--- title: 'Senior Team Lead, Account Development Representatives (Nordics & Benelux) at Kong' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-team-lead-account-development-representatives-nordics-benelux-kong-mk3587xzsnf5' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-11-06' --- # Senior Team Lead, Account Development Representatives (Nordics & Benelux) at Kong - **Company:** [Kong](https://feeny.ai/companies/kong) - **Location:** England, United Kingdom - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-11-04 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-06 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kong/a0cb6cab-90a3-41b3-b2d5-fbbf87ce7bfb ## Job description Are you ready to unlock intelligence? If you don’t think you meet all of the criteria below but are still interested in the job, please apply. Nobody checks every box - we’re looking for candidates that are particularly strong in a few areas, and have some interest and capabilities in others. About the Role: Kong is hiring an ADR Team Lead to support our Benelux, and Nordics regions. This is a player-coach role. You'll be taking an active hand in developing the team around you, especially the newer ADRs still finding their footing. You'll work closely with, and report into, the Senior Manager for NEMEA. You're shaping how the team operates, not running it solo. Think of this as a high-impact individual contributor role with a leadership layer built in: the natural next step for an ADR who's ready to start making other people better, not just themselves. Our NEMEA team is already strong. Driven, independent, hitting their numbers. What they need isn't more oversight. They need someone who sharpens how the team works, especially around process and tooling, while making sure newer reps get the support to ramp fast. You'll report to Oscar Winberg. He moves fast, sets a high bar, and expects people to bring solutions, not just flag problems. He's direct, so you'll always know exactly where you stand, and he expects that same directness back: if you disagree, he wants the pushback, backed by data, not silence. Earn his trust and he'll hand you real ownership. What he won't do is hand-hold, so this role suits someone who'd rather be given room to run than told exactly what to do. What You'll Do: Support newer ADRs. You'll be the first point of contact for less tenured reps, helping them ramp faster and build good habits early. You'll help with onboarding alongside the Senior Manager and Enablement, and run regular 1:1s with newer ADRs. Different reps need different things from you, so you'll read where each person is and adjust your coaching accordingly rather than running the same playbook on everyone. You'll help build individual development plans grounded in a real read of each rep's attitude, process, and results, and you'll flag underperformance early, with context, instead of letting it fester. Coach and upskill the team. You'll support team coaching sessions: live dialling, pitch practice, feedback loops. You'll run or contribute to upskilling initiatives, on your own or with Enablement. You'll share what's working, best practices, sequences, outbound approaches, with the wider team, and give direct, specific feedback often, recognizing strong work and not letting bad habits slide. Sharpen process and tooling. You'll help spot where the team's workflows and tooling could run more efficiently, and support the Senior Manager in rolling out improvements without stripping reps of their autonomy. You'll be the go-to person for best practice on Salesforce, Outreach, and the team's automation tools. Contribute to the wider GTM motion. You'll keep strong alignment with your AE partners and take part in pipe review cadences. You'll support the Senior Manager in preparing performance updates and regional insights, and join bi-weekly RD cadences where it makes sense. What You'll Bring: - Hands-on ADR or SDR experience. You know what this job feels like from the inside, not just what it looks like from a deck. - A real coach's instinct. You get energy from making other people better, not just from hitting your own number. - The ability to juggle competing priorities without dropping the ball. Your own quota, coaching newer reps, and process work will all pull on your time in the same week, and you know how to decide what actually matters right now. - Strong time management. This is one we screen for directly, not something we assume comes with experience. - A bias for building. You spot what needs fixing and go build it, rather than working only through a list of tasks someone else handed you. - Analytical rigor. You make calls based on data, not gut feel, and you're comfortable being specific about why a number moved, including when that number is going the wrong way. - A track record of top-tier performance that holds up on both counts: the day-to-day discipline that drives it (activity, sequence execution, pipeline hygiene), and the results that discipline produces, quarter over quarter, not just once. - Real trust with your AE and RD partners, earned through consistency, not just alignment on paper. - Transparency, especially with leadership, especially when something isn't on track. We'd rather hear it early than find out later. - The kind of presence the team actually looks up to, not just reports to. - Comfort in an allbound model with a heavy outbound emphasis. - Self-awareness and a genuine investment in growing as a leader. - Language skills: English is a core requirements, with Dutch OR Swedish Culture and Value: The EMEA SDR team are weather makers. We don't wait for opportunity, we create it. We're accountable, relentless, and we invest in each other like no other team does. - Relentless. Energy and intention every day. Every challenge is a chance to get stronger. - Character. Good humans first. Integrity, humility, and keeping our word. - Together. No one gets left behind. Differences make us better, not harder to manage. - Truth. Radical honesty. We say the hard things with care. That's how we move fast. - Accountable. We own our results, bias toward action, and don't wait to be told. - Pioneering. We take up space, experiment, and bring creative thinking to every challenge. In NEMEA specifically, we operate in mature markets. We don't manufacture urgency, we earn entry by knowing the landscape better than the prospect does. We're pipeline gardeners: patient, precise, persistent. "We don't book meetings. We build pipeline." This role is a genuine development opportunity. For the right person, it's the foundation of a leadership career at Kong. ## #LI-TR1 About Kong: