Chief Sales Officer

Company Overview

Founded in 2013 by Pierre Dubuc and Mathieu Nebra, OpenClassrooms is a mission-driven company with the ambition of making education and career opportunities accessible to everyone.

OpenClassrooms offers numerous open and free-access courses, along with accredited diploma programs for in-demand professions such as tech, data, education, marketing, HR, energy renovation, healthcare and social services, all delivered 100% online. OpenClassrooms uniquely creates and produces all its courses and educational content, relying on a distinctive model focused on practical learning through professional projects and guidance from mentors who are experts in their respective fields.

From the beginning, OpenClassrooms’ mission has been centered around impact: incorporating it into the statutes in 2018 and obtaining B Corp certification in 2021. In 2025, 43,000 learners reported that OpenClassrooms had helped them progress in their careers — a major step toward our goal of making skill development a sustainable driver of employment.

In 2025, OpenClassrooms becomes the first French school accredited as an American higher education institution — a decisive milestone to scale our mission: training the talent employers need.

Our goal: to become the leader for apprenticeships and reskilling.

Role

Chief Sales Officer for French-speaking markets in the short term, adding the US scope in the long term. You will play a pivotal role in driving OpenClassrooms' growth and covering approximately €30 million of bookings per year. Reporting directly to the CEO, you will join the executive leadership team, shaping our commercial strategy and contributing to our global impact.

This position combines strategic vision with operational execution. Your mission is to make education more accessible by maximizing the number of student enrollees, employer clients, and bookings growth across the employer (B2B), student (B2C), and social programs (B2G) segments. You will lead a diverse team of approximately 30 professionals while fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Key Responsibilities

• Sales strategy and sales execution: develop a strong commercial strategy and excellent AI powered sales engine to maximize orders and bookings, with strong unit economics and efficiency, covering for employers, students and social programs scopes, with a high spectrum of employers sizing from small businesses, start up, scale up, mid market up to enterprise accounts, at first in France then globally in the long term.
• Enrollment strategy and delivery: leading streamlined processes and supporting student orientation, admission, contractualization, and apprenticeship matching to maximize the number of quality student enrollees and close bookings on all lines of business, shorten conversion cycles, improve conversion rates and optimize unit economics.
• Team Leadership: building and inspiring high performing and efficient sales & student teams, fostering collaboration, a growth mindset, and ensuring excellence in delivery in alignment with company goals.

Responsibilities Detail

• Sales Strategy and Execution:
  • Develop and execute a comprehensive commercial strategy with a specific focus on proactive outbound sales activities to drive bookings growth across employers, students and social programs segments, targeting organizations ranging from small businesses, startups and scale-ups to large enterprises, to sell apprenticeship and reskilling programs.
  • Establish ambitious sales targets and ensure accountability through robust tracking of pipeline and sales activity, forecasting, and performance management processes, and sales training.
  • Ensure high level of renewal and upselling/cross selling, and implement customer success strategy to maximize customer satisfaction.
  • Use insights from Data & BI to empower the sales operations team on data driven insights to optimize bookings, pipeline velocity and conversion.
  • Develop and leverage strategic influence networks with key stakeholders and decision-makers to align commercial objectives with market opportunities.
  • Apply a deep understanding of relevant regulatory, institutional, and labor market dynamics to ensure sales strategies are informed, compliant, and market-relevant.
• Enrollment and Conversion Optimization:
  • Oversee streamlined enrollment processes to maximize student admissions and orientation, contractualization, and apprenticeship matching.
  • Manage all pre-sales student and employer facing support to provide a fast and high quality service and a superior level of satisfaction to our future clients (email, phone, chat, etc.).
  • Implement AI-powered scalable solutions that improve conversion rates, optimize unit economics, reduce costs, and ensure an exceptional customer experience.
• Operational Excellence:
  • Design and implement best-in-class sales operations, training, leveraging technology notably AI and agentic orchestration to optimize efficiency (managing inbound and outbound interactions with both employers and students) and ensure data-driven decision-making and execution.
  • Drive higher contribution margins, optimize unit economics, continuously improve processes and automate to maximize productivity and scale effectively in dynamic market conditions.
• Cross-Functional Leadership:
  • Collaborate with other C-level executives to align commercial initiatives with organizational priorities and long-term strategy.
  • Represent sales insights in board meetings, contributing to strategic discussions with investors and stakeholders.
  • Partners across regions (including the US) to share best practices, unify processes, tools, and platforms to prepare for global alignment.

