased revenue in Q1 2019 by 40% over Q1 2018.
* Restructured the revenue team, and all of the roles within it. Re-imagined the comp plans to drive behavior, and to more effectively drive sales and meet customer needs.
* Created scalable sales processes and infrastructure that drove better pipeline management, collaboration across organizational boundaries on key opportunities, and communication between account executives and client success managers.
* Designed and implemented customizable new sales rep onboarding program.

Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Co-founded, advised and led an innovative homeless organization, whose mission is to transform the way that we respond to and view homelessness.
* Secured a $1 million gift, donated to The River for the sole purpose of getting more people off of the streets and into permanent supportive housing.
* Led a four month strategic planning process to create The River's unique and innovative mission, vision, values, and tactical direction.
* Developed and finalized formal relationships with eight principal organizational partners, in the areas of housing outreach, addiction, medical and mental health care, employment and job training, and criminal justice advocacy.

Atlanta, Georgia, United States

* Started an L&D function within Sales and Marketing, from the ground up, which included a new on boarding program, sales manager effectiveness program, needs analysis and executive team collaboration, a new learning platform that included curated and native content.
* Served as the Sales Enablement and Effectiveness Leader, and a key connector between Sales and Marketing, as well as an internal consultant and advisor for VP's of Sales and VP's of Marketing.
* Built a team of 9 L&D directors and built state-of-the-art L&D programs from scratch.
* Managed industry unique Faculty Training and Development program, called TeamUP, and a customer implementation and training group, called the Technology Service and Training Consultants.
* Created an industry unique competency-based sales management training and leadership development program, called the Sales Leadership Academy.
* Initiated a competency-based recruiting and talent development program.
* Led the team that built the user requirements and roll out plan for the sales organization's new CRM.
* Changed 1500 person National Sales Meeting from "live" to virtual, including delivery of content from one time to on demand, and leading to over $2.5 million in savings.
* Built and executed the company's first career development program for high potential employees, called Career Development Academy.
* Founded and directed the Rise and Shine Charity Challenge, the industry's only corporate-community partnership charity event, which raised over $350,000 for national and local charities over four years.

* Managed a sales force of 325 reps, 38 District Managers, and 6 Regional Managers with annual sales revenues of $730M and a budget of $45M, outperforming the industry in three out of four years.
* Led immediate team of 6 Regional Managers, Director of Recruiting, Director of Training and Development, Director of Sales Systems, Director of Field Market Development, Business Manager, and Sales Meeting Planner.

Bba, Marketing

Activities and Societies: Director, Fish Camp; Executive Committee, Student Conference on National Affairs (SCONA)Graduated Cum Laude

Master Of Education (Med), Student Personnel In Higher Education

Executive Education - Leading An Effective Sales Force