Megan H. 

Employer Brand Co-op

Meet Brett L., a dedicated Toaster who began his journey in the U.S. and now serves as Regional VP of Sales in the U.K. Discover how his career evolved, how the sales team continues to grow under his leadership, and how he tackles challenges along the way.

What attracted you to a career opportunity at Toast?

What drew me to Toast in the first place was how passionate everyone I met was about the product. I’m also super competitive, so I wanted to work alongside people who were just as driven and ready to win. It was clear that this was a team aiming to take over the market, and I wanted to be a part of that. Six years later, I have the opportunity to grow our market in the U.K.

How do you foster a strong sales culture within your region?

Culture is something we work on daily. For me, it’s about making sure we’re always growing and improving. When I think back on my own journey and what brought me here, one thing stands out: constant communication, especially around career development and what truly motivates each individual rep.

At the end of the day, Toast is an incredible product, but without the right people to support and sell it, we can’t move forward. 

That’s why feedback plays such a big role in our culture. It’s not always the feedback you want to hear, but it’s the feedback you need in order to grow. We have to be intentional about it every day to ensure we’re building a stable, strong team.

Working in the U.K. adds another layer to this. Coming from the U.S. into a new market, we need to lead with curiosity. We’ll make mistakes, but that’s part of the process—we just have to learn quickly and ask the right questions to adapt. The U.K. market isn’t one-size-fits-all. London is not Liverpool, and Liverpool isn’t Manchester. 

Long story short, culture isn’t a box to check. It’s an ongoing commitment.

What excites you about growing our team globally and specifically in the U.K.?

Early days at Toast are some of my most memorable moments. The gritty mindset of figuring things out as you go, that’s something we’ve always done well. There was this scrappy energy, celebrating wins like giddy deals, and just pushing forward together.

Now, we’re in a different stage and that comes with new challenges. What excites me for our EMEA region is that we’re building processes we never had before. A majority of our team in the U.K. is within their first year, so their perspective and energy is still incredibly fresh. The tenure might not be there yet, but you can already see the impact of experience taking root. If we continue to foster the culture we’ve built, combined with a great product—it’s a solid recipe for success.

What advice would you give someone aspiring to move into a leadership role in sales?

The biggest piece of advice I’d give is to make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons. Leadership becomes truly meaningful when you’re motivated by helping others succeed, even more than chasing your own success. For me, when I was mentoring reps, I found so much more joy in watching them apply something I’d shared and seeing it actually work for them, than I did from closing a deal myself. That’s when I realized I was ready to take the next step into leadership.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with amazing leaders who believed in me, gave me opportunities, and empowered me to grow into my role. Now, I see it as my responsibility to pay that forward—to create the same kind of experience for others. If we don’t do that, we’re missing a huge piece of the culture we’re trying to build.

How do you continue to grow and challenge yourself in this role? 

I think Toast does an incredible job of enabling us by giving us opportunities to grow and expand globally. If you had asked me six years ago if I’d ever be living in the U.K, I would’ve  never believed it. I hadn’t even left the U.S. and yet, here I am.

When it comes to challenging ourselves, the confidence I have in our product makes those challenges feel a little less intimidating. I truly believe in what we’re doing, and I have a ton of trust in our senior leadership. That belief makes a huge difference.

The biggest impact I think I can make now is helping reps feel that same level of confidence. I watched Toast navigate COVID-19– one of the most difficult times for the restaurant industry. Even when people couldn’t go out to eat, Toast helped restaurants stay afloat. We provided tools that helped them continue serving their communities, and we faced those challenges together. That moment was incredibly powerful for me.

So when I talk about Toast to a potential customer or a new rep, I speak from a place of real passion because I’ve seen firsthand how transformative our partnership can be.