Stephen Spears brings 30 years of experience to the new role having spent 17 years in a variety of senior leadership roles at SAP, most recently as CRO of SAP SuccessFactors.
Now reporting to Avaya president and CEO Jim Chirico, Spears will oversee the strategy, performance, and alignment of revenue operations for Avaya, helping to accelerate execution on the company’s growth strategy. He will also oversee the firm’s revenue generating organisations, customer lifecycle, and go-to-client functions, including global sales and marketing, partner management and all channel related activities.
He said: “I am thrilled to be joining such an experienced and passionate management team.”
“Joining Avaya at this critical juncture in their long-term strategy demonstrates Avaya’s continuing commitment to their extensive customer base and vibrant ecosystem. Putting people at the centre of communications is at the heart of every successful business worldwide, and Avaya’s unwavering commitment to this goal will help drive a customer-centric approach that will generate top-line growth and sustainable solutions for decades to come,” he added.
In his most recent role at SAP SuccessFactors, Spears helped redefine the HCM category to human experience management (HXM) and increased annual revenues by approximately 30% with more than 7,000 customers in over 200 countries and territories worldwide.
Chirico commented: “Stephen has a keen understanding of what it takes to drive sales, marketing and customer success, making him an ideal fit to help lead execution on our very deliberate strategy.
“The re-imagined Avaya has never been more relevant to our growing base of customers and partners globally, and the way we are executing shows the winning mentality, expanding commitment to our customers, and strong culture of Avaya. We could not be more excited to have Stephen join our team.”
