Head of Sales-Vindexa (first sales hire)

Job description

Vindexa is an AI-powered compliance platform purpose-built for the clean energy industry. We automate the verification of Prevailing Wage and Apprenticeship (PWA) requirements under the Inflation Reduction Act -- the compliance obligations that determine whether renewable energy developers keep or lose their IRA tax credits. The stakes are real. A single construction project can carry $50M+ in tax credit exposure. Developers, EPC contractors, and their tax equity partners need certainty that compliance holds up to IRS scrutiny in real time, not months after the fact. We built the alternative: an AI system that ingests certified payroll data, validates it against DOL wage determinations and apprenticeship program requirements, surfaces violations in real time, and generates the audit trail needed for tax credit certification. Vindexa is backed by AI Fund (Andrew Ng) and AES Clean Energy, one of the largest renewable energy developers in the world, as our anchor design partner and early customer. The product is built, the first customer relationship is deep, and the pipeline is building. Now we need the engineering foundation to match the ambition. **The Role-First Sales Hire**The product works. Our first enterprise customer is live and serious developers are already in conversation with us. The next constraint is pipeline: building it, warming it, and helping close it. The team is small and intentional. We are building in the age of AI, deliberately lean, and expect everyone here to operate with that same mindset: using intelligent tools to do what previously took teams, moving fast, and treating leverage as a core competency. There is no playbook handed to you. No inherited pipeline, no prior GTM lead to follow. You are building the commercial foundation of this company alongside a founder who will be in the trenches with you on every deal. The GTM function at Vindexa will be shaped by what you build in the next 12 months. ### ### Responsibilities Include: - ### **Own the Outbound Engine** - Build and operate our outbound motion from scratch: ICP lists, sequencing, messaging, and iteration. You are doing it, at least until AI agents take over the repetitive layer. - Use AI tools heavily to scale what one person can do: automated research, personalized outreach at volume, signal-based prospecting. Genuinely AI-native, not tinkering with ChatGPT on the side. - Manage pipeline cadence and be present in early sales conversations alongside the CEO, eventually running discovery calls independently. - As AI agents take over the repetitive layer, your job shifts to strategy, relationships, and closing. We expect you to be ahead of that curve, not resistant to it. - ### **Build RevOps Infrastructure** - Set up and own our CRM: data model, pipeline stages, and reporting that tells us what is working. - Establish lightweight processes for outreach, follow-up, and handoff that can scale with a small team. - ### **Co-Create Content That Opens Doors** - Partner with the CEO on the content that warms the market: case studies, one-pagers, email sequences, and LinkedIn. You shape and pressure-test the message; you do not have to be a professional writer. - Help ensure messaging lands differently depending on who is reading it. A VP of Tax at a large developer and a CFO at a mid-market EPC have different pain points. - ### **GTM Partner to the CEO** - Report directly to the CEO with real-time collaboration on strategy, sequencing, and positioning as we move from first customer to first ten. ### Requirements For the Role Include: - You have done outbound B2B sales or business development before. You know what a cold email that gets a reply looks like. - You are genuinely AI-native. You have built working workflows using LLMs or automation tools, and you can show us what they look like. Not a portfolio of prompts. - You have operated without a playbook at a small company and did not hate it. - You write well. Person-to-person well. The kind that makes a busy executive feel like you understand their problem. - Preference for onsite in our HQ in Santa Monica, CA but remote considered for the right candidate - Some exposure to cleantech, energy, construction, or regulated industries a plus - Comfortable with tools like HubSpot, Apollo, Clay, or their AI-native equivalents strongly preferred - You want to own a function, not inherit one. ### What This Is Not: - The infrastructure is not already built. CRM, outreach stack, content cadence: you are standing those up. That is the opportunity. - This is not a specialist role. In the same week you may write outbound sequences, sit on customer calls, update the CRM, and draft a case study. - This is not a role for someone who needs the category to sound exciting at a dinner party. Clean energy compliance is foundational infrastructure. The work that does not make headlines but makes everything else possible. - We intend to stay lean. When we expand the GTM function, it starts with AI agents and targeted hires. We expect you to embrace that philosophy. ### Why This Role, Why Now: - The IRA created a compliance problem with no good software solution. We are early enough to define the category. - AES Clean Energy is already a paying design partner. Enterprise validation on day one. - AI Fund provides the resources and credibility of a well-capitalized venture studio without the organizational weight of a large company. - The CEO is a builder and commercial operator who will be in it with you.