Senior Account Executive

Job description

About Us Shorthand exists to empower creative teams to produce and publish beautiful, transformative content radically faster. We've begun our journey by creating an easy-to-use platform for one of the most creatively and technically demanding use cases on the web — immersive feature stories — and we're proud to count many of the world's best known and most discerning publishers, brands, not-for-profits and universities as loyal customers. Shorthand is a growing, investor-backed company with customers on every continent (except Antarctica!), and there's never been a more exciting time to join our band of geeks with art and heart. We're looking for an entrepreneurial Senior Account Executive to join our Sales team, based in North America (Washington DC, NYC, or Boston preferred; other East Coast locations considered) on a fully remote basis. What you'll be doing The mission of Shorthand is to create a beautifully informed world. To do that, we need to build a platform that makes it easy to create immersive reading experiences for the web, because it would otherwise be unaffordable and painfully cumbersome for organisations to produce this type of content. Our Senior Account Executives are a big part of the Shorthand magic. This role is responsible for building pipeline, opening new enterprise relationships, and driving complex consultative sales cycles. You'll engage both business and technical stakeholders — including marketing, content, editorial, digital experience and web platform teams — and operate autonomously across the full sales cycle, from prospecting through to close. This is an ideal role for someone who thrives in early-stage product commercialisation and enjoys creating structure, messaging and momentum in a new market category. You'll join our Sales team and report to the Head of Sales. In this role you'll: Build and manage a disciplined outbound pipeline targeting enterprise organisations. Prospect into marketing, content, communications, digital experience and web platform teams within medium and large enterprises. Develop multi-threaded relationships across both business and technical buying groups. Create and execute strategic account plans for named target accounts. Become a trusted advisor by understanding customer priorities and demonstrating how Shorthand supports their strategic objectives. Build long-term relationships with senior stakeholders while driving new business and expansion opportunities. Develop tailored proposals and presentations that address customer needs and business outcomes. Own commercial negotiations and successfully close complex enterprise opportunities. Forecast pipeline accurately, including expected close date, projected deal size and probability. Work collaboratively with Customer Success, Sales, Channel Partners, Growth, Marketing, Product and Engineering to deliver outstanding customer outcomes and provide valuable market feedback. We are looking for someone who: Has a proven track record of building outbound pipeline and closing enterprise SaaS deals in complex buying environments. Is comfortable prospecting into medium and large enterprises and engaging multiple stakeholder groups across marketing, content, communications, editorial, digital and web platform teams. Can demonstrate success growing strategic accounts through a combination of new business acquisition, expansion and executive relationship building. Has experience selling CMS, digital publishing, martech, DXP or related technology solutions into enterprise organisations. Is commercially driven, highly autonomous, and comfortable operating in a fast-moving environment with limited structure and high ownership. Is technically credible and confident discussing CMS workflows, integrations and implementation considerations with customer web and platform teams. Can independently run discovery, product demonstrations and commercial conversations without relying heavily on presales or solution engineering support. Has strong consultative selling skills and can connect Shorthand's platform capabilities to strategic customer objectives around content, storytelling, engagement and digital experience. Communicates exceptionally well in both written and verbal formats, and can simplify complex concepts for both technical and non-technical audiences. Learns quickly, prioritises effectively, and maintains high attention to detail while managing multiple enterprise sales cycles simultaneously. Thrives working remotely and collaboratively across distributed teams and time zones. Brings curiosity, resilience and initiative, and enjoys helping shape go-to-market strategy for emerging products and categories. Experience & Qualifications Significant experience successfully selling enterprise marketing solutions to CEOs, CMOs, VPs and Directors of Marketing, Content, Communications, Editorial and related functions. Experience selling into organisations using WordPress, Adobe Experience Manager, Sitecore, Contentful, Optimizely, Drupal or similar CMS/DXP platforms. Experience navigating technical validation processes with digital, engineering or web platform teams. Ability to independently deliver product demonstrations and manage technical discovery conversations without dedicated presales support. Experience introducing new products to market. Proven track record of closing large, strategic, high-quality deals. Proven success in both direct and partner-led sales. Technical aptitude or background in technology is highly regarded. A consultative sales style and experience selling solutions in a fast-paced environment. Proven ability to sell collaboratively across multiple internal stakeholders and teams. Personality Attributes You are a proactive self-starter who doesn't need to be told what to do and is resourceful in finding solutions. You are collaborative, consultative and not afraid to get your hands dirty. You thrive in a fast-paced environment and possess a high level of curiosity. You are goal-oriented, resilient and motivated by achieving outstanding results. You are a supportive and proactive team player. You love working remotely. You are tech-savvy and excited to become an expert in the Shorthand platform. Why work for us We offer: Fully remote working, flexible hours and a co-working allowance if you'd like one. True autonomy, with the freedom to own and grow your territory. The opportunity to shape our enterprise sales motion as we continue to grow across North America. A category-defining product trusted by leading global brands, publishers, universities and not-for-profits. The opportunity to work in a growing SaaS company that's still small enough for you to make a real impact. A home office allowance, laptop and any peripherals you need to do your best work. An Employee Share Option Plan for all team members. A Health & Wellness Allowance together with access to coaching and counselling services. A 401(k) plan and 100% employer-paid healthcare premiums for US-based team members. Paid parental leave if you're growing your tribe. A proudly carbon-neutral organisation, taking climate action with Trace as part of our broader sustainability strategy. A base salary range of US$110,000–125,000, with additional variable commission. Actual compensation will depend on your skills, experience and local market benchmarks. Shorthand's interview process We value direct communication and want to be transparent about how we hire. Our process includes: An initial Zoom conversation with the hiring manager. A take-home task using our platform (approximately 2–4 hours). Panel interviews with members of the team, including our CEO. Reference and background checks before a formal offer is made. Our workplace is 100% distributed and all interviews are conducted virtually. Please let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process.