Strategic Customer Engagements Director, APJ

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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.

Reporting to the VP of Sales, APJ, the mission of the Strategic Customer Engagements Director is to drive Kong's long-term revenue growth and profitability through larger and more strategic transactions across our APJ business. The leader will act as an in-region deal expert, responsible for the introduction into targeted Top 100 APJ prospects, driving end-to-end deal strategy, providing BVA assessments, developing creative commercial structures, and leading complex negotiations for our most strategic deals.

The Strategic Customer Engagements Director will help define and follow a consistent programmatic approach to help the regional sales organisations and cross-functional deal execution teams close large, complex, and strategic deals. The role will utilise collaborative account planning, out-quarter pipeline development, opportunity review cadences, deal coaching and choreography, and thought leadership to maximise market opportunity and accelerate the sales cycle to close larger deals successfully.

The Strategic Customer Engagements Director will be an expert in the contractual aspects of Kong's business and able to articulate value (BVA) and structure long-term, complex, multi-product agreements to enable presentation of the right deal to the customer. The role also contributes to continuous improvement efforts for the Strategic Engagements team and participates in Kong's overall transformation effort to establish the best Enterprise salesforce in the industry.

Priorities & Responsibilities:

Strategic Account Engagement

• Drive large and complex strategic deals: validate and engage on opportunities where we intend to build very large NNACV opportunities, tracking deal progression, and escalating risks/needs to senior leaders as needed.

• Collaboration: Champion all collaborative, integrated GTM activities for our Strategic Accounts, including account planning sessions, strategic pursuits, WIN Forums, review cadences or other GTM activities.

• Strategic deals: Drive big deal thinking and best practice sharing across the strategic engagements team (deal structures, operational opportunities, references and content on attractive themes like Digital Transformation or Artificial Intelligence).

• Primary customer contact: In partnership with the Account Executive, serve as a primary point of contact for the customer from deal qualification through close.

• Voice of the field: Be the voice of the field sales to corporate to continually improve and ensure successful outcomes for our most strategic customers.

• Represent Kong in senior customer-facing roles as a sponsor, strategist and negotiator.
  

Business Value Analysis

• Champion executive discovery: Drive needs discovery, analysis, and information gathering. Engage with strategic prospects and customers to gain a deep understanding of their business challenges, pain points, and future objectives. Summarise findings in the form of an overall business case for change

• Diagnose value drivers: Identify areas where Kong solutions can drive improvements in efficiency, risk mitigation, and cost savings, while enabling business growth and agility. Collect information relevant to our value models that can be used for developing projections.

• Value quantification: Collaborate with strategic clients to build comprehensive business value models. Analyse potential cost savings, productivity gains, and risk mitigation to quantify the return on investment (ROI) our solutions can deliver.

• Deliver impactful executive narratives: Develop compelling presentations and other deliverables that showcase the business case for change and the quantified value proposition of our solutions.

• Build trusted Client Relationships: Forge deep, long-term relationships with key client stakeholders, becoming their go-to expert for realising and expanding Kong's value across the entire customer lifecycle.

Qualifications

• 20+ years of deep experience and established credibility within the enterprise software industry.

• 10 + years of consultative direct sales experience in Enterprise accounts, preferably selling SaaS and with progressive client-facing responsibilities.

• Expert command of the APJ market, demonstrated through 5+ years of successful regional sales execution and revenue generation.

• A robust and active network of high-level contacts within the Top 100 APJ enterprise target accounts.

• 2+ years of strategic transaction leadership, specialising in complex deal structuring and support for high-stakes corporate engagements (e.g., M&A, IP acquisition, and innovative revenue share models).

• Conversant in all emerging trends in IT and Business.

• Demonstrated coaching and mentoring experience.

• A trusted partner defined by unquestionable integrity, credibility, and character.

• Experience within a large organisation; ability to quickly establish trust-based relationships internally to get support for customer sales objectives.

• Strong leadership, problem-solving, and decision-making abilities.

• Ability to interface and negotiate with senior client executives.

• Superior presentation and communication skills, enabling you to articulate complex value propositions with clarity and conviction.

• Organisational and analytical skills.

• Demonstrated success in global work environments.

• Continuous improvement and a growth mindset.
  
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About Kong:

Kong Inc., a leading developer of cloud API technologies, is on a mission to enable companies around the world to become "API-first" and securely accelerate AI adoption. Kong helps organizations globally — from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises — unleash developer productivity, build securely, and accelerate time to market. For more information about Kong, please visit or follow us on X @thekonginc.