Kong Inc., the AI Connectivity Company, is building the connectivity layer of AI. Trusted by the Fortune 500® and AI-native startups alike, Kong’s unified API and AI platform enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI traffic — on any model, any cloud. For more information, visit [www.konghq.com](http://www.konghq.com). ## About Kong ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Kong provides a unified API and AI platform that connects, secures, and manages APIs, events, and AI agents for modern architectures. - **Entity Type**: Private – Series E, post‑money valuation $2B (2023) - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States - **Founded**: 2017 (company formalized; roots as Mashape go back to 2009) - **Founders**: Augusto “Aghi” Marietti (CEO) and Marco Palladino (CTO) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: API management, AI connectivity, cloud infrastructure - **Target customers**: B2B – enterprises, platform engineering teams, developers, and product managers building API‑driven or AI‑agent applications - **Mission / Purpose**: To be the AI connectivity company – enabling organizations to connect, govern, and monetize APIs, events, and AI workloads at scale. ## Products & Services - **[Kong Konnect](https://konghq.com/)**: Managed, unified API and AI platform covering the full lifecycle – design, test, publish, govern, monetize – across any cloud or environment. SaaS. - **[Kong Gateway](https://konghq.com/)**: Open‑source (and enterprise) API gateway, the world’s most adopted, used for traffic management, security, and observability. Open‑source hybrid. - **[Kong AI Gateway](https://konghq.com/)**: Extension for managing and securing AI traffic – token consumption, cost control, and agent governance. SaaS / add‑on. - **[Kong Mesh](https://konghq.com/)**: Enterprise service mesh for Kubernetes and VMs (based on Kuma, donated to CNCF). Infrastructure. - **[Insomnia](https://konghq.com/)**: API design and testing tool (acquired and integrated into the Kong ecosystem). Desktop / CLI. - **[OpenMeter](https://konghq.com/)**: Usage‑based billing, entitlements, and invoicing for APIs, events, and AI (acquired 2025). SaaS. ## Market Standing - **Valuation / Market Cap**: $2 billion (as of late 2023 Series E round) – not publicly traded. - **Key Metric**: Surpassed **$100M ARR** in late 2023; processes **+1 trillion API/AI requests per day**; **600+ employees** in 25+ countries (LinkedIn reports 738 employees with +23.5% YoY growth). - **Total Funding**: **$344.1M** across 6 rounds (including Series D $100M at $1.4B, and Series E $175M led by new investors). - **Notable Investors / Partners**: Include large institutional investors; partners include cloud providers and enterprises such as United Airlines (cited as customer). Open‑source community with 182K+ community users. ## Competitive Advantages - **Most adopted open‑source API gateway** – strong developer mindshare and large community. - **Unified platform** covering the entire API lifecycle plus AI agent management, reducing fragmentation for enterprises. - **High‑performance, low‑latency** – proven at hyper‑volume (+1T requests/day), 99.99% availability SLA. - **Strategic acquisitions** (Kuma, Insomnia, OpenMeter) that plug gaps in service mesh, developer tooling, and usage‑based billing. - **Strong enterprise DNA** – trusted by global brands for mission‑critical applications. ## Strategic Focus - **AI connectivity** – building the layer to manage LLM traffic, agent security, token cost, and real‑time data streams. - **Monetization** – enabling customers to monetize APIs and AI consumption (chargeback, entitlements, pricing). - **Developer productivity** – accelerating onboarding and reducing costs (claims 15% faster development, 57% operational cost reduction). - **Global scale** – growing remote workforce and entering new geographic markets (e.g., Italy, ANZ roles posted). ## Why Work Here - **Remote‑first culture** – 600+ employees across 25+ countries; strong emphasis on global collaboration. - **Perks & benefits** (from [careers page](https://konghq.com/company/careers)): - Stock options for most employees - 4‑week paid sabbatical every 5 years - Flexible time off - Home office stipend - Regular “unplug days” (company‑wide long weekends) - Virtual events (Donut chats, trivia, fitness challenges) - **Engineering culture** – values “owners, explorers, real, unstoppable” and encourages individual innovation. Focus on shipping fast and high trust. - **Growth trajectory** – company is scaling (+23.5% headcount YoY) and is a unicorn with clear product‑market fit in a hot market (AI + API management). - **Open roles** – 93 open positions across engineering, sales, solutions, customer success, and marketing. ## Sources 1. [konghq.com](https://konghq.com/) 2. [konghq.com/company/careers](https://konghq.com/company/careers) 3. [konghq.com/company/about-us](https://konghq.com/company/about-us) 4. [linkedin.com/company/konghq](https://www.linkedin.com/company/konghq) 5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/kong](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kong) ## Other roles at Kong - [Partner Sales Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/partner-sales-manager-kong-illinois-qs2tkmteyrby) — Illinois, United States - [Partner Sales Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/partner-sales-manager-kong-texas-dj4bp91n9s77) — Texas, United States - [Commercial Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/commercial-account-executive-kong-singapore-2hwrft68j9kj) — Singapore - [Commercial Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/commercial-account-executive-kong-australia-bfhqkn00krqb) — Australia - [Manager, Sales Development - Austin, TX](https://feeny.ai/job/manager-sales-development-austin-tx-kong-texas-m6gz0yvdjbyk) — Texas, United States - [Staff Solutions Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-solutions-engineer-kong-united-arab-emirates-cj1g6cnw7a64) — United Arab Emirates - [Staff Solutions Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-solutions-engineer-kong-england-qqqp6v9kseb4) — England, United Kingdom - [Staff Engagement Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-engagement-manager-kong-california-dmxmf22b4bxn) — California, United States - [Staff Solutions Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-solutions-engineer-kong-new-york-py5qhd870rw9) — New York, NY - [Senior Director, GTM People Business Partner](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-director-gtm-people-business-partner-kong-california-x9qt14cjx3xg) — California, United States