Meet Dean
My journey from Account Executive to Chief Revenue Officer was shaped by ambitious targets, hard lessons, remarkable people and more than a few setbacks. Discover the experiences that shaped who I am and why I now use them to help others succeed.
NICE TO MEET YOU
I'm Dean WardÂ
Commercial Execution is built for Account Executives who want to win better opportunities, sales leaders who need more consistent execution across their teams, and founders who want a more disciplined route to predictable revenue.
The focus is practical: sharper qualification, better opportunity control, stronger commercial judgment, and clearer decisions throughout the sales process.
25+ Years in Sales
Real-world experience across enterprise technology, start-ups and scale-ups.
From BDR to CRO
Progressed from frontline selling to building and leading high-performing revenue teams.
2 IPOs & 3 Exits
Commercial experience shaped within ambitious technology businesses at every stage of growth.
Practical conversations with operators, founders, and commercial leaders on what it really takes to build disciplined revenue execution
These sessions surface the decisions, behaviours, and systems behind better sales performance.
Fractional sales leadership, without the full-time overhead
Date TBC
A practical conversation on when fractional sales leadership makes sense, what it can solve, and how founders can create better sales focus without adding unnecessary complexity.
Blog feature with Excelerate 360
Launching Sales Academy and building better sales capability
Date TBC
A closer look at the Sales Academy launch, the thinking behind it, and how the consultancy helps sales teams improve structure, confidence, and commercial execution.
Improving the revenue flywheel
Date TBC
A focused session on how sales, revenue operations, and leadership can work together to remove friction, improve handovers, and create a more consistent revenue engine.
My Story
I grew up in a family where education and traditional professions were highly valued. As the eldest child, with a lawyer and a pilot among my siblings, it was naturally assumed that I would follow a similarly academic path.
But I was wired differently.
I have always been entrepreneurial, commercially curious and fascinated by what makes people take action. At 16, I launched my first business and discovered that I learned best by creating opportunities, solving problems and connecting with people. That early experience gave me the confidence to follow my instincts and build a career on my own terms.
Since then, I have spent more than 25 years working with ambitious start-ups, scale-ups and global technology businesses. I have helped innovative companies find their market, build high-performing sales teams, win complex enterprise customers and turn bold ideas into sustainable revenue.
My career has taken me from Account Executive to Chief Revenue Officer, but I have never forgotten what it feels like to be at the beginning: ambitious, capable and determined to succeed, yet still working out how the commercial world really operates.
That is why I created Dean Ward & Associates. I want to share the practical lessons, disciplines and frameworks that helped shape my career, so that other salespeople, leaders and entrepreneurs can progress with greater confidence, avoid costly mistakes and create success on their own terms.
"Dean’s training and coaching helped me secure an Enterprise Account Executive role. I’ve applied his recommendations and I’m delighted with the results.”
- Nay Gurung
"Dean helped me improve my closing technique with a focus on price negotiation. I was able to hit my annual number as a direct result"
- Emma Weir
"Working with Dean has been transformational. We refined our GTM to focus on engaging our ICP and the relevant personas with dramatic results!"
- Steve Dampier
Why I Do It
I entered software sales because I wanted to create a different standard of living from the one I had grown up seeing. I started as a BDR and was promoted to Account Executive within three years, but that progress was not accidental. I took every course I could find, studied every sales methodology available to me and shadowed the best salespeople I could learn from. I was determined to understand not just what successful sellers did, but why it worked.
Working at SAP was an important part of my development, but it also taught me something about myself. It was a great company, yet being a small cog in such a vast organisation left me cold. I was drawn instead to smaller start-ups and scale-ups where the challenge was greater and the individual impact was more visible.
What I discovered was that nobody really shows you how to succeed when there is no established system, you are the first salesperson on the ground or the technology has never been sold before. That is where I learned some of my most valuable lessons.
Today, I get enormous satisfaction from helping founders, sales leaders and Account Executives navigate those challenges. I want to give people the practical structure, commercial judgment and confidence I had to work so hard to find for myself.
THE REVENUE BRIEF NEWSLETTER
Sell smarter. Lead better. Grow revenue.
Expect real world insights on pipeline, prospecting, complex deals, qualification, negotiation, sales leadership, forecasting and revenue strategy.
Short, useful and actionable. Something you can read in a few minutes and put to work the same day.