Account Executive, Japan & Korea

Job description

**We Are Sparta** Sparta is the AI leader for commodity trading, home to Leonidas AI, the first operating system for oil and commodity traders. Backed by $42 million in Series B funding led by One Peak, with participation from returning investors FirstMark and Singular, the same investors behind AI leaders like Legora, Dataiku, and Synthesia. Most companies are building a chatbot on top of data. We've built an agent with an actual reasoning layer, grounded in years of proprietary market data and in-house trading expertise nobody else has. We're scaling fast, and it's an exciting time to join. From independents to multinationals, the world's leading commodity teams use Sparta and Leonidas AI to move faster, trade smarter, and stay ahead of the market. At Sparta, you'll be trusted to take ownership, backed by a team who wants you to succeed. AI is how we build here, not just what we sell. Good ideas move fast, and yours could go from staging to production in a couple of hours, whatever department you're in. You'll be challenged, supported, and given room to grow, building the AI that's changing how commodity trading gets done. Your work has reach. From shaping Leonidas AI, to powering smarter decisions for traders around the world, to changing how commodity trading is done. And because we're growing fast, you'll accelerate your career with a level of ownership and impact you simply won't get at bigger, slower-moving companies. # **The Role** This is a new-logo hunter role with an account development edge. Based in Singapore, you will own Sparta’s Japanese and Korean territory: building pipeline from scratch, getting in front of trading desks in person, and closing complex, multi-product deals. Roughly 70% of your time goes to winning new logos and 30% to growing and supporting the clients you bring in. Japan is the immediate priority, with Korea following as the territory matures. Many of the desks you sell to sit in Singapore, but sometimes the budget, the mandate and the long-term relationship often sit with headquarters in Tokyo or Seoul. You will work both, building credibility locally and sponsorship at HQ. You will sell to C-suite and VP-level buyers while winning over the traders, analysts and risk managers who will use the product and know their market cold. You will have pre-sales and Customer Success behind you, and an Asia Pacific team growing quickly. You will work from our Singapore office 4 days a week. # **What You Will Be Doing** ## **New Business** • Research opportunities, initiate discussions, build prospect relationships, run demos, manage product trials and close deals across Japanese and Korean energy commodity firms. • Develop a pipeline of high-value opportunities through networking, events and in-person interaction with traders and decision-makers in Singapore and HQ. • Sell to C-suite, VP-level and trading desks, articulating a clear business case and ROI for our SaaS solutions. • Build relationships with headquarters stakeholders so that regional wins convert into group-level commitments. ## **Account Development and Expansion** • Grow the clients you win: expand usage across desks, verticals and products, and build the internal advocacy that turns a first deal into a multi-year relationship. • Work with Customer Success to protect renewals and spot expansion signals early. • Act as the commercial point of contact your clients trust, and bring their market feedback back into the business. ## **Enterprise Sales Execution** • Lead a virtual account team, coordinating with internal resources across pre-sales, customer success and marketing to drive deals forward. • Use value-selling methodologies such as MEDDPICC, Challenger and SPIN to align solutions with customer pain points and strategic initiatives. • Structure and negotiate complex, multi-product deals tailored to customer needs. ## **Forecasting and Pipeline Management** • Maintain accurate sales forecasts, using HubSpot and sales analytics tools to manage deal progression and pipeline health. • Track sales KPIs and continually refine sales tactics to improve conversion rates and shorten deal cycles. # **About You** • 5+ years of enterprise B2B sales experience, preference selling into commodities or energy markets. • Business-level fluency in Japanese or Korean, in addition to English. This is required because most stakeholders will be Japanese and Koreans and prefer this as their working language • Proven track record of hunting and closing complex, high-value deals, and hitting six- or seven-figure annual revenue targets. • Able to build pipeline across a set territory from scratch: identifying the right opportunities, getting access to senior decision-makers, and building the internal advocacy that enterprise deals need. • Comfortable running product demonstrations and navigating long sales cycles with multiple business and technical stakeholders. • Strong knowledge of value-based selling frameworks such as MEDDPICC, Challenger and SPIN, and able to run a consultative sales motion. • Experience orchestrating a cross-functional virtual team across pre-sales, customer success, marketing and executive sponsors. • Based in Singapore, in the office 4 days a week, and happy to travel frequently for customer meetings and industry events across Asia Pacific. This is a face-to-face, relationship-driven role. # **Nice to Have** • Prior exposure to energy and commodity markets, particularly refining, petrochemicals, shipping or trading houses. • Experience selling financial data platforms, analytics software or SaaS solutions directly to traders, analysts, quants or risk managers. • An existing network across Japanese or Korean trading houses, refiners, utilities or shipping firms. • Experience selling for a scale-up or challenger brand, where the name does not open the door for you. • Familiarity with HubSpot and Claude. # # Why Join Sparta? At Sparta, our culture is built on innovation, collaboration, and high performance. We thrive in a fast-paced environment where initiative is celebrated, challenges are embraced, and impact is rewarded. • Equity in a high-growth, VC-backed company • $42M in Series B funding — strong market traction and investment • Early-stage growth — build your career as we scale • Market-leading product — we are redefining commodity trading intelligence • Top-tier tools and technology to support your success # What's the Culture Like at Sparta? At Sparta, our culture isn't just a set of values on a wall — it's how we work. We embrace a dynamic environment where initiative is celebrated, challenges are met head-on, and innovation thrives. You'll collaborate with people who are passionate about our mission and committed to building outstanding products and outcomes for our customers. # # The Sparta Code **Understanding is non-negotiable** ***Understanding leads to believing. Believing leads to winning.*** The 'why' is the difference between compliance and conviction. Before we execute, we ask: why does this matter, who does it serve, what changes if we win? People who understand the mission don't need to be managed. **Ask for forgiveness, not for permission** ***Most decisions are reversible. Most fears are not.*** 90% of decisions are reversible. Make them, ship, iterate. Perfection is the enemy of efficiency. Bias for action means moving before you have all the answers, but it isn't recklessness. The rule: tell the rest of us what you did, what changed, what you learned. **Fall in love with the problem** ***The mission wins. Your idea doesn't have to.*** Solutions flatter our ego. They feel like progress. But solutions without problems are opinions, and opinions don't move customers, markets, or teammates. The goal is to find what's true, not to win the room. If your idea gets killed because a better one comes along, that's the system working. **It's your fault. Lucky you.** ***If it's on you, it's in your control.*** True ownership sounds harsh until you feel how liberating it is. If every problem is yours, you stop spending energy on who to blame and start spending it on how to fix it. Effective leaders default to 'it's on me'. Not out of guilt, but out of agency. **Conflict is a gift** ***Honesty is an expression of care.*** Withholding feedback is choosing comfort over growth, yours and your colleague's. Staying silent deprives others of the chance to learn. We challenge openly and with positive intent. Done with care, this builds trust. Done with ego, it destroys it. *Sparta Commodities is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and promotes diversity within its workforce. We are determined that no-one will ever receive less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, race, veteran status or any basis covered by appropriate law.*