Description
We're building local Enterprise Sales Pods across global markets , one AE and one Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), working together to build a Telnyx enterprise business in France.
As a Founding Account Executive, you will own a named-account list of 30–40 enterprise accounts across France, 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.
Your responsibilities include:
- Owning a territory of 30–40 named enterprise accounts across France, narrowing to ~10 Tier 1 accounts worth $1M+ in annual potential
- Building executive relationships , getting in the room with CIOs, CTOs, VP Engineering, and line-of-business owners
- Running the full sales cycle: prospect, qualify, design the commercial architecture with your FDE, negotiate, and close
- Selling production outcomes, not individual products , leading with "let's deploy an AI agent that operates your SOC or NOC workflow"
- Agreeing the commercial destination before any custom work begins , no free discovery or free development
- Maintaining disciplined POC management: every POC has a named executive sponsor, written success criteria, production pricing discussed, a decision date, and a signed commercial document
- Expanding the account , one workload becomes three, one $500K customer becomes a $2M customer
- Building local references and case studies across Paris
- Providing accurate pipeline reporting and forecasting , no surprises
Requirements:
- 5+ years of enterprise sales experience selling into French markets , 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 , holding your own in the boardroom and in the architecture review
- Hunter mentality , building your own pipeline and thriving on outbound, in-person selling
- Strong consultative selling skills: building 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 French and English
- Willingness to be in the field , visiting customers in person is a core part of this role
Bonus points for:
- Fortune 500 or large enterprise new business sales experience in France
- Complex sales cycles including RFPs, POCs, and competitive bake-offs
- C-Level selling experience , navigating procurement, security, and legal complexity, including French enterprises
- Understanding of SIP trunking, phone number provisioning, carrier networks, or AI/ML platforms
- Established relationships in the Paris enterprise ecosystem , fintech, telecom, luxury/retail, aerospace/defense, healthcare, or SaaS
- Experience selling across multiple European markets with different regulatory and procurement environments