Building High Performing GTM Teams with Clem Andre, OpenAI
Playbooks from OpenAI, Vanta and Slack
Software Synthesis analyses the evolution of software companies in the age of AI - from how they're built and scaled, to how they go to market and create enduring value. You can reach me at akash@earlybird.com.
Gradient Descending Roundtables:
September 25th: Knowledge Graphs and Ontologies
October 1st: Founder-led Sales and Structuring Design Partnerships with James Allgrove
October 16th: The Data Platform for AI: Databricks’ Maria Zervou
Today’s post is an interview with Clem Andre, GTM at OpenAI and a dear friend.
At OpenAI, Clem drives go-to-market momentum that brings the company’s AI technology to digital-native businesses across France & South Europe. His work turns the mission to ensure artificial intelligence benefits everyone into concrete adoption, enabling companies to harness advanced language models and agentic systems for real-world transformation.
Previously, Clem helped build high-growth SaaS operations across Europe. At Vanta he helped build the startup team in EMEA and commercial teams across France and the DACH region. Before that, he spent nearly four years at Slack, progressing from Account Executive to Regional Vice President for Southern Europe and steering growth through Salesforce’s acquisition. Earlier roles at LinkedIn, Oracle and entrepreneurial ventures provided a mix of start-up agility and enterprise discipline while his academic path combined a Bachelor of Arts in International Marketing with dual MBAs in International Business Management and early studies in Computer and Information Sciences.
Clem aims to combine strategic clarity with a customer-first approach that turns emerging technologies into lasting business impact.
You’ve launched or managed multiple new segments in markets (France & Benelux for Slack, France for LinkedIn, EMEA Startups for Vanta and now France Digital Natives for OpenAI).
When entering a green-field or new region, what are the first three moves you prioritise, and why do they consistently matter more than others?
As an IC
Segment and commit
What I’ve learned: Without ruthless segmentation, activity masquerades as progress.
Why it matters: Focus concentrates time on customers with real pain and clean payback, which accelerates signal and confidence.
How I run it: Score sub‑segments by pain, willingness to pay, access, and cycle length. Pick two or three. Build a named list and qualify out everything else. Inspect calendar and pipeline weekly against that list.
Signals it’s working: 80%+ of first meetings in target segments, early multi‑threading, cleaner discovery notes, fewer “tour of product” calls.
Create fast proof
What I’ve learned: Early, credible wins compress skepticism and shorten every subsequent deal.
Why it matters: Social proof reduces perceived risk and gives me reusable talk tracks and objection handling.
How I run it: Land lighthouse customers with a scoped, high‑value use case. Secure referenceability, write the one‑pager, and extract verbatims for messaging.
Signals it’s working: A repeatable story by week six to eight, prospects referencing prior customers unprompted, tighter discount discipline.
Run an iterative loop
What I’ve learned: New markets punish static playbooks; iteration speed wins.
Why it matters: A weekly learning rhythm compounds small improvements in discovery, messaging, and deal strategy.
How I run it: Weekly review with marketing and product. Bring three call snippets, update the talk track, retarget accounts, and adjust the next week’s calendar.
Signals it’s working: Meeting‑to‑evaluation conversion climbs, cycle time nudges down, fewer one‑and‑done meetings.
As a Sales Leader
Define the mission and narrow the bets
What I’ve learned: Concentration beats coverage in the first innings.
Why it matters: Resources are thin at entry; two to three decisive plays, fully resourced, beat a dozen half‑bets.
How I run it: Write the entry thesis (clear rationale and first set of plays that everyone can align to before we start hiring or spending), publish explicit success criteria, and state what we will not do. Allocate headcount, budget, and enabling support accordingly. When I say entry thesis, I simply mean the written explanation of why we believe this market is worth entering and how we intend to win it. It is a short, concrete statement that answers questions like: What is the opportunity? Why now? Which customer segments will we focus on first? What early proof points will tell us we are on the right track (volume of deals, deal size, deal cycle speed, etc..)?
Signals it’s working: A visible ROI vs resource allocation, pipeline mix mirrors strategy by month 2, forecast conversations tied to the thesis not anecdotes, if it does not - re-work the thesis.
Hire for slope and cultural add
What I’ve learned: Early hires set the trajectory more than product or TAM.
Why it matters: The wrong profile costs calendar quarters; the right one creates a talent flywheel.
How I run it: Structured loop with role plays and scorecards that test learning speed, judgment, ownership, and team contribution. Onboard to clear 30‑60‑90 outcomes. Coach in the work through live deals.
Signals it’s working: Time‑to‑first‑win compresses, coaching becomes pull not push, and standards rise without heavy process.
Lock cross‑functional alignment across all GTM functions
What I’ve learned: Misalignment manufactures excuses; alignment manufactures learning.
Why it matters: One narrative and shared KPIs remove friction, make gaps obvious, and keep energy forward looking.
How I run it: Single GTM narrative, stable dashboard, biweekly inspection with owners and actions. When results lag we ask “what changes next” and implement within the same cycle.
