SDR Manager

About Pleo

Messy spend management is tricky business. And tedious processes are a lose-lose situation for all involved, not just finance. At Pleo, we're changing that. We build spend solutions that make managing money seamless, empowering, and surprisingly effective for finance teams and employees alike - with a vision to help all businesses ‘go beyond’.

The word ‘Pleo’ actually means ‘more than you’d expect’, and living by that mantra has been the secret to our success over the last 10 years.

Now, we’re at a pivotal moment in our journey; every move we make has a direct impact on our 40,000+ customers, our business, and our collective success. We need people who take pride in uncovering customer needs, who turn complex problems into simple solutions, challenge the way things are done (respectfully), and always aim high. With great ambitions driving us forward, we can’t say we’ve got this whole thing figured out. And frankly, that’s half the fun! What we can say is that we’re a driven, progressive, and, importantly, a kind bunch of 850+ people from over 100 nationalities, all committed to delivering the future of business spending, together.

About the role

We're looking for an SDR Manager to join our Commercial Team at Pleo, based in our vibrant Lisbon hub. In this role, you'll lead and develop a team of Sales Development Representatives who are generating pipeline across multiple European markets — and be a core part of how we scale our outbound and inbound motion as Pleo continues to grow.

If you're energised by coaching early-career salespeople, building repeatable processes, and seeing the direct connection between your team's work and closed revenue, this is the opportunity for you.

Who you’ll be working with and reporting to
You’ll will report to the VP of Commercial working closely with teams in Revops, Marketing, and Account Executives You'll also partner closely with teams across Enablement and People to ensure your SDRs are set up for success from day one.

What you’ll be doing

As SDR Manager, you will:

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of SDRs based in Lisbon, covering outbound and inbound pipeline generation across multiple European markets.

• Own your team's pipeline contribution targets — tracking activity metrics, conversion rates, and pipeline quality, and holding yourself accountable to the outcomes that matter downstream.

• Build and iterate on outreach playbooks (sequences, messaging, personas, objection handling) that work across different markets and languages — and coach your team to execute them with real craft.

• Partner closely with Marketing to align on campaign activity, ICP targeting, and lead quality, ensuring there's a tight feedback loop between what's being generated and what's actually converting.

• Work with Revenue Operations to ensure your team has the tooling and data they need — and that CRM hygiene and pipeline reporting are accurate and trusted.

• Identify and develop the next generation of AEs — building a culture where SDRs see this role as a genuine launchpad into a sales career at Pleo.

• Feed market-level intelligence back into the business — what objections are showing up in which markets, what messaging is resonating, where there are gaps.

What you bring

You'll thrive in this role if you have:

• 4+ years experience in a senior SDR, BDR, or in a similar outbound sales role — ideally with some exposure to managing or mentoring others, or a clear trajectory toward people leadership.

• A strong coaching instinct: you get energy from helping others improve, and you know how to give feedback that lands without deflating someone.

• Solid understanding of outbound sales fundamentals — sequencing, call frameworks, email craft, social selling — and a point of view on what good looks like.

• Comfort working in a multilingual, multicultural environment — your team will be covering markets across Europe, and cultural nuance in outreach really matters.

• Familiarity with the standard SDR tech stack (Salesforce, Outreach or Salesloft, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, etc.).

• Fluent English is essential; additional European languages are a strong plus.

• Experience in B2B SaaS or fintech is a bonus, but we care more about your mindset and people skills than your sector background.

Why is this role a good fit for you

This role is a good fit for you if:

• You're a natural developer of people — you find it genuinely rewarding to watch someone go from nervous on their first cold call to confidently running their own pipeline.

• You're a builder: you want to shape the SDR motion, not just run an existing one, and you're comfortable with the ambiguity that comes with that.

• You're analytically minded enough to use data to diagnose problems and spot opportunities, but not so process-heavy that you lose sight of the human side of sales.

This role is not a good fit for you if:

• You're primarily motivated by carrying your own quota — this role is about your team's output, not yours.

• You want a fully established, stable function to manage — there's still a lot to build here, and that's as much a challenge as it is an opportunity.

• You prefer to work in a single market or language context — the multi-market complexity is core to the role, not a side note.

How you’ll develop in this role
In your first 6 months at Pleo, you’ll:

• Get deep into the metrics — pipeline conversion, activity benchmarks, sequence performance by market — and identify the highest-leverage places to improve.

• Establish your coaching cadence: 1:1s, call shadowing, live feedback loops, and whatever else your team needs to level up consistently.

• Work with Marketing and the AE org to sharpen the ICP targeting and handoff process, so the pipeline your team generates actually converts.

Show me the benefits!

• Your own Pleo card (no more out-of-pocket spending!)

• Lunch is on us for your work days - enjoy catered meals or receive a lunch allowance based on your local office

• Comprehensive private healthcare - depending on your location, coverage options include Vitality, Alan or Médis

• We offer 25 days of holiday + your public holidays

• For our Team, we offer both hybrid and fully remote working options

• Option to purchase 5 additional days of holiday through a salary sacrifice

• We use MyndUp to give our employees access to free mental health and well-being support with great success so far

• Paid parental leave - we want to make sure that we're supportive of families and help you feel that you don't have to compromise your family due to work

The interview process

We want to ensure you are set-up for success and understand what will be expected of you. If your application is successful, our interview process is as follows:

1. Intro call: A 30-minute chat with our Talent Partner to discuss the role and your background.

2. Hiring manager interview

3. Pleo challenge

4. Final interview

Transparency is important to us so we also wanted to share some insights about what we’re looking for in applications to ensure you can set yourself up for success!

• We receive a lot of CVs, and many of them are AI-generated. We love seeing people leverage AI—it’s a big focus for us internally too—but without human intervention, these CVs can sometimes become generic and fail to show a candidate in the best light. What we're really looking for is the specific details of real impact that only you—not AI—know from your previous experience. A top tip from us is to use the “Achieved X, as measured by Y, by doing Z” formula (credit: Laszlo Bock, ~2014) to give a really clear picture of what you’ve worked on. A final note: including links to your previous companies' websites is a huge help and allows us to truly understand your background.
  

• Every single application we receive is reviewed by a human (yes, hundreds of them) because we believe that candidates' efforts should be matched by an equal level of human care. This means that we expect a similar level of attention put into your application. Read and answer the application questions carefully, they make a huge difference in our decision-making process.
  

• Highlight most important aspects of the role, points that might get misunderstood, any specific industry requirements etc.

About your application

• English first. Since it's our company language, please submit your application in English. You’ll be using it a lot if you join us.

• A fair look for everyone. Our talent team reads every single application to ensure the process is fair. To keep things running smoothly, we only accept applications through our system—our support team can’t pass on calls or emails.

• Diversity drives us. We can only reach our goals if our team reflects the world around us. That starts with you hitting apply, even if you don't tick every single box. We encourage people from all backgrounds and experiences to join us.

• Interview at your best. We want you to feel comfortable throughout the process. If you have any accessibility requirements or need a specific format, email [email protected]. We’ll design a process that works for you.

• Your data is safe. When you apply, we process your personal data as a data processor. For more information on how Pleo processes personal data, read our Privacy Policy here.

• Applying for multiple roles? Nothing is stopping you, and we assess every role independently. However, we do look for alignment, so make sure you can explain why your interest and experience are right for each specific role.

• Reapplying. If you’re applying for the same role again, please wait six months from your last decision before hitting submit.