Account Director, Government
Leads complex public-sector sales and customer adoption across Australia, New Zealand, and selected APAC markets. The role requires 10+ years of government or regulated-technology experience, strong executive relationships, procurement expertise, and an Australian Government security clearance.
About the job
Responsibilities
- Own a focused portfolio of Australian and New Zealand public-sector accounts and selected priority opportunities across APAC.
- Build and execute account plans covering mission priorities, stakeholders, procurement paths, partners, use cases, risks, and expansion opportunities.
- Drive complex opportunities through the full sales cycle, including pipeline generation, discovery, qualification, capture, commercial strategy, negotiation, closure, adoption, and expansion.
- Lead customers through responsible AI adoption, connecting mission outcomes to OpenAI Platform API, Codex, and ChatGPT Enterprise capabilities and limitations.
- Serve as accountable customer lead, coordinating technical specialists around outcomes, milestones, adoption, risks, and commercial commitments.
- Develop capture strategies, competitive positioning, win themes, teaming decisions, and proposal narratives.
- Navigate public-sector procurement, tendering, security, data residency, compliance, and sovereignty requirements.
- Build relationships with government executives, operational users, technical stakeholders, partners, system integrators, cloud providers, resellers, and delivery organizations.
- Maintain pipeline, forecasting, account records, customer follow-up, and executive reporting.
- Monitor government, technology, procurement, partner, and competitive landscapes across ANZ and APAC.
- Represent OpenAI at government, partner, and industry forums.
- Travel regularly within ANZ and periodically across APAC.
Requirements
- 10+ years of experience in government, public-sector technology sales, business development, consulting, transformation, systems integration, or a related field.
- Direct government experience or significant experience working with government customers, preferably in sensitive, national-security-adjacent, regulated, or high-consequence environments.
- Current Australian Government security clearance and ability to maintain the clearance required for the role.
- Experience designing and executing complex deal strategies, including pre-procurement opportunity shaping, multi-stakeholder qualification, proposals, negotiations, and closure.
- Experience working with senior public-sector executives and technical, operational, procurement, policy, and security stakeholders.
- Knowledge of Australian public-sector procurement, contracting, security, privacy, data residency, and compliance requirements.
- Experience selling or delivering enterprise SaaS, cloud, AI/ML, data platforms, cybersecurity, API-based products, or other complex technology solutions in regulated environments.
- Ability to explain technical, commercial, and strategic concepts to executive and working-level audiences.
- Strong cross-functional collaboration, ownership, judgment, and ability to manage ambiguity across countries and time zones.
Nice to have
- Relationships across Australian Commonwealth, state and territory, defence, national security, or other sensitive public-sector communities.
- Experience with local system integrators, resellers, cloud providers, or strategic-partner ecosystems.
- Experience leading AI, digital, technology, or business-transformation initiatives from use-case definition through deployment and adoption.
- Familiarity with public-sector AI governance, responsible AI, cybersecurity, data sovereignty, and assurance requirements.
- Experience developing opportunities across multiple APAC markets.
- Engineering, technical, policy, or operational experience translating complex AI capabilities into public-sector outcomes.
Skills
Public-Sector Sales, Account Planning, Deal Strategy, Government Procurement, Enterprise Saas, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Platforms, Cybersecurity, APIs, Data Residency, Responsible Ai, Security Clearance, Partner Ecosystems
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