🤝 Senior Manager, Sales Development – Build & Scale Outbound in DACH | Airwallex Berlin

About Airwallex

Airwallex is the only unified payments and financial platform built for global businesses. With proprietary infrastructure and software at its core, the company powers over 250,000 businesses worldwide – from Brex and Rippling to Qantas and SHEIN – offering fully integrated solutions spanning business accounts, payments, spend management, treasury, and embedded finance at global scale.

Founded in Melbourne, Airwallex brings together more than 2,300 of the most innovative tech professionals across 27 offices worldwide. Valued at US$11 billion and backed by investors including T. Rowe Price, Visa, Mastercard, Sequoia, and Salesforce Ventures, the company is building the global payments and financial platform of the future.

Attributes We Value

Airwallex hires successful builders with founder-like energy who seek real impact, accelerated learning, and true ownership. You bring strong role-related expertise, sharp thinking, and motivation driven by the company's mission. You move fast with good judgment, dig deep with curiosity, and make decisions from first principles – balancing speed and rigor. You are humble, collaborative, and turn zero-to-one ideas into real products end-to-end. You leverage AI to work smarter and solve problems faster, tackling complex, high-visibility problems alongside exceptional teammates.

About the Team

The SME & Growth team partners with ambitious SMB and mid-market businesses operating across borders, helping them get paid, hold and convert funds, pay suppliers, and issue cards globally – all from a single financial platform. In EMEA, the team is in build mode: a lean, high-calibre commercial unit with strong backing, a large greenfield market, and high expectations. You will join experienced sellers who care about sales excellence, product depth, and disciplined execution.

What You Will Do

As a highly strategic, metrics-driven, and technology-forward leader, you will build a modern, AI-enabled sales development engine across DACH and broader EMEA. You will lead and scale the SME SDR team, shape the operating rhythm, and partner closely with Sales and Marketing to drive high-quality pipeline. Reporting into the Head of SME & Growth, DACH, you will become an inspirational leader who builds a high-performing, inclusive team that thrives and progresses with Airwallex. The role is based in Berlin, with at least 3 days per week in the Berlin office.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage the SME SDR team with hands-on leadership, including day-to-day coaching on outbound prospecting, qualification, and handover to Account Executives.
• Lead outbound SDRs to create qualified opportunities, owning both volume and value targets for pipeline generated.
• Partner with the Head of SME & Growth, DACH to build a high-performance SDR organisation, including operating cadence, performance standards, and hiring plans.
• Develop and refine a data-driven strategy to identify and engage new customers across priority segments in EMEA, with a strong focus on outbound motions.
• Work closely with Marketing to design and execute lead-generation campaigns, agree follow-up SLAs, and ensure inbound leads are qualified and actioned efficiently.
• Collaborate with Account Executives to ensure smooth handover of opportunities in Salesforce and optimise funnel conversion and pipeline health.
• Implement and analyse SDR KPIs and dashboards – opportunities created, opportunity value, conversion rates, activity levels – to spot trends and ensure monthly goals are met.
• Hire, onboard, and develop early-career sales talent; provide clear expectations, feedback, and progression paths to build a motivated, performance-driven culture.
• Own and iterate SDR processes, playbooks, and tooling, including Salesforce, Outreach or SalesLoft, and AI-enabled prospecting and workflow automation tools.
• Build and scale an AI-assisted outbound engine across priority ICP plays, including lead sourcing, trigger detection, account research, personalization, multithreading, and sequence testing.
• Design a data-led upper-funnel operating model for named-account and ABM motions, including segmentation, enrichment, routing logic, multilingual outreach, and experimentation.
• Partner with Sales and Marketing to translate DACH ICP plays into repeatable outbound programs, ensuring messaging reflects local market needs and German-language trust expectations.
• Establish clear AI and automation guardrails, testing frameworks, and KPI dashboards to ensure scalable prospecting quality, compliant outreach, and measurable pipeline impact.
• Act as a cross-functional partner to People & Talent, Marketing, Sales, and Revenue Operations to improve talent attraction, pipeline generation, and win rates in core verticals.

Who You Are

The following minimum requirements are essential for this role. Preferred qualifications are a strong plus but not mandatory.

Minimum Qualifications

• Relevant experience leading an outbound SDR team, ideally in a start-up or scale-up environment where outbound is a core growth lever.
• Proven experience building and expanding a sales development or sales unit, including hiring, establishing processes, and coaching a team to hit ambitious targets.
• Demonstrated track record of hiring and developing early-career sales talent into high performers and progressing them into closing roles.
• Strong experience working cross-functionally with People & Talent, Marketing, and Account Executives to align on target accounts, campaigns, and pipeline goals.
• Excellent written, numerical, and verbal communication skills, with the ability to simplify complexity for both your team and prospective customers.
• Proficiency with Salesforce or another modern CRM, plus sales engagement tools such as Outreach or SalesLoft, and modern AI-enabled prospecting or workflow automation tools.
• Proven experience implementing AI tools, workflow automation, or agentic prospecting systems to improve personalization quality, SDR efficiency, and pipeline generation outcomes.
• Strong strategic thinking skills with the ability to break down complex problems and design pragmatic, scalable solutions for a high-growth environment.
• Ability to foster a motivated, inclusive, and performance-driven culture where SDRs feel supported, challenged, and accountable.
• 2+ years of experience in a sales management or leadership role, ideally in a high-growth tech start-up or scale-up, or a proven track record as a senior individual contributor.
• Professional fluency in German and English is required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading both inbound and outbound SDR motions, including playbook design for different lead sources, segments, and ABM use cases.
• Prior experience building or scaling a commercial team or new office in DACH or broader EMEA, with exposure to 0-to-1 or 1-to-10 growth phases.
• Previous hands-on experience building AI-assisted upper-funnel motions, including account research, trigger-based prospecting, signal capture, multithreading, and sequence optimisation.
• Experience designing prospecting systems for Germany-first or DACH GTM, including localized messaging, German-language outreach, and trust-led engagement strategies.
• Background in fintech, banking, or B2B SaaS, with familiarity across FX, payments, cards, or spend management products.
• Hands-on experience using structured sales methodologies and qualification frameworks such as MEDDIC, MEDDPICC, or SPICED within SDR or sales teams.