Top 25 CRO & Sales Leadership Voices of 2026

Former CRO of HubSpot's Sales Division, where he grew revenue over 6,000% and scaled the team from 1 to 450 reps. Now teaches Entrepreneurial Sales and Marketing at Harvard Business School and co-founded Stage 2 Capital. Author of The Sales Acceleration Formula, which became the playbook for data-driven sales hiring and scaling.

3x founder who built House of Revenue to help companies scale from $2M to $20M by aligning sales, marketing, and ops. Previously served as CRO at PNI HCM after selling House of Revenue in 2023. Named a Top 50 Keynote Speaker and Forbes Books bestselling author of Destination; Remarkable.

Creator of Revenue Architecture, the Bowtie Model, and SPICED, three frameworks used by recurring revenue companies worldwide. Co-author of Blueprints for a SaaS Sales Organization. His work has been published in Harvard Business Review, and Winning by Design has trained revenue teams at companies including Amazon, AT&T, and Disney.

Built Pavilion from a local happy hour for 10 VPs of Sales into a global community of 10,000+ paying go-to-market executives. Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Kind Folks Finish First. Co-hosts the Topline Podcast and has over 100K LinkedIn followers built through a content strategy that drove $3M+ in ARR.

Fractional CRO and GTM advisor who's worked with 130+ companies, been part of 15 exits, and helped build 12 unicorns. Amazon bestselling author and founder of the Surf & Sales Summit. Known for helping startups scale from $0 to $25M through repeatable sales playbooks and hiring frameworks.

Trained over 100,000 sales reps across 25+ years, including teams at Salesforce, LinkedIn, Google, Amazon, and Slack. 3x LinkedIn Top Voice with 390,000+ followers. His Make It Happen Mondays podcast reaches 100,000+ listeners weekly with actionable sales tactics.

Called a 'web marketing guru' by the New York Times. His book They Ask, You Answer has been used by 100,000+ businesses as a framework for buyer-first sales and marketing. Saved his company River Pools from bankruptcy by answering customer questions online, generating $45M in attributable sales from content alone.

Creator of Gap Selling, the problem-centric sales methodology that's become required reading at hundreds of sales organizations. His approach shifts reps from product-pitching to identifying the gap between a buyer's current state and desired outcome. One of the most vocal critics of transactional selling on LinkedIn.

Named a Top Sales Influencer by Salesforce every year from 2021 to 2025. Author of She Sells: Attract, Promote and Retain Great Women in B2B Sales and sales coach at Harvard Business School. Founded Women Sales Pros in 2015 after realizing how few women held sales leadership roles, and has since helped dozens of companies build more diverse revenue teams.

5x Sales and Marketing Leader who's hired and trained over 300 B2B salespeople, generating $100M+ in recurring revenue and $300M+ in exits. Former VP Sales at Aircall. Hosts a top-ranked sales podcast covering leadership, AI in sales, and scaling SaaS revenue teams.

Joined Looker as employee #6 and helped scale it to a $2.6B acquisition by Google. Then served as CMO at Clari during a near-10x ARR run, and later CMO at Copy.ai. LinkedIn Top Voice with 130,000+ followers. His content on AI-powered prospecting and GTM strategy gets heavy engagement from sales and marketing leaders.

18 years in enterprise sales, selling over $50M to C-level executives. Former Chief Evangelist at Challenger and Head of Community Growth at Lavender AI. Grew The Winning the Challenger Sale podcast from 2K to 20K monthly listeners. Now runs DemandJen, training GTM teams at G2, IBM, Square, and Autodesk to defeat buyer status quo.

Former LinkedIn Enterprise sales executive who broke 13 sales records. Founded #samsales, an all-women sales organization serving 250+ clients. Creator of the trademarked Show Me You Know Me methodology for personalized outreach. Named one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in Sales by Demandbase.

Co-founded Terminus and helped popularize account-based marketing before founding GTM Partners, a research and advisory firm focused on go-to-market efficiency. Wall Street Journal bestselling author of MOVE and ABM is B2B. Hosts the FlipMyFunnel community with 50,000+ members.

Built Bravado into the largest community of verified B2B sales professionals, connecting salespeople with hiring companies and peer networks. His War Room community gives sales leaders a private space to share real pipeline data and comp benchmarks. Vocal advocate for sales rep empowerment and transparency in hiring.

Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of Six-Figure Sales Secrets. Previously led a 110-person sales org delivering $195M/year at a Fortune 500. Left corporate in 2019, scaled Venli to 7 figures in 18 months. Named a Top Sales Voice by LinkedIn and Salesforce. His clients have generated $950M+ in revenue.

4x founder and serial entrepreneur who started in sales at 22, became VP of Sales at 24, and launched his first company at 25. Hosts the Sales Transformation podcast, a top 1% show that regularly charts in Apple's Business Top 50. Has grown multiple 7-figure companies fueled entirely by outbound sales.

One of LinkedIn's most followed SDR/BDR leaders, known for tactical content on frontline sales management and coaching frameworks. Her posts on managing up, running effective 1:1s, and building SDR career paths consistently get six-figure impressions. A practitioner voice that resonates with first-time managers.

Former FBI lead international hostage negotiator and author of Never Split the Difference, which has sold millions of copies and become a staple in sales training libraries worldwide. His tactical empathy and mirroring techniques have been adopted by enterprise sales teams at every stage. Teaches negotiation at Georgetown and USC.

One of the leading experts in cold outreach and pipeline development with 30+ years of B2B sales experience. His trigger-based selling methodology helps reps time outreach to buying signals rather than spray-and-pray prospecting. Regular contributor to sales publications and a consistent presence on top influencer lists.

Spent 20+ years closing $100M+ in sales before founding Avenue Talent Partners, a firm that helps startups hire VP-level and C-level sales leaders. Her content on what makes great sales leadership (and what doesn't) is some of the most shared in the startup sales community. Regular speaker at SaaStr and Pavilion events.

Runs Outbound Squad, a prospecting training company that helps B2B sales teams book more meetings through cold outreach. His cold call frameworks and email templates get widely shared on LinkedIn. Hosts the Blissful Prospecting podcast and has trained teams at companies including Gong, Zoom, and HubSpot.

Former VP Sales at Nowait (acquired by Yelp) and Glassdoor. Built Skaled into a sales consulting firm that helps high-growth companies design and optimize their revenue processes. His content on modern sales leadership and AI's impact on selling consistently drives conversation among CROs and VPs of Sales.

Built her reputation creating prospecting sequences that got responses from executives who ignored everything else. Founded Flip the Script to teach SDRs and AEs how to write outbound that doesn't sound like outbound. Her session at SaaStr Annual on cold email teardowns became one of the most-watched of the year.

Former VP of Global Inside Sales at Tray.io and ServiceNow, where he built and scaled SDR programs that became models for the industry. Known for his long-term approach to sales leadership development and career pathing. One of the most respected operators in the SDR-to-VP pipeline conversation.