---
title: 'Founding Account Executive at Zania'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/founding-account-executive-zania-palo-alto-tpa1c47yx77n'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-15'
---

# Founding Account Executive at Zania

- **Company:** Zania
- **Location:** Palo Alto, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-02-26
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-15
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/zania/a6e40adf-d005-40cf-8f49-06561f7c50f4

## Job description

Founding Account Executive

Why Zania Every enterprise spends millions of dollars on Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC). It's one of the most critical, yet universally painful, parts of running a business. For decades, this industry has been dominated by legacy systems with notoriously low NPS scores, making it totally ripe for disruption.

Zania is building agentic AI for Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) to solve this massive problem. We are on a rocketship trajectory, creating intelligent agents that automate and augment the most complex risk and compliance workflows. We have found exceptional product-market fit and are scaling our team very quickly. Some reasons to join Zania are:

- Dream Customers: Our customers are the most notable enterprises in the world, including FAANG, Big 4 firms and a portfolio of top customers.
- Tier 1 Backing: Funded by a leading Tier 1 venture capital fund, giving us the resources to build a generational company.
- World-Class Team: Zania is hiring the best. Our team includes AI and Security leaders from Airbnb, Microsoft, Bain & Company, Deloitte, PwC, Brex, and Instacart.
- Pioneering Technology: Our engineers and GRC experts work at the absolute forefront of applied AI, building the next generation of agentic systems that will define the future of compliance.
- Hyper-Growth: We have seen 10x ARR growth in the last year and are rapidly expanding.
- Competitive Compensation & Equity.

Role Overview As our Founding Account Executive, you will be the driving force behind our early revenue engine. You will work directly with the founders to transition from founder-led sales to a scalable Go-To-Market motion. This is a true 0-to-1 role: you won't be handed a neatly packaged pipeline. You will be responsible for full-cycle sales—from hunting and generating your own leads to navigating complex enterprise procurement processes and closing six-figure deals. If you are a builder who thrives on the thrill of the hunt and wants to shape the sales playbook of an AI rocketship, this is for you.

## What You'll Do

- Drive Full-Cycle Sales: Own the entire sales process from outbound prospecting and lead generation to discovery, demo, negotiation, and closing.
- Generate Your Own Pipeline: Act as your own SDR by researching target accounts, executing outbound campaigns, and building a robust pipeline of enterprise prospects.
- Define the Playbook: Partner with the founders to refine our ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), test different messaging, and build the foundational sales playbook for future hires.
- Navigate Complex Deals: Manage multi-stakeholder enterprise deals involving GRC leaders, CISOs, and IT procurement teams.
- Voice of the Customer: Act as a critical feedback loop to our Product and Engineering teams, translating customer pain points into actionable product insights.

## What You Have

- Experience: 5+ years of B2B SaaS sales experience, with a proven track record of closing complex, six-figure enterprise deals.
- Hunter Mentality: Demonstrated success in generating your own leads and building pipeline from scratch without relying heavily on inbound marketing.
- Domain Knowledge: Previous experience selling into Security, Compliance, Risk, or AI domains is a massive plus.
- Startup DNA: Comfortable operating in a highly ambiguous, fast-paced Series A environment where you must build the parachute on the way down.
- Location: Based in (or willing to relocate to) Palo Alto, working in-person with the team five days a week.

## Minimum Qualifications

- Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
- 5+ years of B2B SaaS sales experience, with a demonstrated track record of closing six-figure enterprise deals end-to-end
- Proven ability to independently generate pipeline through outbound prospecting — not solely reliant on inbound leads
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills — you will navigate multi-stakeholder enterprise deals with GRC leaders, CISOs, and IT procurement teams and must articulate complex AI concepts with credibility

## Compensation And Benefits

- Flexible PTO policy.
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance
- Meals and snacks in the office
- Relocation and immigration support

Zania is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related condition, or any other basis protected by law.

## About Zania

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Zania provides an autonomous AI agent platform that executes Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) work, including controls testing, risk assessments, audits, and security questionnaires.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series A)
- **Headquarters**: Palo Alto, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2023
- **Founders**: Shruti Gupta

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: AI-powered Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) / Cybersecurity
- **Target customers**: B2B, Enterprise (Fortune 500, Big Four audit & advisory firms, CISOs, Heads of GRC, TPRM leaders)
- **Mission or purpose statement**: To automate and execute complex GRC work with provable accuracy, replacing manual processes with autonomous AI agents.

