A person in the prospect organization who has the power and budgetary authority to agree to a sales proposal, one of the most common mistakes by sales people is to attempt to sell to someone other than a genuine decision-maker, for anything other than a routine repeating order, the only two people in any organization of any size that are real decision-makers for significant sales values are the ceo/managing director/president, and the finance director, everyone else in the organization is generally working within stipulated budgets and supply contracts, and will almost always need to refer major purchasing decisions to one or both of the above people, in very large organizations, functional directors may well be decision-makers for significant sales that relate only to their own function's activities.