Giovanni Cervone d’Urso
Bari
Summary
Strategic SaaS sales leader with 29 years of experience building and leading high-performance teams to exceed revenue targets across EMEA and global emerging markets. Proven success in driving outbound sales motions, closing complex enterprise deals, and growing ACV in high-growth environments—including cloud, open-source, and performance-driven software models. Entrepreneurial and customer-centric, scaled new business lines and launched GTM strategies at both Oracle and AWS, supporting revenue growth from millions to billions. Deep expertise selling to CTOs, CMOs, Heads of Marketing, and senior digital decision-makers across enterprise and mid-market segments, leveraging sales methodologies like Infomentis to win large, multi-stakeholder deals. Collaborative leader and coach who helps teams thrive in fast-paced, innovative environments, partnering cross-functionally with Product, Marketing, and Customer Success to align strategy and feedback loops while maintaining a laser focus on outbound pipeline, conversion efficiency, and long-term account value.
Overview
30
30
years of professional experience
Work History
Senior Director, MySQL EMEA Sales – New & Renewal Business
Oracle
01.2021 - Current
- Lead a high-performance MySQL database software & as a service sales team (of 30 people) in Europe, Middle East & Africa. Selling across Enterprises, Cloud Providers (AWS, Azure, GCP), ISV/OEMs and Partner teams to exceed EMEA new business targets, maintaining a high-renewal rate of existing contracts. I set the team's Go-to-Market strategy, opportunity pipeline health, commercial success and the annual budget planning effort. Collaborated internally on strategic deals, marketing and business development. Achieved double digit year-on-year new business growth while retaining a 90%+ renewal rate on existing customer renewal contracts.
- My team drives customer acquisition and market share in Subscription & License in database software sales, and launched new Cloud business. Split between new business & expansion sales as well as managing recurring renewals, directly and indirectly via partner teams across both mature and emerging markets. Developed EMEA into a top-revenue region globally. Interface into dotted line teams such as Finance & Operations towards P&L management, sales forecasting and annual planning.
- Customer-centric in nature and collaborative in style, permeating throughout teams. I encourage customer success by ensuring customers gain business value from their software investments. Internally, hold each territory owner accountable through business plans that produce measurable outcomes and predictable sales.
Senior Director, MySQL EMEA Sales - Enterprise & OEM/ISV
Oracle
11.2015 - 12.2020
- Provided MySQL Database sales and channel leadership & team expansion across key geographies, emerging markets and key accounts. Helped with the launch and the GTM strategy for the brand new MySQL as a Database Service on Oracle Cloud and more recently on Microsoft Azure and AWS.
- Implemented enterprise sales processes using solution selling. Part of Oracle’s Top Talent Executive Leadership (AEI) programme, Graduated Top Talent AEI Program, 2019.
Director - EMEA Channels, Alliances & Partner Development
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
11.2012 - 10.2015
- Pioneered AWS enterprise growth in EMEA.
- Drove hyper-growth cloud business in the enterprise from $ Millions to $ Billions, launched new operations and drove growth via partnerships. This took place via strategic recruitment, development and management via programmatic channel programs, relationship building and new cloud revenue model advisory.
- Advised strategic and Global SI partners on how to create value added cloud revenue services and on how to build margin innovatively within a cloud project lifecycle. Became a thought leader in the Telco vertical Cloud / SaaS segment, helping incumbents transform and born-in-the-clouds disrupt the market. B2B, B2B2C and B2C sales models. Awarded the 2013 & 2014 AWS Partner Leader of the Year recognition.
OEM / ISV Sales Manager, MySQL GBU, Southern Europe
Oracle
10.2010 - 10.2012
- Led MySQL license sales into Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and original equipment manufacturer (OEMs) partners in Southern Europe, particularly in the telco & banking sectors. Closed largest mult-million $ software license deal ever in the history of MySQL (with Alcatel-Lucent).
VP, Global Emerging Markets - Satellite Communications
Honeywell
09.2007 - 09.2010
- Via Satamatics acquisition. Drove global indirect channel sales in salellite communications in asset tracking. Formulated commercial and marketing strategy. Key geos were Latin America, South East Asia and Southern Africa.
(OPNET) Sales Director, Southern Europe & LatAm
Riverbed Technology
09.2004 - 09.2006
- Application Performance & Network Planning software sales in enterprise & telecom markets
Sales Director, Southern Europe
F5 Networks
11.2000 - 08.2004
- Application High Availability software & load-balancing infrastructure sales across Southern Europe. Team expansion from scratch. Helped grow the company from $100M to $1B
Channel Manager, South EMEA
Onyx Software
11.1998 - 11.2000
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software application pioneer. Kick-started Southern European business and contributed to a successful 1999 IPO (NASDAQ: ONXS)
(DEC) EMEA Pre-Sales Consultant
HP
09.1995 - 11.1998
- Alpha/VAX super-computing-configuration advisory and pre-sales solution consultancy across DEC's EMEA partner ecosystem.
Education
Accelerated Executive Insight - Oracle Leadership Program
University of Michigan - Stephen M. Ross School of Business
Ann Arbour, Michigan, USA11-2019
Accelerated Executive Insight - Oracle Leadership Program
IESE Business School
Barcelona, Spain11-2019
Master of Business Administration - General Management & Strategy
Strathclyde Business School
Glasgow, United Kingdom09-2007
Bachelor of Engineering - Honours, Mechanical Engineering
University of Strathclyde
Glasgow, United Kingdom06-1995
Skills
- Collaborative leadership
- Culture transformation
- Team management
- Policy development
Languages
English: mother tongue
Italian: mother tongue
Brazilian Portuguese: mother tongue
Spanish: Fluent, both verbal and written
French: Intermediate
Timeline
Senior Director, MySQL EMEA Sales – New & Renewal Business
Oracle
01.2021 - Current
Senior Director, MySQL EMEA Sales - Enterprise & OEM/ISV
Oracle
11.2015 - 12.2020
Director - EMEA Channels, Alliances & Partner Development
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
11.2012 - 10.2015
OEM / ISV Sales Manager, MySQL GBU, Southern Europe
Oracle
10.2010 - 10.2012
VP, Global Emerging Markets - Satellite Communications
Honeywell
09.2007 - 09.2010
(OPNET) Sales Director, Southern Europe & LatAm
Riverbed Technology
09.2004 - 09.2006
Sales Director, Southern Europe
F5 Networks
11.2000 - 08.2004
Channel Manager, South EMEA
Onyx Software
11.1998 - 11.2000
(DEC) EMEA Pre-Sales Consultant
HP
09.1995 - 11.1998
Accelerated Executive Insight - Oracle Leadership Program
University of Michigan - Stephen M. Ross School of Business
Accelerated Executive Insight - Oracle Leadership Program
IESE Business School
Master of Business Administration - General Management & Strategy
Strathclyde Business School
Bachelor of Engineering - Honours, Mechanical Engineering
University of Strathclyde
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