Key Objectives

• Achieve and exceed orders and bookings targets across segments (employers, students, and social programs).
• Improve sales pipeline velocity and conversion, as well as forecast accuracy.
• Optimize contribution margins, sales cost per enrollee, sales cost per contract, conversion rates, and lead times.

Key Metrics

• Orders
• Bookings
• # of enrollees
• Avg booking per enrollee
• Cost of sales per enrollee
• Avg contract size
• Cost of sales per contract
• # renewal rate
• € renewal rate

Performance Tracking

• Employers: calls, meetings, # leads, lead conversion rate, # opportunities, win rate, time to win.
• Students: fulfilment rate, visitors, new members, active members, student prospects, applicants, candidates, declared matches, confirmed matches, employer prospects, apprentice seekers, # calls, # meetings, # emails, # applicants per agent, # candidates per agent, # enrollees per agent.
• Social programs: orders, fulfilment rate, calls, meetings, # leads, lead conversion rate, # opportunities, win rate, time to win.

Competencies Required

• Leadership and Team Management:
  • Proven success in leading diverse, high-performing teams while fostering collaboration, accountability, and innovation
  • Ability to inspire trust, influence external and internal stakeholders at all levels, and drive organizational change while ensuring alignment with company-wide goals.
  • Skilled at balancing short-term delivery with long-term strategic goals, empowering teams to excel in dynamic environments.
• Sales Expertise and Operations:
  • Strong business acumen and proven track record of developing and executing strategies that drive growth across B2B and B2C markets.
  • Demonstrated ability to optimize commercial operations, increase client engagement, be client facing, generate next frontier opportunities, and enhance brand visibility.
• Customer Services Excellence:
  • Skill in designing and managing scalable customer service processes to enhance satisfaction, retention, and loyalty.
  • Proficient in managing pre-sales and post-sales customer support functions to ensure high levels of service, addressing inquiries, and resolving issues efficiently.
  • Ability to optimize customer journeys, leveraging feedback and data to continuously improve customer-facing operations.
• Operational Excellence:
  • Expertise in designing scalable processes, leveraging technology, automation, and AI, and data insights to streamline workflows and improve efficiency.
  • Skilled at implementing best practices that enhance productivity, quality, and competitive advantage.
• Strategic Vision and Innovation:
  • Strong ability to navigate complex challenges and craft creative solutions, notably using gen AI.
  • Adept at aligning short-term execution with long-term goals to deliver measurable outcomes.
  • Experience in managing reputation and influencing regulatory environments to position the company as a key industry leader.
• Data-Driven Approach:
  • Proficient in using data to inform decision-making, identify opportunities, and measure performance effectively.
• Adaptability and Change Leadership:
  • Thrive in dynamic, fast-paced settings, demonstrating resilience and adaptability while leading teams through transformation.
  • Entrepreneurial mindset with a focus on driving impactful change in a scale-up environment.

Languages

• C2 level in French
• At least C1 level in English (C2 highly recommended).

Location

OpenClassrooms is a remote-first organization with offices across the EU, the UK, the US, and headquartered in Paris, France. The role could be based anywhere in the EU, or the US, but we have a strong preference for France and ideally Paris. You will have to travel regularly to Paris (HQ) and be ready to reasonably accommodate online meetings on European time zones as the majority of our workforce is based in Europe.

Reporting Line, Direct Reports & Key Stakeholders

This role reports to the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Pierre Dubuc. The role will currently have a team of c. 30 with direct reports encompassing 1 Apprenticeship Sales Director, 1 Sales Operations Director, 1 Individual Student Sales Manager and 1 Enrollment Manager. The organization is subject to evolutions in the future.

This role will partner with other C-level executives, as a key member of the top management team and integral to the success of the business overall.

Our Perks

• While OpenClassrooms operates as a remote-first company, this position requires a hybrid setup, with a minimum of two days per week working from our Paris office.
• Work environment and culture: founded on the company's four core values: we care, we dare, we persist, we tell it as it is.
• Comprehensive health insurance: fully covered by OpenClassrooms.
• Sport and Wellness allowance and access to the Moka Care (mental health solution).
• Swile Restaurant Vouchers.
• Transportation reimbursement for the Île-de-France region: Navigo pass fully paid by OpenClassrooms.
• 30 Paid Vacation Days per Year.
• 5 Caretaker Days per year: provided to allow you to take care of your loved ones.
• Company MacBook: provided for work purposes.
• Access to OpenClassrooms’ training catalog.

Equal Opportunity

OpenClassrooms encourages everyone to apply, regardless of gender, age, orientation, origin, or disability. We actively promote a diverse and inclusive culture and provide reasonable accommodation for applicants with disabilities.