State Head - Sales & Distribution

Role Overview:

As State Head, you will drive PhonePe's offline merchant acquisition and ecosystem expansion across urban and rural markets. Operating at the intersection of strategy, field operations, and market intelligence, you will build and lead a multi-tiered sales organization to accelerate market share, elevate merchant retention, and scale payment adoption across the state.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Growth & Market Expansion:

- Market Ownership: Formulate and execute the state-level growth roadmap to maximize merchant acquisition, market penetration, and local market share.

- Distribution Strategy: Structure optimal channel models (span and spread) and expand Direct Selling Agent (DSA) networks based on local market size, competitor dynamics, and merchant behaviors.

- Data & Process Optimization: Leverage analytics to identify operational bottlenecks, run targeted field trials, and implement data-backed solutions to improve sales force efficiency.

- Goal Alignment: Establish communication protocols to bridge strategy and ground execution, ensuring complete alignment on deliverables across all tiers.

Stakeholder Engagement & Field Governance:

- Partner Escalations: Serve as the senior escalation point for merchants and DSAs, resolving process, payout, and operational friction to strengthen partner relationships.

- Cross-Functional Synergy: Work with HR, Marketing, and Sales Capability teams to maintain full headcount, deploy localized collaterals, and resolve field enablement gaps.

- Performance Governance: Implement structured weekly and monthly review frameworks with key stakeholders to track progress against broader organization objectives.

Leadership & Talent Acceleration:

- Team Hiring & Onboarding: Own recruitment for critical leadership roles (ASMs and TSMs) to maintain 100% headcount; drive onboarding and organizational assimilation.

- Performance Management: Manage performance appraisals, delivering structured coaching to ASMs to optimize field-level inputs and conversion outputs.

- Retention & Engagement: Monitor attrition drivers, implement retention frameworks, and champion local Rewards & Recognition (R&R) programs to boost morale.

Operational Quality & Compliance:

- Merchant Engagement: Monitor quality metrics - including Monthly Active Merchants (MAM), KYC verification, and Pay for Business (PFB) feature usage - to enhance merchant lifetime value.

- Regulatory Compliance: Enforce adherence to internal operating procedures and regulatory guidelines, maintaining zero-tolerance for compliance deviations.

Candidate Profile:

- Education: MBA from a Tier-1 business school.

- Experience: 2 - 6 years of experience in Sales & Distribution, Regional Business Development, or Channel Management, ideally within a high-growth startup or fast-paced consumer/tech environment.

- Field Leadership: Demonstrated experience managing multi-tiered, large-scale direct and indirect field sales hierarchies.

- Strategic & Analytical Skills: Proven ability to translate raw field data into actionable strategies and execute complex, high-impact growth initiatives.

- Ground-Level Execution: Deep understanding of regional commercial landscapes, paired with strong negotiation and conflict-resolution skills.

- Ethics: High integrity when handling merchant relationships, partner payouts, and sensitive operational data.