Key account Director

Aiven•Austin, TX

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Aiven is seeking a Key Account Director for North America to manage and grow revenue for their 6 largest and most strategically complex accounts. This role focuses on expanding existing relationships by identifying new workloads, business units, use cases, and stakeholders within accounts that already utilize Aiven's critical data infrastructure. The ideal candidate will operate at an executive level, possess strong technical credibility, and be adept at navigating complex enterprise organizations and consumption-based economic models. Success will be measured by net new expansion ARR, gross retention, pipeline coverage, and forecast accuracy. The role requires building multi-year account plans, maintaining executive sponsor relationships, and orchestrating partnerships with hyperscalers.

Requirements

Significant experience in B2B technology sales having managed strategic or named accounts of similar scale and complexity ($1M+ ARR per account, multi-stakeholder enterprise organizations).
Proven track record of driving expansion revenue within existing accounts.
Experience managing accounts where you've navigated matrixed organizations with distributed decision-making.
Demonstrated success in consumption-based or usage-based revenue models where revenue scales with adoption.
Ability to build and maintain executive relationships at VP and C-level.
Experience multi-threading across buying centers: platform engineering, data engineering, infrastructure, DevOps, procurement, IT governance, and line-of-business technology teams.
Understanding of enterprise procurement, legal, and vendor management functions.
Track record of developing internal champions who advocate for expansion within their organizations.
Familiarity with open-source data infrastructure: Apache Kafka, PostgreSQL, OpenSearch, ClickHouse, or similar technologies.
Understanding of cloud infrastructure and managed services: AWS, OCI, GCP, Azure ecosystem, and how customers make build-vs-buy decisions for data platform components.
Ability to translate technical capabilities into business outcomes: reduced operational overhead, faster time-to-production, infrastructure cost optimization, developer productivity, risk mitigation.
Experience selling into platform engineering, data engineering, and infrastructure organizations.
Direct experience engaging cloud provider field teams (AWS, OCI, GCP, Azure) as partners on strategic accounts.
Understanding of hyperscaler co-sell motions, marketplace dynamics, and partner programs.
Based in United States with ability to travel 50%+ for executive engagement, on-site account reviews, and strategic meetings.
Comfortable with hybrid work model and self-directed execution.

Responsibilities

Own Expansion Revenue Outcomes: Deliver net new expansion ARR annually across 6 named strategic accounts through new workloads, new services, new business units, and competitive displacement.
Protect and retain existing ARR with 100% gross retention.
Build and maintain 3.5x qualified pipeline coverage against expansion targets using rigorous MEDDPICC standards for every opportunity.
Achieve ±10% forecast accuracy at commit with evidence-based qualification.
Drive consumption growth through adoption initiatives that expand usage of contracted services.
Build & Execute Strategic Account Plans: Develop 12-month account plans for each of the 6 accounts with documented whitespace analysis, stakeholder maps, competitive positioning, and prioritized expansion plays.
Identify and qualify growth vectors: new Aiven services not yet deployed, new cloud regions, new business units, workloads on self-managed infrastructure, competitive displacement opportunities.
Map organizational structure and decision-making authority across platform engineering, data engineering, infrastructure, DevOps, and line-of-business technology teams.
Maintain living account intelligence: executive changes, organizational restructures, strategic initiatives, M&A activity, technology roadmap shifts that create expansion opportunities or retention risk.
Present quarterly business reviews internally with account health assessment, pipeline status, risk register, and resource requirements.
Navigate Complex Enterprise Organizations: Build and maintain executive sponsor relationships at VP and C-level across each account (e.g., CTO, VP Engineering, VP Platform, VP Data, CIO where relevant).
Develop multi-threaded relationships across buying centers.
Engage procurement, legal, and vendor management proactively.
Identify and cultivate internal champions who will advocate for Aiven expansion within their organizations.
Navigate budget cycles, planning processes, and governance frameworks.
Orchestrate Hyperscaler Partnerships: Build relationships with AWS, GCP, and Azure field teams covering your accounts (e.g., account executives, solution architects, partner managers).
Position Aiven as a hyperscaler-aligned solution, not a competitor.
Develop joint account plans with hyperscaler partners for accounts where cloud commitment or migration initiatives create Aiven expansion opportunities.
Leverage hyperscaler co-sell motions, marketplace transactions, and partner funding where they accelerate deal velocity or improve customer economics.
Identify accounts where committed cloud spend creates budget for managed services.
Execute with MEDDPICC Discipline: Qualify every expansion opportunity against MEDDPICC criteria.
Maintain complete opportunity documentation in Salesforce with evidence for each MEDDPICC element.
Forecast with evidence.
Run structured deal reviews.
Coordinate Cross-Functional Resources: Direct Solution Architects on technical validation, architecture reviews, proof-of-concept scoping, and technical stakeholder engagement for expansion opportunities.
Align with Technical Account Managers on adoption initiatives, usage optimization, and early warning signals for retention risk or expansion opportunity.
Engage Product and Engineering for roadmap alignment, feature requests, and strategic account requirements.
Coordinate with Legal and Deal Desk on contract amendments, MSA updates, and commercial terms for expansion transactions.

Benefits

Competitive base salary + commission structure aligned to expansion targets with accelerators for overachievement
Participate in Aiven's equity plan
Hybrid work policy
Equipment to set yourself up for success
Learning platforms, annual learning budget
Global Employee Assistance Program
Contribute to open-source projects that you find meaningful outside of work—and get paid for it! (Plankton program)
Use up to 5 days per year to volunteer for a good cause of your choice
Join one of our team member resource groups
Comprehensive health insurance options including dental and vision benefits
Life and AD&D insurance
Health savings account with Aiven contributions
Short and long term disability plans
401(k) and Roth 401(k) retirement plans