Signals it’s working: Consistent messaging across functions, faster removal of blockers, product and marketing roadmaps that reflect field signal, forecast stability improves.
Quota attainment often clusters around a small top decile of AEs.
What specific practices have helped you both sustain their performance and retain them before burnout or external offers kick in?
There are two ways.
The first is sustaining top‑decile AEs and preventing burnout or poaching, through:
Personal operating system
What I have learned: Elite AEs fail more often from calendar entropy than from skill gaps.
Why it matters: Protecting deep work increases high‑leverage selling time, which compounds win rate and cycle speed.
How I run it: Lock maker blocks on the calendar, i.e. block time in reps Calendar, make pipe gen hours, no meeting hours, follow up hours standard across the team, standardize internal response windows, route nonessential asks away from the rep, and use a simple weekly time audit that shows external vs internal time.
Signals it is working: 60 to 70 percent external time, higher second‑meeting conversion, fewer unqualified first calls, stable forecast quality.
Scope without drag
What I have learned: Top reps stay even when they are stretched as long as they are not burdened by committees (group work with no owners, meetings for meetings).
Why it matters: Choiceful scope creates growth and retention without diluting attainment.
How I run it: Assign lighthouse accounts, pilot a new segment or sales channel, or lead selective field events with clear success bounds and support from SEs and marketing. No standing committees that consume time without outcomes.
Signals it is working: Incremental pipeline from new plays, no slip in core quota, positive peer pull for their mentorship.
Growth currency
What I have learned: The best people optimize for runway and mastery as much as for comp.
Why it matters: Visible progression lowers poaching risk and builds our future leadership bench.
How I run it: Rotate them through complex negotiations, cross‑region deals, and authorship of a playbook. Tie these to explicit career steps and executive exposure.
Signals it is working: Raised bar in deal reviews, stronger negotiation outcomes, proactive internal mobility conversations.
Early energy checks
What I have learned: Burnout shows up first in leading indicators, not in missed quarters.
Why it matters: Early intervention preserves performance and reputation.
How I run it: Inspect preparation quality, CRM hygiene, call energy, and tone in 1:1s. If any dip, rebalance load, add enablement sprints, pair on key calls, and tighten support for two to four weeks.
Signals it is working: Preparation quality returns, win rates normalize, positive peer feedback, and a stable forecast without heavy discounting.
The second way is to find and develop under‑tapped talent: quota does not have to cluster.
Hire and coach for slope
What I have learned: Learning velocity, coachability, and ownership predict breakout performance better than pedigree.
Why it matters: Slope multiplies quickly with the right coaching culture.
How I run it: Structured scorecards that test learning speed and judgment, explicit 30‑60‑90 outcomes, and visible help‑seeking as a positive signal. Pair rising reps with a top AE on real deals and review progress weekly.
Signals it is working: Week‑over‑week improvement in discovery notes and next steps, cleaner multi‑threading, fewer repeated mistakes.
Micro‑skill compounding
What I have learned: Small skills stacked deliberately beat generic enablement.
Why it matters: It turns top‑rep behaviors into team patterns and lifts the floor.
How I run it: Two‑week sprints on discovery, multi‑threading, value articulation, and deal strategy. Use a call library, live role plays, and a simple checklist for each stage.
Signals it is working: Meeting‑to‑evaluation and evaluation‑to‑proposal conversion rates rise, qualification notes improve, and cycle time compresses.
Transparent leading indicators and public learning
What I have learned: Transparency raises standards and removes hero bias.
Why it matters: When everyone sees the same signals, more reps cross the bar.
How I run it: Publish a stable leading‑indicator dashboard by rep, hold a weekly “what changed” review, and rotate a deal-review (Meeting or asynch on Slack) where top & non‑top reps present learnings. Codify wins into the playbook within the same cycle. “Cadence of deal reviews depends on avg deal cycle length"
Signals it is working: The attainment curve flattens, the number of reps above 90 percent of quota achievement increases, and variance shrinks without lowering the bar.
First 90 days: What does an exceptional onboarding journey look like in your teams, and which leading indicators tell you a new hire will succeed?
What I’ve learned: Ramp success is rarely about product knowledge alone. The reps who hit quota fastest are the ones whose personal drivers are understood early, whose calendar matches the market thesis, and who get continuous, high-frequency feedback.
Days 0 to 30 – Mastery of context
Objective: Build deep understanding of ICP, value narrative, and competitive landscape.
Actions: Teach back the value story, role-play objection handling, and shadow senior calls.
People focus: Identify each new hire’s individual motivators (career trajectory, financial goals, skill development) and align them to the team mission so that coaching and metrics connect to what matters personally.
Leading indicators: Strong discovery notes, crisp meeting summaries, and a calendar that is majority target-segment meetings.
Days 31 to 60 – Pipeline that matches the thesis
Objective: Generate healthy first meetings and credible evaluations that reflect the agreed market bets.
Actions: Multi-thread key accounts, partner with marketing and solutions engineering, and pressure-test early deals for qualification and stage discipline.
People focus: Check that the rep’s personal growth plan is translating into activity patterns (for example, hunters spending real time on outbound rather than waiting for inbound).
