Avaya, a global leader in communications and collaboration, announced a key, strategic addition to its executive management team as Stephen Spears joins the company in the newly created role of Chief Revenue Officer.

Reporting to 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 and delivering experiences that matter to Avaya customers and partners worldwide. In this role, Stephen will have full ownership of the company’s revenue-generating organizations, customer lifecycle, and go-to-client functions, including global sales and marketing, partner management, and all channel related activities.

“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,” said Jim Chirico.  

Spears’ management career spans nearly three decades and includes extensive go-to-market experience as well as deep expertise in the SaaS and Cloud arena. He has spent the previous 17 years in a variety of key senior leadership roles at SAP, most recently serving as Chief Revenue Officer of SAP SuccessFactors. In this capacity, Spears helped redefine the HCM category to Human Experience Management (HXM) and was able to grow annual revenues by approximately 30 percent with more than 7,000 customers in over 200 countries and territories worldwide.