These superstar execs made more than $5 million selling business software last year

Paramount

Sales is tough. 

But those at the top of the game get treated very well — their compensation packages can easily top $5 million a year.

DiscoverOrg, a sales and marketing intelligence software maker, recently published a report identifying the highest-paid sales executives at publicly traded enterprise tech companies.

The report was put together using DiscoverOrg's own software that sifted through each company's public filing. Since it only took the salary information of people in Heads of Sales positions, the data didn't include companies who don't publish compensation information for their top sales executives (Salesforce's Keith Block, for example, is heavily involved in the sales process but his title is president and COO, so not included in this report).

Take a look at the top-paid sales execs who made at least $5 million last year selling business software:

Denis Murphy

Compensation: $5,350,997

Company: Nimble Storage

Title: VP of Worldwide Sales 

What he sells: Nimble Storage is a provider of predictive flash storage solutions.

Who he is: Murphy is a 25-year veteran in the enterprise sales space. Prior to Nimble Storage, Murphy worked at EMC, Riverbed Technology, and Nicira. He earned a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and an MBA from the American Graduate School of International Management.

David Peranich

Compensation: $5,370,756

Company: Riverbed

Title: President of Worldwide Field Operations

What he sells: Riverbed Technology develops products to support the network and improve application performance management.

Who he is: Before joining Riverbed in 2006, Peranich was the CEO of Centrata, an IT service management solution company. Prior to that, he was at Siebel Systems and Worldwide Alliance. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and an M.S. in Systems Management from the University of Southern California.

Greg Swick

Compensation: $5,616,239

Company: Ultimate Software

Title: Senior VP, Chief Enterprise Sales Officer

What he sells: Ultimate Software specializes in HR and payroll solutions.

Who he is: Swick joined Ultimate Software in 1994 and has served as its chief sales officer since 2000. Before that, he held various positions at ADP.