What are the responsibilities and job description for the Founding Sales Leader - San Francisco/Bay Area position at Operant AI?

Job Description

Founding Sales Leader

Operant AI is seeking a strategic and results-oriented Founding Sales Leader to take on our sales efforts and drive revenue growth. As the Founding Sales Leader, you will be responsible for developing and executing a comprehensive sales strategy, establishing and nurturing key customer relationships, as well as build and lead your own "lean and mean" high-performing sales team once you've started scaling the sales motion. Your Ted-Lasso-style leadership will motivate our growing team while strategically scaling our sales operations and achieving our ambitious growth targets. You should be a hands-on do-er who thrives off of the energy of building foundations in a high-growth startup environment and collaborates well with marketing, product, and engineering. Your technical prowess in the world of cloud-native security should enable you to comfortably discuss Operant's product details, features, and differentiation with key technical members of customer teams, including CISOs, leaders of Cloud and AI Security, VPs of Eng, security engineers and SREs. You should deeply understand the cybersecurity competitive landscape (both incumbents and rising startups) and should be passionate about Operant's mission and our unique ability to protect the applications that the modern world depends on.

Who We Are :

We're in business to secure the modern world. Operant's unique technology solves several of the biggest problems in modern cybersecurity - including several critical use cases in securing AI applications - with an implementation that is so easy that many customers don't believe that it could possibly be true until they see it in action. Having already been named as a vendor in Gartner's market guide for API Protection and Kubernetes Runtime Security as well as Forrester's Zero Trust landscape all in the first half of 2024, the sky is the limit for leading this growing market.

K️‍ey Responsibilities :

Key Responsibilities :

Own Next-Level Sales Strategy :

Develop and implement a comprehensive sales strategy that doesn't rely on cold emails and armies of SDRs.

Drive Revenue Growth :

Develop and manage sales pipelines, forecasts, and budgets.

Identify key accounts and establish strong relationships with C-level executives and decision-makers, being able to build trust with deeply technical buyers to close sales with a product that instantly meets their urgent needs.

Convert trial POCs into paid revenue contracts by working closely with customers, engineering and customer success teams throughout the entire sales cycle.

Collaborate Cross-Functionally :

Work closely with marketing, product, and engineering teams to align sales efforts with overall company objectives.

Provide insights and feedback to product and marketing teams to enhance product offerings and messaging.

Represent the brand at key live events including conferences, customer dinners, and industry talks.

Analyze and Report on Sales Performance :

Track and analyze sales metrics and performance data.

Prepare and present regular sales reports to the executive team.

Utilize data-driven insights to continuously improve sales strategies and processes.

Build and Lead a High-Performing Sales Team :

Recruit, train, and mentor a "best-in-class" team of sales engineers and account executives, without relying on SDRs to manage your communication pipeline.

Set clear performance goals, provide regular feedback, and drive accountability.

Foster a positive, collaborative, respectful and results-oriented sales culture.

Basic Qualifications :

8 years of experience with growing responsibility in related roles with a strong track record of success in a startup environment.

Proven track record of success in a startup sales leadership role, in enterprise SaaS B2B and ideally cybersecurity, especially cloud, Kubernetes or AI.

Experience leading and scaling sales teams in a Series A or similar high-growth environment with an emphasis on owning and growing key customer relationships throughout the sales cycle.

Strong understanding of sales processes, CRM systems, and sales enablement tools.

Comfort with and passion for cross-functional relationship building across multiple members of customer teams, internal stakeholders, and vendors.

Deep respect for the customer's intelligence, their real-world needs, and our product's ability to genuinely make customers' lives easier and their stacks more secure.

Exceptional written and spoken communication skills with impeccable social judgment and the ability to customize your communications to the situation while remaining true to the product and brand messaging.

Experience working in a fast-paced startup environment

Open, curious and receptive to new ideas and ways of doing things

Willing to mentor new members of the team as the company grows

Working technical familiarity with basics of Kubernetes, APIs, Cloud Security, and AI

Bachelor's degree with demonstrated comfort with both human behavior and technical topics either through coursework, extension classes or prior work experience.

Work Hours & Location :

Operant is a remote-first company and welcomes qualified applicants from across the US and Canada.

This position will require you to be available during core PST business hours (9am-5pm) and to adjust schedules occasionally based on customer and business needs including business travel, client meeting / call schedules, and team off-sites.

What you can expect from us :

Operant is an equal opportunity workplace where you will find an open and supportive environment to share your thoughts and ideas, while enabling you to springboard your career in a high-growth, high-energy startup.

Benefits :

Medical, dental and vision insurance

Life insurance

401k

Paid holidays

Generous PTO

Stock options

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