Director, Frontier AI Sales, AWS Startups

Director, Frontier AI Sales, AWS Startups Join to apply for the Director, Frontier AI Sales, AWS Startups role at Amazon Web Services (AWS) Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a complete set of cloud services that enable all companies, from startups to enterprises, to run virtually everything in the cloud. The Frontier startup segment represents one of the most strategically important and rapidly growing areas of AWS, with customers driving the future of AI and becoming tomorrow's enterprise leaders. As AWS continues to lead in the GenAI and Agentic space, we seek a Director of Frontier Sales to own, operate, and define strategy for the global AI startup business. This role is the singlethreaded leader (STL) for substantial revenue driven by AI/ML, GenAI, and Agentic startup customers worldwide, with ambitious multiyear growth targets. Role Overview You will be responsible for setting the vision, strategic direction, plan, and goals to win the best AI startups globally. This includes direct responsibility for NAMER GenAI sales teams and support for all global GenAI teams across EMEA, APAC, and LATAM within the Startups organization. You will lead a large, matrixed global organization spanning Sales, Solution Architects, Business Development, and GoToMarket functions across multiple countries and locations. Unlike traditional sales leadership roles, this position requires singlethreaded ownership of an entire market segment with substantial revenue responsibility, direct influence on AWS product strategy through customer feedback, and engagement at the highest levels of AWS and Amazon. Proficiency in managing direct and matrixed global resources and expertise in emerging AI technologies with the ability to engage technical founders are required. Key Job Responsibilities Drive significant annual revenue with strong YoY growth for the Startup segment. Own relationships with toptier AI startups building frontier AI technologies across foundation models, agentic AI, and vertical AI applications. Execute complex, highvalue opportunities with sophisticated AI startups, navigating technical, commercial, competitive, and partnership elements simultaneously. Meet AWSwide AI revenue targets while building a pipeline of future Enterprise customers. Navigate highly competitive environments to secure adoption of emerging startups. Ecosystem & Executive Engagement Cultivate and maintain strategic relationships with toptier venture capital firms and leading accelerators. Engage directly with AWS executive leadership and customer Csuite executives. Serve as the voice of AI startup customers to AWS service teams, influencing product roadmaps and gotomarket strategies. Global Organization Leadership Lead and develop a globally distributed team across NAMER, EMEA, APAC, and LATAM. Manage workforce planning and resource allocation globally across multiple countries and locations. Build and scale highperforming teams spanning multiple job families and functions. Establish consistent performance metrics and development paths across diverse technical and sales skillsets. Coordinate with AWS Partner Organization (APO) on cosell, sellwith, and sellto approaches. Own feedback loops to service teams on customer requirements for frontier AI workloads. Complexity Factors Market Segment Ambiguity: Operating without structured playbooks, continually encountering new technologies and business models. Technical Depth: Deep expertise in frontier AI, foundation models, training infrastructure, and inference workloads. Speed & Precision: Competing at the highest levels for top AI startups. Global Coordination: Managing distributed teams across multiple geographies, cultures, and time zones. Stakeholder Complexity: Coordinating across internal leadership teams, external partners, and investors. Basic Qualifications 15+ years of technologyrelated sales or business development experience. 8+ years of sales leadership experience managing leaders of leaders. Proven track record building and scaling successful global sales organizations. Deep expertise in the AI/ML and GenAI startup ecosystem, including understanding of foundation models, training infrastructure, and inference workloads. Experience structuring and closing complex, multiyear deals. Demonstrated ability to engage and influence Csuite executives and board members. Strong relationships with toptier venture capital firms and startup accelerators. Experience managing matrixed, globally distributed teams across multiple job families. Exceptional strategic thinking and ability to operate in highly ambiguous, fastmoving environments. Outstanding verbal and written communication skills with ability to engage technical and business audiences. BA/BS degree required. Preferred Qualifications MBA/MA/MS degree in relevant field. Previous experience at a leading technology company with cloud expertise. Technical background in engineering, computer science, or AI/ML. History of working for or selling to tech startups, particularly in the AI/ML space. Experience with AWS services, particularly SageMaker, Bedrock, EC2, and GPU infrastructure. Proven ability to influence product roadmaps and drive crossfunctional initiatives. Experience managing substantial P&L responsibility. Established relationships with Tier 1 venture capital firms. Understanding of GenAI technology stack, including transformers, diffusion models, and agentic AI. Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status. Compensation for this position ranges from $224,400 per year in the lowest geographic market up to $333,900 per year in the highest geographic market. Pay is based on a number of factors including market location and may vary depending on jobrelated knowledge, skills, and experience. #J-18808-Ljbffr