Kelly Hair

About Kelly Hair

I\'ve been the engineer troubleshooting a production outage at 2 AM, the buyer evaluating vendors with real budget on the line, and the seller closing seven-figure deals in markets that didn\'t exist yet. That range isn\'t decorative — it\'s how I sell.I help companies take complex infrastructure software to market when the playbook hasn\'t been written. Zero-to-one GTM, new category creation, VMware displacement, open source commercialization — the deals where technical credibility isn\'t optional and the buyer knows more than most sellers ever will.What I bring is uncommon: I can architect a Kubernetes deployment, build the demo environment myself, read the room in a CISO review, and restructure a deal that\'s about to die on the vine — in the same week. I\'ve done this across open source, DevOps, SDN, storage, and cloud native infrastructure at companies ranging from pre-revenue startups to Red Hat and GitLab.I ship code. I\'ve open-sourced my own product. I run my own Kubernetes clusters. That\'s not a side hobby — it\'s why I can walk into a room full of platform engineers and earn trust that no slide deck can manufacture.I\'m looking for a senior sales leadership role where I own the number and the strategy — at a company where the product is real, the market is moving, and they need someone who can build the GTM motion and run it.

Experience

1. Senior Sales Specialist, Cloud Native

   SUSE

   Mar 2025 — Present · Westfield, NJ, US

   At SUSE, I act as a strategic deal lead for complex enterprise modernization and virtualization decisions during periods of market disruption. I work directly with executives, account teams, and product leadership to shape deal strategy, clarify tradeoffs, and determine when—and how—the platform should be positioned.My role prioritizes decision quality over momentum: surfacing risk early, correcting unrealistic assumptions, and ensuring that what is proposed can succeed operationally after the deal closes. I’m typically engaged early in strategic pursuits to frame the narrative, align stakeholders, and guide outcomes where the cost of being wrong is high.I regularly interface directly with the Cloud Native Business Unit, representing field reality and customer constraints back to product leadership, and challenging assumptions when roadmap intent and execution reality diverge. This role requires balancing product vision with what can be credibly delivered and adopted in enterprise environments.Beyond individual deals, I was tapped by the North America GM to present a QBR, reflecting trust in my judgment and field perspective to represent deal reality, customer risk, and execution readiness at the leadership level.The work goes beyond technology advocacy, emphasizing defensible choices, execution realism, and platform adoption that holds up beyond the slideware.

Education

• University of North Texas

  Biochemistry, Computer Science

Skills

• Saas
• Software as a Service (Saas)
• Business Development
• Unix
• Solution Selling
• Problem Solving
• Cloud Computing
• Security
• Enterprise Software
• Enterprise Architecture
• Program Management
• Infrastructure
• Sales Process
• Business Intelligence
• Technical Architecture
• Software Project Management
• Sdlc
• Planning
• Data Center
• Project Planning
• Strategy
• Software Development
• Consulting
• Professional Services
• IT Strategy
• Management
• Product Management
• Iot
• Managed Services
• Integration
• Sales
• Architecture
• Start-Ups
• Virtualization
• Partner Development
• New Business Development