B2B Sales Lead - Korea

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 THIS ROLE Speak is on a mission to transform language learning for enterprises and individuals around the world, and our B2B business in South Korea is one of our fastest-growing pillars. We're looking for a B2B Sales Leader to own net-new account growth in the Korean market while leading and developing our Account Executive (AE) team. This is a player-coach role: you'll personally carry and close key accounts, and you'll build the team, playbook, and rhythm that let Korea scale across new verticals and channels as a people manager. You'll initially report to the global Head of B2B Sales (and, over time, the Head of APAC Sales) and partner closely with Marketing, Customer Success, and our global team. If you're a hands-on sales leader in South Korea who likes to both close deals and grow the people around you, this is a rare chance to shape Speak's B2B engine from the front. WHAT YOU'LL BE DOING - Own new and expansion B2B growth in South Korea: build and progress pipeline, and personally close key accounts against a quota. - Lead and coach our talented AE team through 1:1s, pipeline reviews, and hands-on deal support that lifts their attainment. - Build and refine the KR sales playbook (outreach, discovery, objection handling) based on what actually closes in-market. - Run enterprise and mid-market deals with senior KR stakeholders across HR, L&D, and business-unit leadership. - Partner with Marketing and Customer Success on demand generation, expansion, and a clean handoff from lead to close to launch. - Own forecasting and CRM discipline: keep coverage healthy, call the number, and hold the team accountable to it. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR - 8+ years of B2B / enterprise sales in Korea with a strong personal closing track record. - 2+ years of directly managing a sales team, with clear evidence of developing reps. - Full-cycle net-new selling experience: prospecting through negotiation and close, without heavy support. - A “player-coach” mentality with the ability to support key deals personally, while building and upskilling the team. - Strong CRM, pipeline, and forecasting discipline. - EdTech, L&D, or B2B SaaS background, and experience selling to HR / L&D / Global Mobility buyers, is a plus. - Fluency in business English; communicating with the global team at Speak on a daily level should not be a blocker to getting things done. 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.