Founding Account Executive, Japan

The Role
We're building a local Enterprise Sales Pod in Tokyo — one AE and one Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), working together to build a Telnyx enterprise business in Japan. This is not a remote overlay on an existing territory. You will own a named-account list of 30–40 enterprise accounts in Japan, and your job is to turn those accounts into production Telnyx customers.
You'll work side-by-side with a dedicated FDE — not a demo resource, but a technical partner who designs architectures, builds POCs, and gets the first workload live. You win together. No throw-over-the-wall.
This is a founding role. You'll help define how Telnyx sells into enterprise accounts in Japan, set the playbook, and build the references that the next wave of hires will follow.
The Pod Model
Enterprise AE — owns the named-account list, builds executive relationships, gets in the room, owns commercial qualification and close, expands the account. .
Forward Deployed Engineer — owns technical discovery, designs the architecture, builds the POC when gated, gets the first workload live, removes blockers and finds the next workload.
We sell the workload, not the SKU. Customers buy a production outcome — an AI contact center, a SOC/NOC agent, global communications, connected mobility, or enterprise inference — that runs on Telnyx primitives (voice, messaging, numbers, wireless, Voice AI, inference, agents, connectivity). You lead with the outcome conversation, not a product menu.
What You'll Do
• Own a territory of 30–40 named enterprise accounts in Japan, narrowing to ~10 Tier 1 accounts worth $1M+ in annual potential
• Build executive relationships — get in the room with CIOs, CTOs, VP Engineering, and line-of-business owners
• Run the full sales cycle: prospect, qualify, design the commercial architecture with your FDE, negotiate, and close
• Sell programmable voice, messaging, Voice AI, wireless, and networking products to both technical and business audiences — from developer teams building on our APIs to c-suite stakeholders evaluating infrastructure partners
• Articulate Telnyx's differentiated value (private network, carrier-grade reliability, AI-native capabilities) and navigate objections against competitors like Twilio and Vonage
• Agree the commercial destination before any custom work begins — no free discovery or free development
• Maintain disciplined POC management: every POC has a named executive sponsor, written success criteria, production pricing discussed, a decision date, and a signed commercial document. POCs end in production or they end
• Expand the account — one workload becomes three, one $500K customer becomes a $2M customer
• Build local references and case studies in the Japanese market
• Provide accurate pipeline reporting and forecasting — no surprises
What We're Looking For
• 5+ years of enterprise sales experience selling into Japan — CPaaS, UCaaS, CCaaS, telecom, AI/ML, or similarly technical infrastructure
• Proven track record of consistently exceeding quota ($1M+ deals)
• Experience selling to both executive and technical buyers — you can hold your own in the boardroom and in the architecture review
• Hunter mentality — you build your own pipeline and thrive on outbound, in-person selling
• Strong consultative selling skills: can build a clear, compelling ROI story for both technical and business buyers
• Familiarity with sales methodologies (MEDDPICC, Challenger, SPIN, etc.)
• Comfortable with modern sales tools (Salesforce, Outreach, Gong, etc.)
• Excellent written and verbal communication in English and Japanese. You listen before you pitch.
• Willingness to be in the field — visiting customers in person across Japan is a core part of this role
Bonus Points For
• Fortune 500 or large enterprise new business sales experience in Japan (NTT Group, SoftBank, KDDI, Rakuten, Sony, Hitachi, Mitsubishi ecosystem)

• C-Level selling experience — you can navigate procurement, security, and legal complexity in Japanese enterprise environments
• Understanding of SIP trunking, phone number provisioning, carrier networks, or AI/ML platforms
• Established relationships in the Japan enterprise ecosystem
• Experience selling AI/ML or Voice AI solutions into Japanese enterprises