Dan Shapero is the Chief Operating Officer at LinkedIn. He is responsible for helping companies around the world grow their business and build winning teams through the value LinkedIn delivers. In this role, he oversees global sales, operations, as well as member and customer success.
Since joining LinkedIn in 2008, Dan has held various leadership roles managing global teams across sales and product management, most recently as Chief Business Officer. Prior to LinkedIn, Dan was a management consultant at Bain & Company and a startup entrepreneur. Dan holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a BS in Applied Mathematics from Johns Hopkins.
Dan Shapero's view of the Modern Sales Leader
Other than being authentic and trustworthy as a human being, and creating the space for others from all backgrounds to be authentic as humans, there is no single definition of a modern sales leader. So many different styles can be successful, but in general modern sales leaders create massive value for their teams, their customers, and the broader organization.
These leaders understand that customers have access to a vast amount of information, and yet need help to truly clarify their challenges and galvanize support across their own companies to unlock their full potential. They proactively role model product mastery as well as customer curiosity so that their teams can learn from their example. While they are excellent at the craft of sales, they understand that sales is only one part of a successful enterprise, and so they are exceptional partners to their colleagues in marketing, product, finance, talent, etc. by studying these functions in order to uplevel their ability to collaborate. And they appreciate how exceptional go-to-market teams are built not only with great sellers, but also innovate through analytics, process, and technology to support the growth and success of the team.
An incredible but a worthy challenge.