Paul Underwood

Excellent VP level commercial, financial, operational, strategic and business management skills. CIMA qualified. History of building, developing leading high-performance, global teams, and cultivating win-win alliances. Deft at deal making and expediting deal advancement throughout the sales cycle by aligning organisational solution offerings and value propositions with customer requirements. Customer Outcome driven with specific focus on building winning customer (and internal) business cases through innovative and flexible commercial terms including deal/ pricing structures In depth knowledge of consumption-based, SaaS and as-a-service models. Track record of fostering a culture based on continuous improvement within the sales/support organisation to maximise key KPI (revenue/margin/cash generation) and boost operational efficiency. Excel at steering the deployment and oversight of tools to consistently win contracts and capitalise on new business opportunities. Proven capability to establish and lead centres ofexcellence for bid management and deal desk, and develop productive relationships at all levels.

Vice President, Strategic Deal Management Hitachi, Stoke Poges, UK                                                                                                                                                                 2015 - Current

Global leadership Role of the Strategic Deal Management function with direct responsibility for a staff of between 30 and 50, predominantly quota bearing Field Financial and Commercial Solution Sales Support Specialists. 

• Supporting Global Sales through providing creative structuring, pricing and financing complex solutions (XaaS / SaaS / Consumption / Leasing) to satisfy customer requirements. (2015-2023)
  • Commercial Support & Management for strategic deals (qualification to close) to assist Hitachi sales teams to drive, win, retain and contract key deals
  • Development and presentation of Customer & Hitachi internal business case 
  • Organisation hub for Deal management to ensure visibility, consistency and execution. 
  • Owning the company governance process for non standard / complex opportunities ensuring compliance and proper visibility and oversight across all relevant functional areas.
• Supporting Global Sales with a Global Deal Desk that provided configuration and pricing support for all standard transactions ( 2020-2022)
• Supporting Global Sales with a global “centre of excellence” for Strategic Bid Management providing bid management best practices through a team of APMP certified professional and automated capabilities. (2019-2023)
• Supporting Global Sales with TCO (Total Cost of ownership) consultancy to demonstrate the customer cost benefits of an Hitachi solution.(2017-2023)
• Supporting Global Sales through the Information Management Centre – a centralized knowledge hub supporting Global Sales respond to RFP and audit requirements

Key Achievements:

• Responsible for the development and implementation of Strategic Deal Management Commercial solutions function that has contributed to driving billions in incremental revenue in the area of Leasing / Consumption / XaaS and Cloud/ Managed Services.

Team responsible for driving > $2bn of new customer contracts (2014 – 2023)

In excess of 2000 new customer contracts signed (incl renewals/expansions)

Incremental bottom line margin impact >$200m

Significant Positive cashflow impact through monetization of contracts with 3rd parties.

• Responsible for the development and implementation of Strategic Bid Management function

Supported large pursuits resulting in  > $800m of new customer contracts (2019 – 2023)

Achieved $2M per annum savings to our sales team in reduced time spent on proposals, allowing more time in front of the customersales to date through successful roll out of global programme and maintenance of Qorus, proposal automation software.

• Management of the TCO consultancy team (2017-2023)

Team responsible for supporting the sales team driving > $1bn of new customer pipeline opportunities.

Director, Commercial Operations EMEA (Strategic Deal Management), Hitachi, Stoke Poges, UK                                                                                                                                 2014- 2015

Appointed the leader of the newly formed EMEA Commercial Operations group to define and implement a strategic deal management capability to address the new market dynamics and requirement for cloud and consumption procurement methodologies and support all requests for non standard or complex opportunities.

Responsibility expanded to a Global remit detailed above.

Commercial Manager /Business Operations Manager – Global Markets Hitachi, Stoke Poges, UK                                                                                                                                  2008-2014

A commercially & strategically oriented role with primary focus on commercial support to the VP of Global Markets and the Sales teams for Global Accounts, Global Verticals and Global Systems Integrators based in Europe. 

Supporting the largest Global opportunities, providing commercial leadership and ownership through a proposal response from initial Bid, through Due Diligence and Transition to Contract Signature.

Operational support for the VP with account segmentation and planning / forecasting / Compensation design and execution / Dashboards and reporting.

Achievements:

• Closed the first managed service for data center infrastructure in the telecoms sector including an innovative charging structure.
• Closed a $300m USD IaaS opportunity with a large global system integrator 
• Closed a $200m fully managed Global hybrid cloud service with a Global Investment Bank

Chartered Institute of Management Accountants ,  ACMA qualified                         High-Performance Leadership, IMO Business School

  BSc. (Hons) 2.1 in Management Science, University of Wales Swansea.              Management Fundamentals, Tuck School of Business