Head of GTM (USA)

Valis; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

Valis in San Francisco is seeking an experienced sales leader to own the commercial function for its US go-to-market. You will source, qualify and close enterprise deals through your personal network of founders and CEOs in the Bay Area and beyond.

In Year 1 you will personally close deals and build a scalable playbook, recruiting and developing Client Deployment Leads as the portfolio grows, while maintaining CEO-level relationships across clients.

Qualifications

• Fifteen+ years in commercial roles, with evidence of revenue responsibility.
• Track record of building revenue from zero as the person accountable for the number.
• Experience closing enterprise transformation deals with multi-month cycles and C-suite buyers.
• Proven ability to network and generate pipelines from warm relationships, not inbound.
• Leadership at Associate Partner/Partner level in top-tier strategy firm or VP level in SaaS/professional services.
• Hands-on capability to design commercial architecture and go-to-market strategy.
• Familiarity with AI/enterprise technology is a strong advantage.

Responsibilities

• Source, qualify and close enterprise deals through your personal network of founders and CEOs in the Bay Area and beyond.
• Own the CEO-level commercial relationship across the growing client portfolio, through renewal and expansion.
• Build the operator force: recruit, onboard and develop Client Deployment Leads across target markets in the US.
• Define and run the go-to-market playbook: network-driven, reference-compounding, no-marketing model.
• Codify the motion (objections, working pitches, pricing, use cases that landed) so it repeats without you in every room.
• Partner with the founding team on commercial strategy, pricing and market positioning.

Skills

Enterprise sales

C-suite selling

Network building

Strategic deals

Individual contributor

Education

Senior-level consulting partner/Associate Partner

Job description

About us

We are Valis - a company building an institutional AI operating layer for mid-market companies: shared company memory, workflow mining and agentic automation.

Why this role exists

We are building VALIS’s go-to-market strategy in the US, and are searching for the person accountable for the number. In Year 1 you sell yourself: you source, qualify and close enterprise deals through your own network in the Bay Area and beyond. There is no marketing engine and no inbound behind you. Every client starts with a relationship you bring, and every client who stays becomes the reference that opens the next door. That is the model: network-driven and reference-compounding.

As the portfolio grows, the role grows with it. You recruit and lead the Client Deployment Leads who land each transformation on the ground in the US. You hold the CEO-level relationship across the client base. And you turn what works into a playbook that no longer depends on any single person’s head.

What you sell is a change in how a company operates. Deals run for months, and the buyer sits in the C-suite: CEO, CFO, COO. The sale runs on insight and trust, not on feature comparisons. You work directly with the founding team on commercial strategy, pricing and positioning. You design the commercial architecture rather than execute one someone else wrote.

What you will do

• Source, qualify and close enterprise deals through your personal network of founders and CEOs in the Bay Area and beyond. In Year 1 you close them yourself.
• Own the CEO-level commercial relationship across the growing client portfolio, through renewal and expansion.
• Build the operator force: recruit, onboard and develop Client Deployment Leads across target markets in the US.
• Define and run the go-to-market playbook: network-driven, reference-compounding, no-marketing model.
• Codify the motion (objections, working pitches, pricing, use cases that landed) so it repeats without you in every room.
• Partner with the founding team on commercial strategy, pricing and market positioning.

Who we need to see

Most candidates are fifteen or more years into a commercial career. We read evidence over year counts, and each point below gets tested in the hiring process.

• Based in San Francisco or Palo Alto. Your Bay Area founder and CEO network is your primary asset in this role.
• A personal track record of building revenue from zero — not as part of a team, as the person accountable for the number.
• Comfortable closing enterprise transformation deals with a multi-month cycle and a C-suite buyer (CEO, CFO, COO).
• Have done network-driven, reference-based sales before — you know how to build a pipeline from warm relationships, not from marketing or inbound.
• Operated at Associate Partner or Partner level at a top-tier strategy firm, or equivalent VP-level leadership at a transformation-heavy SaaS or professional services company.
• Comfortable operating as an individual contributor in Year 1 before scaling a team — you close deals yourself first.
• A genuine builder's instinct: you design the commercial architecture, not just execute against a playbook someone else wrote.
• Hands-on familiarity with AI / enterprise technology is a strong advantage (in particular technical literacy to direct an AI / data build)

• Compensation: A highly competitive base for the SF market, calibrated to seniority — plus a substantial performance bonus tied directly to commercial outcomes.
• Authority: You own the commercial function. You design the go-to-market, you hire the team, you set the strategy. This is not a VP of Sales inside a corporate structure — it's a co-architect of a new business.
• Trajectory: If Year 1 lands, you build and lead the global commercial organisation. The company scales around your results.