Deal Desk Lead

This is a hybrid role and based from our office at North Wall Quay, Dublin 1. 

• Own, operate, and continuously improve ESW’s Deal Desk governance framework, ensuring approvals are consistent, appropriately authorized, clearly documented, and easy for stakeholders to navigate.
• Review commercial proposals and business cases to ensure pricing, terms, assumptions, risks, and non-standard requirements are fully understood before approval decisions are made.
• Exercise delegated authority within agreed parameters and coordinate escalation of exceptions to the appropriate approvers.
• Maintain and update approval thresholds, approval matrices, and Deal Desk operating guidance, recommending improvements where process gaps or recurring exceptions emerge.
• Partner with Sales and Solution Engineering on complex or strategically important opportunities, helping structure proposals within ESW’s approved commercial framework.
• Coordinate cross-functional input from Finance, Product, Legal, and other subject matter experts, ensuring assumptions, dependencies, and ownership are clear.
• Evaluate pricing scenarios, margin impact, commercial trade-offs, and material deal risks to support informed negotiation and approval decisions.
• Support Sales in developing commercially credible proposals while maintaining clear ownership of customer negotiations and sales strategy within the Sales organization.
• Model commercial scenarios using cost and pricing inputs to support deal evaluation and client-facing forecasting, developing proficiency in ESW’s forecasting and customer review tools.
• Work with Finance, Product, and relevant stakeholders to define and maintain pricing standards, commercial guardrails, and clear definitions of standard services, chargeable add-ons, and non-standard requirements.
• Partner with Finance and Product teams on pricing models for new products and services, ensuring they can be applied effectively within the Deal Desk process.
• Identify areas where unclear, inconsistent, or missing pricing creates deal friction and drive scalable improvements through stakeholder alignment.
• Ensure contracts, order forms, and commercial handovers align with approved deal structures and that assumptions and obligations are communicated effectively to downstream teams, including Legal, Delivery, and Customer Success.
• Partner with RevOps and Enablement teams to embed approved Deal Desk standards into Salesforce, reporting, onboarding, and sales guidance.
• Monitor Deal Desk performance, approval turnaround times, commercial trends, and recurring rework, providing insights and recommendations to commercial leadership and coordinating agreed improvement initiatives through implementation.

• 5+ years of experience in Deal Desk, Commercial Operations, Sales Finance, Pricing, or a similar commercial governance role.
• Degree in Business, Finance, Economics, or a related discipline is desirable. 
• Experience owning or significantly improving deal approval frameworks, commercial guardrails, and cross-functional governance processes.
• Strong commercial judgement with the ability to evaluate pricing, margin, contractual terms, commercial risk, and operational implications.
• Ability to challenge proposals constructively, influence senior stakeholders, and uphold agreed governance standards.
• Advanced Excel skills with experience modelling commercial scenarios using cost and pricing inputs and translating findings into clear recommendations.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to work effectively across cross-functional teams in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience supporting pricing frameworks and commercial governance in a global or high-growth technology environment is desirable.