Key account Director

Aiven•Austin, TX

12d•Hybrid

About The Position

As Key Account Director, North America, you will own the commercial relationship and revenue growth for Aiven's 6 largest and most strategically complex accounts in the region. These accounts represent the highest-value customer relationships in North America and require a fundamentally different approach than velocity sales or standard enterprise account management. This is a pure expansion role. You are not hunting new logos. You are responsible for net new expansion ARR by deepening penetration within accounts that already trust Aiven with critical data infrastructure. Your success will come from identifying new workloads, new business units, new use cases, and new stakeholders within organizations where we have proven value but untapped potential. This role requires someone who can operate at executive altitude while maintaining deal-level precision. You must be equally credible in a C-suite strategic review and a technical architecture discussion with a principal engineer. You will build multi-year account plans, but you will also inspect individual expansion opportunities with MEDDPICC rigor. There are clear success metrics: Net new expansion ARR annually, 100% gross retention of the base, 3.5x qualified pipeline coverage against expansion targets, and ±10% forecast accuracy at commit. You will maintain executive sponsor relationships at VP+ level in each account and develop documented account plans with identified whitespace, competitive displacement opportunities, and 12-month expansion roadmaps.

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

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.
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.
Build and maintain executive sponsor relationships at VP and C-level across each account ie 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
Build relationships with AWS, GCP, and Azure field teams covering your accounts ie account executives, solution architects, partner managers.
Position Aiven as a hyperscaler-aligned solution, not a competitor: we run on their clouds, we drive their consumption, we solve problems their native services don't address.
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
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
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
Get the needed equipment to set yourself up for success
Step up your career game with real employer support (use one of our learning platforms, annual learning budget, and more)
Get holistic wellbeing support through our global Employee Assistance Program
Contribute to open-source projects that you find meaningful outside of work—and get paid for it! Our Plankton program recognizes extra work to the open-source ecosystem for developers and non-developers alike
Use up to 5 days per year to volunteer for a good cause of your choice
Join one of our team member resource groups—empower yourself and others in missions that resonate with you
Comprehensive health insurance options including dental and vision benefits and 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