Strategic Account Director – PSU/Government
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If you don’t think you meet all of the criteria below but are still interested in the job, please apply. Nobody checks every box - we’re looking for candidates that are particularly strong in a few areas, and have some interest and capabilities in others.
About the Role
Kong is the AI Connectivity Company. We build the infrastructure that lets enterprises govern APIs and AI traffic at scale — and that infrastructure is becoming critical to how India's government and public sector modernize their systems.
We're hiring an Account Executive to own a defined patch of PSU (Public Sector Undertaking) and Government accounts across India. You'll work the full government buying cycle — tenders, GeM listings, System Integrator relationships, empanelment — to bring Kong's platform into major public-sector modernization programs.
This role is based in Delhi and reports to a Country Manager.
What You'll Do
Own the sales cycle, government-style. Lead deals from first conversation through RFP response, technical and financial bid submission, and contract award. Track PQ (pre-qualification) criteria, EMD requirements, and L1 bidding dynamics. Keep your pipeline accurate to what's actually documented in the tender process — not what looks good in a forecast.
Work the ecosystem, not just the account. Government and PSU deals rarely close direct. Build real relationships with the System Integrators (SIs) and OEM partners who carry the technical bid, and make sure Kong is positioned — and empanelled — before the tender drops.
Navigate multiple stakeholders. IT Secretaries, CTOs and CIOs at PSUs, nodal officers, procurement and finance committees — each has different priorities and a different definition of "done." Map them accurately and plan around all of them.
Build account plans for your patch. Identify which departments and PSUs are actively modernizing, where their budget cycles sit, and what a realistic path to close looks like. Then execute against it.
Get fluent in the platform and the landscape. Know Kong's API and AI governance platform well enough to defend it in a technical bid, and know where competitors are already empanelled.
Meet your number. Consistently hit quota. Government cycles are long — consistency across quarters matters more than any single deal.
Bring in the rest of Kong early. Loop in sales engineering, legal, and the channel team before compliance and certification requirements (STQC, data residency, MeitY empanelment) become a bottleneck late in the deal.
Travel. Expect real time in government offices and PSU sites across India. This is a relationship business, and relationships in this sector are built in person.
What You'll Bring
8-12 years in B2B SaaS or enterprise technology sales, with direct experience selling into Indian government departments or PSUs. This isn't optional — the public-sector buying process is different enough that generalist enterprise experience alone won't carry you.
A track record of consistently hitting quota (typically in the ₹2–5 Cr / $300K–$750K range) sold through longer, multi-stakeholder government cycles.
Working knowledge of India's government tendering lifecycle — GeM, RFP/RFI processes, technical and financial bids, PQ criteria, EMD — and how empanelment with bodies like MeitY or NIC actually works in practice.
Established relationships with System Integrators and OEM partners active in India's public-sector technology space.
Process discipline and patience. Government deals move on their own timeline. You bring structure to that timeline — you don't try to force it.
Executive presence with senior government officials and PSU leadership, along with the judgment to know when to push and when to wait.
Ownership with collaboration. You run your patch, but you know when to pull in your manager, sales engineering, or a partner. In the public sector, this isn't a solo sport.
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About Kong
Kong Inc., the AI Connectivity Company, is building the connectivity layer of AI. Trusted by the Fortune 500® and AI-native startups alike, Kong’s unified API and AI platform enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI traffic — on any model, any cloud. For more information, visit www.konghq.com.