Account Executive, Universities

About the role

You own a region of four-year colleges and universities. These are our largest deals and we have reached about 3% of the market, so the ceiling here is the highest in the company. Our platform helps these institutions award more scholarship dollars with less administrative lift, helps advancement raise and steward the funds behind those awards, and shows donors the impact of their giving so they give again. It is also the most complex sale we run. The buying group is real and splits across Financial Aid, Advancement, Admissions, IT, procurement, and legal, usually with an incumbent in place. Reps who win here get above the director line in the first three weeks and put a written business case in front of people who will decide without them in the room. Deals here move on a roughly four month cycle. The upside is scope: by working through both Financial Aid and Advancement/Foundation, you'll sell across our whole platform when we land, and also have the opportunity to cross-sell post sale.

How we work here

We are an AI-native company and that includes sales. You will not hand-build a list, write a sequence from scratch, or type a call note. Our research engine tells you which institutions have a reason to talk right now and why, enrolls them into sequences, and puts a one-page brief in front of you before every call. AwardSpringOS is your command center for account prioritization, institution research, and coaching. Nooks runs the dialing. Gong records and analyzes your calls. HubSpot is the system of record and it is current the same day, every day. You will not be left to work this out alone. You get a weekly 1:1, a weekly call review with your manager, team training every two weeks, and a written ramp plan with your numbers on it from day one. What that buys you is time on the phone and a real reason to be calling. What we expect in return is that you use it. If you have been quietly building your own prospecting workflow with AI on the side, because your last shop made you log into six tools and rebuild every sequence by hand, here that is the actual job.

What you'll do

• Own a NASFAA (financial aid association) region of four-year institutions and build the territory strategy for it.
• Run multi-stakeholder cycles: discovery across offices, tailored demos to distinct audiences, a written business case, security review.
• Get to a Vice President or above on every deal. A director-level champion alone is how these deals stall.
• Sell across our four products at the first sale rather than coming back years later.
• Lead with our security package before anyone asks for it. SOC 2 Type 2, HECVAT, VPAT, and integration documentation are table stakes, and proactivity and comfort engaging IT early is how we win deals.
• Own procurement end to end, including RFPs, legal, pilots, and POCs.
• Own the handoff into implementation. What you promise on the call becomes what the customer gets.
• Work with customer success to close cross-sell opportunities surfaced from existing customer relationships.
• Turn one institution's success into the next three.
• Forecast on evidence, not optimism.
• Own your region's presence at NASFAA-affiliate and advancement conferences.
• Travel 3 to 5 days a month to regional and national events.

Who you are

• 2–4 years closing SaaS, including deals with a genuine buying committee. Strategic or enterprise experience rather than mid-market volume.
• A top seller in your recent years, able to walk us through two deals where three or more buyers were involved.
• You multithread by default. You do not run a deal on one champion and hope.
• You read silence correctly. In this market the deal that dies rarely tells you why, so you go find out.
• You write. A business case that travels without you is the highest-leverage thing in this segment.
• You have been through procurement, security review, and an RFP, and none of them frighten you.
• Curious about the operational reality of a four-year college or university, and able to map an institution before pitching it, with the agency to reach a VP without an introduction.
• AI-fluent in your own workflow, or ready to be inside a month. We coach you to our standard, and holding it is a requirement once your ramp is complete. We expect you to learn on the job, not come knowing how to work AI native from day 1.

How we'll measure you

• Customer and prospect meetings held each week.
• Pipeline created each month.
• Closed-won pipeline each quarter.

What we give you

• Top-tier AI tooling with unlimited token budgets, and day-one access to the latest models as they ship.
• Uncapped commission with accelerators for top performers.
• Health, dental, and vision insurance, 401(k) match, unlimited PTO, and paid parental leave.

Our values

• Lead with humanity. Genuine empathy for our team, our customers, and the students and donors they serve. That includes candor, saying the hard thing because you respect the person enough to say it.
• Take smart risks. Urgency. Bold, informed bets before the picture is fully clear. Run the experiment instead of winning the debate.
• Take pride in the process. Fast is the standard and thoughtfulness is non-negotiable. Eyes on the work you control, not the scoreboard.
• Own the results. We measure everything. Accountability runs on data, not vibes, and we can tell the difference between an honest miss and a broken process.

Work location

Chicago hybrid, three days a week in the West Loop, or living inside your assigned region near a major metro with written approval from the President. The in-territory arrangement carries a floor of 10 in-person customer or prospect meetings a month, roughly 8 field days.