Global Reference Program Intern

As the Global Reference Program Intern, you'll connect Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success by enabling prospects to hear directly from existing customers. You'll match the right references to active opportunities, document customer outcomes, and help grow our reference community. You'll gain hands-on experience in strategic sales enablement, customer relationship management, and measuring the revenue impact of reference programs through data and dashboards.

What is a reference program? It’s how we organize and scale customer proof, like reference calls and meetings, so Sales can incorporate real customer experience into a deal. 

What You’ll Do (Key Responsibilities) 

• Reference Matching & Sales Support: Review active requests to identify best-fit customer references based on industry, solution, and use case, then help opportunity teams quickly secure reference calls and proof points during the sales cycle

• Customer Relationship Management: Support outreach to identify and recruit new references, reengage existing reference customers, and maintain ongoing relationships with active participants

• Data & Reporting:Maintain CRM hygiene by logging activities and tasks, and assist with dashboards that track revenue impact and reference cycle metrics

• Process Improvement Project: Design, pilot, and measure a process enhancement over the course of the internship, then present findings and outcomes to stakeholders and leadership

What You’ll Learn: 

• How enterprise B2B sales cycles work and why customer evidence is critical to closing deals; how Sales, Marketing, Product, and Customer Success collaborate to accelerate revenue

• Practical CRM and data reporting skills, including how operational metrics tie to revenue outcomes and inform strategic decisions

• Stakeholder management, professional communications, and how to identify and engage customers to create compelling proof points at scale

You Are (qualifications):  

• Undergraduate student graduating December 2026 or later; all majors welcome with interest in business, communications, data, or sales

• Strong written communicator who is detail-oriented, proactive, and skilled at organizing information; comfortable with spreadsheets and CRMs (Salesforce experience is a plus)

• Curious about go-to-market strategies, customer advocacy, and how businesses turn satisfied customers into active references

Nice to have: Basic data visualization (Power BI), meeting coordination, or brief writing experience

Reporting to: Global Reference Program Manager

Other Qualifications

The Winning Way behaviors that all Vertex employees need in order to meet the expectations of each other, our customers, and our partners.

• Communicate with Clarity - Be clear, concise and actionable. Be relentlessly constructive. Seek and provide meaningful feedback.  

• Act with Urgency - Adopt an agile mentality - frequent iterations, improved speed, resilience. 80/20 rule – better is the enemy of done. Don’t spend hours when minutes are enough.  

• Work with Purpose - Exhibit a “We Can” mindset. Results outweigh effort. Everyone understands how their role contributes. Set aside personal objectives for team results.  

• Drive to Decision - Cut the swirl with defined deadlines and decision points. Be clear on individual accountability and decision authority. Guided by a commitment to and accountability for customer outcomes.  

• Own the Outcome - Defined milestones, commitments and intended results. Assess your work in context, if you’re unsure, ask. Demonstrate unwavering support for decisions.  

COMMENTS:  

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by individuals in this position. Other functions may be assigned, and management retains the right to add or change the duties at any time.