Account Executive - China

Job description

ABOUT US Our mission is to reinvent the way people learn, starting with language. Learning a language can change a life by opening doors to new cultures, careers, and communities. Two billion people around the world are actively trying to learn a language, but the best way to learn (one-on-one tutoring) is hard to access at scale and hasn’t been meaningfully improved in decades. Speak is building a human-level, AI-powered tutor in your pocket: a conversation-first experience that lets learners actually speak, get instant feedback, and progress through carefully designed lessons. The result is a complete path from beginner to confident speaker across multiple languages. Speak first launched in South Korea in 2019, where Speak has now become the number one language learning app, and we now serve learners across many markets and 15+ languages. Speak is one of the world’s leading AI companies, with over $150m raised in venture investment from OpenAI, Accel, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, and more, with a distributed team across San Francisco, Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, and Ljubljana. ABOUT THE ROLE Speak for Business is Speak’s enterprise arm — a holistic solution that helps employees get comfortable speaking the languages their business success depends on. We have already grown S4B to hundreds of logos globally, with our deepest footprint in Korea and Japan, and we are now bringing it to China. We’re looking for a founding Enterprise Account Executive in China to drive new ARR with B2B customers. You’ll own the full cycle — targeting, building relationships with executive decision-makers, and closing complex enterprise deals across Speak for Business. This is a rare chance to open a new market inside a company that has already scaled globally. You’ll help shape Speak’s China B2B playbook while partnering closely with our global Product, Engineering, Content, Customer Success, and Go-to-Market teams. WHAT YOU’LL DO - Build a China territory plan from scratch, including defining the ideal customer profile, mapping the first high-potential account universe, and prioritizing target segments such as multinational China entities, large domestic enterprises with international operations, and Chinese companies expanding globally. - This is a true new-logo hunter role. You will not inherit a customer portfolio or a mature local playbook. Part of your job will be to build Speak’s first China enterprise target-account map from scratch. - Run disciplined discovery and value-selling with HR, L&D, Talent, People, and business executives to drive new ARR. - Develop account plans that map company priorities, build senior multi-threaded relationships, and surface future expansion paths. - Own complex sales cycles end to end, including outbound, discovery, pilot design, business case creation, proposal, negotiation, procurement, contracting, and close. - Navigate China enterprise buying processes, including supplier qualification, tenders, contracting, chops, invoicing, and collections. - Read market signals, feed buyer feedback into Product and GTM, and help define Speak’s China positioning, pricing, packaging, and repeatable sales motion. WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR - 5+ years of quota-carrying B2B sales experience, with at least 2–3 years selling to enterprise or large strategic accounts, especially companies with 5,000+ employees. - A proven track record of personally generating pipeline and closing new-logo business, not just managing renewals, expansions, inbound leads, or inherited accounts. Examples and figures are required in your application, especially examples where you built pipeline from scratch. - Experience managing complex 3–12 month enterprise sales cycles end to end, including outbound, discovery, pilot design, business case creation, proposal, negotiation, procurement, and close. - A consultative selling style, clear sales methodology, and ability to sell business value to HR / L&D / Talent or adjacent enterprise buyers. - Native-level Mandarin and business English strong enough to run product discussions, communicate with global teams, and work cross-functionally day to day. IT’S AN ADDED PLUS IF YOU ALSO HAVE - Experience selling HRTech, L&D, corporate learning, EdTech, language learning, employee benefits, or adjacent B2B SaaS solutions. - A track record of thriving in fast-changing environments, opening a new market, building a new territory, or selling before the playbook was mature. - Proven land-and-expand experience, familiarity with modern sales tools, and experience selling to multinational companies or globalizing Chinese companies. WHY WORK AT SPEAK 1. Join a fantastic, tight-knit team at the right time: we're growing very quickly, we've most recently raised our Series C from some of the top investors in the valley, and we've achieved product-market fit in our initial markets. You'd join at a magical time when a single person could significantly change the course of the company. 2. Do your life's work with people you’ll love working with: we care strongly about our craft and want every person at Speak to feel like they're growing every day. We believe in the idea that working with people you both enjoy and have respect for makes everything better. We hire thoughtfully and only work with people we admire deeply. 3. Global in nature: We're live in over 40 countries and launching in a number of new markets soon. We have dedicated offices in San Francisco, Ljubljana, Seoul, Tokyo, and Taipei, and you’ll have the opportunity to talk to users in each of these regions on a regular basis as well as travel. 4. Impact people's lives in a major way: Learning a language is one of the single most life-changing skills one can learn, and right now 99% of people never achieve their goal because the process is broken. We’re helping millions of people achieve their goals and improve their lives. Speak does not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.