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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.
Job Responsibility
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 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
Orchestrate Hyperscaler Partnerships: 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
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
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
What we offer
Competitive base salary + commission structure aligned to expansion targets with accelerators for overachievement
Participate in Aiven's equity plan
Hybrid work policy
Needed equipment
Learning platforms
Annual learning budget
Holistic wellbeing support through global Employee Assistance Program
Contribute to open-source projects through Plankton program
5 days per year to volunteer
Team member resource groups
Comprehensive health insurance options including dental and vision benefits