Founding Account Executive

a16z-speedrun; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Full medical insurance

Relocation support

In-person team in San Francisco

Pioneering category sales

Job summary

Bead AI in San Francisco is seeking a full-cycle sales leader to own the entire sales process from prospecting to close, targeting Internal Audit, SOX leaders, and GRC stakeholders.

As the first AE in a founder-led sales motion, you'll build the pipeline without SDRs, craft business cases around time savings and risk reduction, and help scale the go-to-market with AI-enabled research and outbound.

Qualifications

• Must be a full-cycle seller with ability to build pipeline without SDRs or inbound.
• Fluent in SOX, internal audit, GRC, controls, risk, or compliance.
• Comfortable selling to conservative G&A buyers where trust and timing matter.

Responsibilities

• Own the full sales cycle from prospecting to close.
• Generate pipeline via outbound, referrals, events, and research.
• Sell to Internal Audit and SOX leaders with sharp discovery and business cases.
• Navigate complex buying across Audit, Finance, IT, Security, Procurement, and Legal.
• Scope pilots with success criteria and conversion paths.

Skills

Full-cycle selling

Pipeline building

AI-enabled selling

SOX/audit domain

Job description

Bead AI is building the trust layer for enterprise. An agentic AI that handles audit and compliance in real time, so companies stop discovering problems months after they happen. We have very strong early traction, we're deployed at some of the largest companies in the world, from Fortune 500s to Mag-7, and are starting to scale.

What you'll do

• Own the full sales cycle: prospecting to close

• Generate most of your own pipeline: outbound, referrals, events, and account research

• Sell to Internal Audit and SOX leaders (VPs, CAEs, Heads of SOX, SOX Managers) with sharp discovery, demos, and business cases tied to time savings, audit quality, and risk reduction

• Navigate complex buying across Audit, Finance, IT, Security, Procurement, and Legal

• Scope pilots - success criteria and conversion path - before they start

• Help write the sales playbook for future AEs

This is a founding role: you'll help turn founder-led sales into a repeatable engine.

You are

• A full-cycle seller today who can build a pipeline without SDRs or inbound

• Fluent in SOX, internal audit, GRC, controls, risk, or compliance

• Comfortable selling to conservative G&A buyers where trust and timing matter

• Competitive, high-agency, low-ego, and willing to do the unglamorous work

• AI-native: you use AI daily for research, prep, outbound, and follow-up

This is a great fit if you

• Worked in audit, SOX, Big 4, risk advisory, IT audit, or public accounting

• Built pipeline from scratch as a BDR/SDR

• Have closed net-new, ideally selling audit, SOX, GRC, or compliance software

• Want the ownership and upside of being the first AE

This won’t be the right role if you

• Don't have real SOX, audit, GRC, risk, or compliance experience

• Are breaking into sales for the first time

• Need SDRs or inbound to fill your pipeline

• Prefer managing accounts over hunting net-new

• Want a polished playbook and mature enablement

• Aren't already using AI daily

What we offer

• OTE: competitive, meaningful equity

• Full medical insurance, relocation support

• In-person team in San Francisco, working directly with the founding team

• A real shot at defining how an entire category gets sold