---
title: 'Strategic Account Director – PSU/Government at Kong'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/strategic-account-director-psu-government-kong-delhi-p8rer2gf3ha9'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-11'
---

# Strategic Account Director – PSU/Government at Kong

- **Company:** [Kong](https://feeny.ai/companies/kong)
- **Location:** Delhi, India
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-09-03
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-11
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kong/b435e044-45ab-4395-a681-24131c63ca0e/application

**Skills:** B2B SaaS sales, Enterprise sales, Sales forecasting, Account planning, Pipeline management, Contract negotiation

> Kong is seeking a Senior Strategic Account Executive to drive revenue growth and expansion in India. The role involves managing key strategic accounts, leading end-to-end sales cycles, and partnering with C-suite executives to solve security challenges.

## 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 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 India's government and public sector modernize their systems. We're hiring an Account Executive to own a defined patch of PSU (Public Sector Undertaking) and Government accounts across India. You'll work the full government buying cycle — tenders, GeM listings, System Integrator relationships, empanelment — to bring Kong's platform into major public-sector modernization programs.

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

What You'll 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 what's 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 Kong's 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 You'll Bring:

- 8-12 years in B2B SaaS or enterprise technology sales, with direct experience selling into Indian government departments or PSUs. This isn't optional — the public-sector buying process is different enough that generalist enterprise experience alone won't 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 India's 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 India's public-sector technology space.
- Process discipline and patience. Government deals move on their own timeline. You bring structure to that timeline — you don't 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 isn't a solo sport.

## #LI-SP1

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)

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