## Products & Services
- **Autonomous Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM)**: AI agents that handle vendor risk tiering, evidence collection, validation, follow-ups, and continuous monitoring end-to-end.
- **First-Party Risk**: AI-driven qualitative and quantitative risk evaluations based on a company's unique systems, controls, and data.
- **Continuous Compliance**: Agents that continuously collect evidence, identify gaps against any framework (SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, NIST CSF, GDPR, etc.), and assist with remediation.
- **Controls Testing**: Autonomous testing of 100% of controls for both design and operating effectiveness, with actionable recommendations.
- **Security Questionnaires**: AI that leverages a company's security context to answer incoming vendor questionnaires with precision in minutes.
- **Self-Governing Policies**: Policies that update themselves to stay in sync with a company's compliance and tech stack.
- **Agent-Driven Risk Intelligence**: Continuous monitoring of vendors using data from integrations, incidents, supply chain, threat intel, breach history, and company profiles.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding of $18.0M (Series A, led by NEA, announced October 2025)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: NEA (lead), Menlo Ventures, Anthropic, Palm Drive Capital, AWS ISV Accelerate Program. Advisors include Mike Curtis (Ex-Head of Eng, Airbnb), Anand Deshpande (Founder & Chairman, Persistent Systems), and George Kurtz (Founder & CEO, Crowdstrike).
- **Growth Signals**: Trusted by Fortune 500 companies and Big Four audit & advisory firms. Launched "Autonomous TPRM" in February 2026. Headcount grew 17.6% YoY. Active job postings grew 125% YoY. LinkedIn follower count grew 85.7% yearly.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Purpose-built AI agents** for GRC, not a general-purpose LLM wrapper — trained on domain-specific GRC workflows.
- **Provable accuracy and explainability**: Features like confidence scores, visible reasoning, source references, and deep research make outputs audit-ready.
- **Enterprise-grade security**: SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, private models with no training on customer data, and a reported hallucination rate of <0.01%.
- **End-to-end workflow automation**: Agents handle the entire GRC process from evidence collection to remediation, not just individual tasks.
- **Founder-led domain expertise**: CEO Shruti Gupta previously led AI at Microsoft and held founding security/CISO roles at Airbnb, Instacart, and Brex.

## Strategic Focus
- **Autonomous execution**: Shifting GRC from human-led processes with AI assistance to agent-led execution with human oversight.
- **Expanding TPRM capabilities**: Launched "Autonomous TPRM" in February 2026 to fully automate vendor risk management.
- **Continuous compliance**: Moving from point-in-time audits to 24/7 continuous monitoring and evidence collection.
- **Enterprise scale**: Targeting deeper penetration into Fortune 500 and Big Four firms.

## Why Work Here
- **Rocketship growth**: Early-stage, well-funded startup ($18M Series A) with strong investor backing from top-tier VCs (NEA, Menlo Ventures) and strategic partners (Anthropic).
- **Compelling mission**: Opportunity to build the future of AI-driven GRC, a massive market with high demand.
- **Compensation**: Top-of-market pay with meaningful equity ownership.
- **Perks**: Flexible PTO, free catered meals and snacks, relocation and immigration support.
- **Work environment**: In-office presence in Palo Alto, CA, with a presence in India. The team is small (~11 employees) and technical (25% of staff in technical roles).
- **Leadership**: Founded by Shruti Gupta, a former AI leader at Microsoft and founding security/CISO at Airbnb, Instacart, and Brex. Backed by world-class advisors from Crowdstrike, Airbnb, and Persistent Systems.
- **Growth trajectory**: Rapidly growing with 9 active job postings, 125% YoY increase in job postings, and strong revenue growth signals.

## Sources
1. [zania.ai](https://zania.ai/)
2. [zania.ai/careers](https://zania.ai/careers)
3. [zania.ai/about-us](https://zania.ai/about-us)
4. [linkedin.com/company/zaniaai](https://www.linkedin.com/company/zaniaai)
5. [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/zania)

## Other roles at Zania

- [Founding Enterprise SDR](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-enterprise-sdr-zania-palo-alto-avagb6jpshwp) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Graphics Designer | Framer & Video Editing](https://feeny.ai/job/graphics-designer-framer-video-editing-zania-india-arcz8dsand5b) — India
- [Eng Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/eng-manager-zania-palo-alto-8n4xxwd00hej) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Growth & Demand Generation](https://feeny.ai/job/growth-demand-generation-zania-palo-alto-rmnzg5wgajdv) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-zania-palo-alto-exkya0ggm5jz) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Head of Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-engineering-zania-palo-alto-bpt37pjsyjye) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Ex Founder](https://feeny.ai/job/ex-founder-zania-palo-alto-0y2683te77vr) — Palo Alto, CA
- [GRC Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/grc-engineer-zania-palo-alto-r7cjfd25ady5) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Applied AI Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/applied-ai-engineer-zania-palo-alto-h5ctw8143rhh) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Founding Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-account-executive-salesjack-united-states-z552p4mm46jh) — United States