Strategic Account Director PSU/Government

Are you ready to unlock intelligence

If you dont think you meet all of the criteria below but are still interested in the job, please apply. Nobody checks every box - were looking for candidates that are particularly strong in a few areas, and have some interest and capabilities in others.

About The Role

Kong is the AI Connectivity Company. We build the infrastructure that lets enterprises govern APIs and AI traffic at scale — and that infrastructure is becoming critical to how Indias government and public sector modernize their systems.

Were hiring an Account Executive to own a defined patch of PSU (Public Sector Undertaking) and Government accounts across India. Youll work the full government buying cycle — tenders, GeM listings, System Integrator relationships, empanelment — to bring Kongs platform into major public-sector modernization programs.

This role is based in Delhi and reports to a Country Manager.

What Youll Do

• Own the sales cycle, government-style. Lead deals from first conversation through RFP response, technical and financial bid submission, and contract award. Track PQ (pre-qualification) criteria, EMD requirements, and L1 bidding dynamics. Keep your pipeline accurate to whats actually documented in the tender process — not what looks good in a forecast.
• Work the ecosystem, not just the account. Government and PSU deals rarely close direct. Build real relationships with the System Integrators (SIs) and OEM partners who carry the technical bid, and make sure Kong is positioned — and empanelled — before the tender drops.
• Navigate multiple stakeholders. IT Secretaries, CTOs and CIOs at PSUs, nodal officers, procurement and finance committees — each has different priorities and a different definition of done. Map them accurately and plan around all of them.
• Build account plans for your patch. Identify which departments and PSUs are actively modernizing, where their budget cycles sit, and what a realistic path to close looks like. Then execute against it.
• Get fluent in the platform and the landscape. Know Kongs API and AI governance platform well enough to defend it in a technical bid, and know where competitors are already empanelled.
• Meet your number. Consistently hit quota. Government cycles are long — consistency across quarters matters more than any single deal.
• Bring in the rest of Kong early. Loop in sales engineering, legal, and the channel team before compliance and certification requirements (STQC, data residency, MeitY empanelment) become a bottleneck late in the deal.
• Travel. Expect real time in government offices and PSU sites across India. This is a relationship business, and relationships in this sector are built in person.

What Youll Bring

• 8-12 years in B2B SaaS or enterprise technology sales, with direct experience selling into Indian government departments or PSUs. This isnt optional — the public-sector buying process is different enough that generalist enterprise experience alone wont carry you.
• A track record of consistently hitting quota (typically in the ₹2–5 Cr / $300K–$750K range) sold through longer, multi-stakeholder government cycles.
• Working knowledge of Indias government tendering lifecycle — GeM, RFP/RFI processes, technical and financial bids, PQ criteria, EMD — and how empanelment with bodies like MeitY or NIC actually works in practice.
• Established relationships with System Integrators and OEM partners active in Indias public-sector technology space.
• Process discipline and patience. Government deals move on their own timeline. You bring structure to that timeline — you dont try to force it.
• Executive presence with senior government officials and PSU leadership, along with the judgment to know when to push and when to wait.
• Ownership with collaboration. You run your patch, but you know when to pull in your manager, sales engineering, or a partner. In the public sector, this isnt a solo sport.

Kong Inc., a leading developer of API and AI connectivity technologies, is building the infrastructure that powers the agentic era. Trusted by the Fortune 500 and startups alike, Kongs unified API and AI platform, Kong Konnect, enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI models. For more information, visit www.konghq.com.