Sam Tearle runs an enterprise-first sales org built in under 18 months, staffed heavily from Coupa and McKinsey
Asked (summary):
Preparing to speak with Sam Tearle of LightSource (lightsource.ai): research his background and the current sales organization.
This briefing draws on 110 public rows across five research sets — LinkedIn profiles, The Org, RocketReach and aggregator rosters, 12 job listings, and 20 company-database and media profiles — covering 23 publicly identified GTM people, Sam's full career record, and LightSource's roughly $33M-$33.5M 2025 Series A at a reported ~$130M valuation. The roster is a public footprint assembled from profiles and aggregators, not an official org chart, and may be incomplete or stale.
Public-footprint GTM map, centered on Sam Tearle
Direct sales (reports to Sam per his own "building GTM teams" statement; lines dotted where unconfirmed)Solution engineeringCustomer success & deploymentMarketingCompany leadership (context)
All connectors are dotted: groupings are inferred from public titles, not confirmed reporting lines. A thick left edge marks a Coupa or McKinsey alum. Hover or tap a person for prior role, start and location; click to open the source.
Sam's résumé maps almost perfectly onto this job: Cisco finance/treasury, then Tesorio employee #7 where he was the #1 revenue producer 2018-2020 and built its first enterprise sales team, then Coupa, rising from senior account director to AVP North America supporting 7 RVPs and 50+ AEs. linkedin.comrocketreach.co
The Coupa pipeline is a pattern, not a coincidence: since Sam joined in June 2025, LightSource has added Coupa alumni in sales (Natalie Picard) and pre-sales (Peter DiFalco, ex-director of solutions consulting), while closers arrive from Salesforce (Joe Tattersall) and Rippling (Julianna Fitch, 3x Presidents Club). linkedin.com
Post-sale is McKinsey-flavored and Denver/Boulder-heavy: VP Sourav Das Adhikari (ex-McKinsey associate partner, at LightSource since May 2022) leads deployment, FDE and customer success, with at least three more ex-McKinsey deployment/CS hires. linkedin.com
The outbound engine is being built right now: a Founding BDR posting ($70K-$90K base, uncapped commission, early equity) asks the hire to build messaging, sequencing, targeting and multithreading from scratch on HubSpot, Apollo, Outreach, Clay and AI GTM tools, then hire future BDRs; a first growth/demand-gen role owns ABM, paid, lifecycle and MQL-to-SQL handoffs. emploive.comstartup.jobs
Sam Tearle: finance analyst to second-line sales leader
Bars show tenure by employer from Sam's public profile; the LightSource bar runs to the research date (October 2026). Source: linkedin.com, corroborated by rocketreach.co and theorg.com.
Current sales motion and hiring signals
High-touch enterprise sales into procurement and direct-materials teams — manufacturing, industrial, automotive, aerospace/defense, consumer goods and other supply-chain-heavy verticals; the product automates sourcing from RFQ to award. bouncewatch.com
The AE posting describes full-cycle hunting and expansion, C-suite multithreading, books of 100+ accounts, and comfort with mid-market/SMB deals at smaller ACVs and faster cycles; comp listed at $220K-$340K. jobs.lightsource.ai
An older version of that AE posting called the role the "first sales hire" with "no sales professionals" — language now contradicted by the public roster; read it as evidence of how recently the org was built, not as current headcount. jobs.lightsource.ai
Growth came via referrals: public reporting describes word-of-mouth growth, 10x ARR over 18 months, $1B+ spend processed, and a team that doubled from under 20 to nearly 40 after funding; headcount estimates elsewhere range from 30 to 65 — treat exact size as uncertain. procurementmag.comapp.dealroom.co
Series A of ~$33M-$33.5M at a reported $130M valuation, co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Bain Capital Ventures; reported customers include Amazon-scale enterprise names such as Yum! Brands, HelloFresh, Canada Goose and Bombardier Recreational Products. pitchbook.comextruct.ai
Conversation angles and sharp questions
Scaled discipline vs Series A speed — "You supported 7 RVPs and 50+ AEs at Coupa. Which Coupa processes did you deliberately leave behind at LightSource?"
Segmentation — "The AE spec spans enterprise to SMB with 100+ account books. How do you split enterprise vs mid-market across the current sellers, and where does Andy Hunt's automotive/manufacturing focus fit?"
Why outbound now — "After pure referral growth to $1B+ processed spend, what convinced you the Founding BDR and first demand-gen hires were due now rather than six months ago?"
Sales-to-deployment handoff — "Sourav's deployment/FDE org is unusually senior for this stage. Where does solution engineering end and deployment begin in a direct-materials transformation?"
Vertical playbooks — "Which vertical playbook is furthest along — automotive/manufacturing, aerospace/defense, or consumer goods — and what made it repeatable?"
Hiring profile — "Sales from Coupa, Salesforce and Rippling; deployment from McKinsey. Is the Coupa-alumni pattern an intentional sourcing strategy or network gravity?"
Publicly identified GTM roster
Person
Role at LightSource
Function
Since
Prior company
Location
Source
Method: public-footprint briefing compiled 2026-10-27 from 110 rows across five research sets — 39 background/profile rows, 33 roster rows (deduplicated to 23 people plus Sam, e.g. Natalie Picard and Sourav Das Adhikari appeared under variant names), 6 historical AE-posting rows, 12 Founding-BDR rows (one job, strongest sources cited), and 20 funding/traction rows. Roles come from LinkedIn, The Org, RocketReach and similar aggregators, not an official directory; the roster may be incomplete or stale, and headcount estimates vary by source (30-65 per databases vs ~40 per media). Timeline years are approximate to the month. Evidence excerpts and duplicate job-board listings were cut for space.