Leading indicators: Pipeline mix aligned to ICP, clean CRM hygiene, early multi-threading in at least 70% of active deals.
Days 61 to 90 – First closes and knowledge transfer
Objective: Convert early deals and codify a repeatable play.
Actions: Run peer enablement sessions, document objection handling, and enforce discount discipline.
People focus: Review individual progress against both business goals and personal drivers to reinforce confidence and calibrate next-level development.
Leading indicators: First closes with clean commercial terms, cycle time starting to compress, and forecast calls that are specific and evidence-based rather than hopeful.
Compensation levers: Beyond base + variable, which less obvious incentives (career paths, side projects, flexible geography, etc.) have you found most effective in retaining your best people?
Career pathways. Clear tracks into segment ownership, lighthouse program lead, or enablement leadership for those who love to teach. Identify the 5 year goal early to co-build a plan to get there together.
Mission projects (Ownership of success). Short, high‑signal initiatives that create career equity and brand: building the proof library, owning a vertical motion, or running a partner play.
Flexibility that matters. Thoughtful geography, field time, and autonomy.
Public recognition rituals. Celebrate stretch goals as the real bar, with quota as the default if stretch is missed, celebrate with care.
You often coach deeply technical founders.
When transitioning from founder-led sales to a professional sales org, what has proven the smoothest handoff, without losing the founder’s authenticity with customers?
One of the most delicate transitions in a high-growth company is moving from founder-led selling to a professional sales organization while keeping the magic that made those first deals close. What I have learned is that the key is to capture the founder’s voice before you scale it. Early on, I work with the founder to write a short narrative memo that distills their story, core proof points, and non-negotiables. We record exemplar calls and preserve the exact phrasing and moments that resonate with customers. This creates a living library that every seller can study and rehearse.
The next step is to define the founder moments—those stages in the sales cycle where the founder’s presence truly changes outcomes. It might be an early discovery call to anchor the vision, a strategic executive connection to remove risk, or a late-stage negotiation where credibility matters more than price. By making those touch points explicit, the founder stays engaged where their unique credibility is catalytic, not spread thin across every meeting.
From there, I run a pair-and-transfer process. We start with joint calls where the sales lead manages the commercial work and the founder focuses on their zone of genius, whether that is product depth or category vision. Over time the seller takes the front seat, the founder joins selectively, and eventually the handoff feels natural to customers.
Finally, I engineer a feedback loop to protect authenticity as the team scales. Every months we review recorded calls and win-loss notes to refine messaging, objection handling, and proof points, always checking that the founder’s tone and intent remain intact. This rhythm allows the founder’s credibility to scale through the team while freeing them to focus on product and strategy. The result is a professional sales motion that closes larger, repeatable deals without losing the spark that got the company off the ground.
Coaching culture: When facing underperformance, how do you decide whether to double down on coaching versus making the tough call to part ways and what signals tip the balance for you?
My default is always to double down first. In every high growth team I have led, I have learned that most performance issues are symptoms of skill gaps or unclear expectations, both of which can be fixed with the right plan and intensity. When I see signs of potential, what I call slope, I lean in hard. Slope shows up as rapid learning, proactive help seeking, consistent application of feedback, and visible improvement in deal quality even if results are not yet there. In those cases we create a written plan together with clear owners, specific actions, and measurable leading indicators, and we inspect progress weekly. The combination of structure and proximity gives the person every chance to succeed and it often unlocks breakout performance.
There are, however, situations where coaching is not the answer. Over time I have learned to act quickly when trust or culture breaks because no amount of skill development can repair those gaps. The hard signals are repeated missed commitments, refusal to prepare or multi thread, persistent negativity, or values misalignment. Skill gaps are coachable; ownership and integrity gaps are not. When those show up, I move decisively to part ways to protect the team’s momentum and culture.
This approach keeps the bar high while making sure every person who wants to grow gets a fair, structured path to improvement and it reinforces a culture where feedback is a catalyst for growth rather than a prelude to exit.
Of the sales orgs you’ve built, which cultural trait are you proudest to see enduring after your departure and why that one above all?
Excuse‑free learning with shared mission ownership. Teams align on why we must win, share the same narrative, and convert misses into changes in behavior. Progress compounds because accountability is collective and forward looking.
What’s one recurring team ritual—daily, weekly, or quarterly—that looks trivial on the surface but quietly compounds into outsized performance over time?
Weekly GTM Standup.
One short forum, stable dashboard, and three questions: what changed in the market, which hypothesis moved, what we will do differently next. Small ritual, large gains in focus, alignment, and morale. Share the group's desire to win, give a voice, open a forum where you can ask for help. - this works only when the right people are there, negativity has no room in those meetings.
What’s one leadership lesson you learned the hard way, but that now shapes how you build and lead teams?
You can only move as fast as your slowest people, from keeping team members in roles where they could not realise their full potential, to letting individuals without a clear career path. It costs time and energy. Now I hire and coach against explicit success traits, move quickly when ownership or culture is off, and protect team momentum above everything else.
Have any feedback? Email me at akash@earlybird.com.