Strategic Account Director

**Axion Ray** Strategic Account Director; $225K base + $105K OTE + ~$100K/yr equity; New York / San Francisco (On-site)

**About Company** Axion Ray is a Series B AI platform helping manufacturers cut the cost of poor quality and improve product reliability — pulling together siloed, messy operational data into a single root-cause picture for issues like warranty claims, scrap, and rework. Customers include Caterpillar, GE, and Paccar, signed within the last few months. The company recently closed a $37M Series B (~$70M raised to date) and has no direct competitor in this category yet.

**About the Role** This role expands Axion Ray's commercial relationships with customers who are already live — for example, taking a customer like Caterpillar from an initial pilot into a much larger contract. It is not a net-new/top-of-funnel sales role: reps inherit existing pilot accounts and grow them from an initial ~$75K–$90K pilot toward $600K+ in the first expansion, with a realistic ceiling of $2–4M per account. This seat owns the commercial and executive relationship (the AI Solutions Director counterpart owns technical delivery). Success requires being consultative rather than transactional — building your own narrative and materials rather than relying on marketing, going deep enough on the customer's technical use case to run discovery yourself, and communicating value at the VP/executive level.

**Responsibilities** - Own and grow commercial relationships across a portfolio of existing Axion Ray accounts, from initial pilot through multi-year expansion. - Run the land-and-expand motion: shepherd a signed pilot into an annual contract spanning multiple business units, products, and data sources. - Build and deliver an executive-level narrative and business case tailored to each account. - Lead technical discovery personally to understand each customer's use case and quantify ROI. - Partner with the delivery/solutions team to convert pilots into production deployments.

**Required Skills** A. 4-8+ years in a customer-facing commercial role — strategic account management, enterprise consulting, or customer success leadership — with direct revenue ownership B. Track record managing senior/C-suite relationships at large organizations C. Comfortable building and presenting executive-level narratives directly, without relying on marketing or a sales engineer D. Able to travel up to ~50% for on-site customer visits

**Bonus Skills** A. Background in heavy industrial equipment, manufacturing, aerospace, or medical devices B. Experience converting a pilot/proof-of-concept into a large multi-year enterprise contract

**Logistical Info** - Location: New York, NY (in-office 4 days/week) or San Francisco, CA - Compensation: $225K base + $105K OTE (uncapped, with accelerators — top performers currently at $600K–$800K) + ~$100K/year equity

**Ideal Background** Profiles that have actually succeeded in this seat so far: - Engineer at an OEM/manufacturer for ~5 years who then went to business school - Former strategy consultant (e.g., ex-McKinsey/BCG) - Consultant who moved into a customer-facing commercial/value role elsewhere (e.g., Accenture to Celonis as a Value Engineer — this blend is considered close to ideal) - Technical background + MBA + strategy consulting who moved into customer-facing deployment work (this exact type was hired into a more junior "AI Deployment Strategist" seat — with 2-3 more years of experience, the same profile fits this director-level role) - Recent standouts the client has met (added to Example Candidates) — the client's summary: "good combo of tenure, domain expertise, and commercial experience (without being a pure seller)."

Target industries as a plus, not a requirement: heavy industrial equipment, manufacturing, aerospace, medical devices. The client is still refining the ideal archetype after four searches on this seat, so expect some trial-and-error across these profiles, especially early on.

**Green Flags** - Resilience and a strong sense of urgency — the hiring manager said this matters more than having already closed multi-million-dollar deals. - Comfortable communicating at both an executive/VP level and a technical level. - Came into commercial work via an unconventional path (engineering, consulting, technical) rather than a pure sales pedigree. - Sales achievements that are large relative to the brand they came from, not just large in absolute terms.

**Red Flags** - Classic BDR to AE to senior AE career sales track with no consulting/technical/analytical layer — the client has been passing on these unless truly exceptional. - "Impressive" sales experience at a brand-name company that, on closer look, reflects modest deal sizes for that company's scale. - Purely technical, hands-on solutions-engineer background with no commercial/selling motion. - Uncomfortable selling an unbranded/early-stage company — buyers mostly haven't heard of Axion Ray, so the rep has to build credibility from scratch.

**Interview Process** 1. Recruiter screen with Axion's in-house recruiting team 2. Deep-dive interview with the hiring manager, plus a behavioral/soft-skills interview with a member of the solutions team (run same day where possible) 3. Case study — a take-home slide deck for a given scenario, presented on-site to the hiring manager and a solutions team member (or virtual, with an added on-site visit at the final round) 4. Final round: closing conversation with the hiring manager

**Example Candidates** - [linkedin.com/in/ian-guidash-8b7a2350](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-guidash-8b7a2350) - [linkedin.com/in/alex-gopinathan-a98a1689](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-gopinathan-a98a1689) - [linkedin.com/in/aroramansi1](https://www.linkedin.com/in/aroramansi1) - [linkedin.com/in/alberto-mastrotto](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alberto-mastrotto) - [linkedin.com/in/pritha-hait-a3967344](https://www.linkedin.com/in/pritha-hait-a3967344) - [linkedin.com/in/almazfalol](https://www.linkedin.com/in/almazfalol) - [linkedin.com/in/alejandro-t-65101218](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandro-t-65101218) - [linkedin.com/in/jackie-b-sullivan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackie-b-sullivan) - [linkedin.com/in/ageissler](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ageissler) - [linkedin.com/in/robertpcallahanjr](https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertpcallahanjr) - [linkedin.com/in/benedict-capaldi](https://www.linkedin.com/in/benedict-capaldi)