Account Director
First Street Foundation
Sales & Business Development
New York, NY, USA
Posted on Jul 4, 2024
Who we are: First Street is the industry standard for physical climate risk data. We use transparent and peer-reviewed methodologies to calculate the past, present, and future climate risk for every property in the world. We started eight years ago by working with the world’s leading climate scientists to create groundbreaking, climate-adjusted, property specific models and haven’t stopped.
Our mission: We exist to connect climate change to financial risk
Our data: We create physics-based, deterministic models of flooding, wildfire and hurricanes, and advanced statistical models of extreme heat, air quality, drought, hail, severe convective storms, winter storms, and more. All of this data is used to create property-level financial risk metrics and macroeconomic variables to quantify the impacts of climate change.
Our customers: We empower governments at the highest levels to make smart regulations, businesses to avoid bad investments, and everyday Americans to understand their personal risk from climate change. We are relied on every day by:
Come join us and use your talents to create solutions to address humanity's biggest problem.
Team & Role Overview:
This Account Director role presents the opportunity to join First Street as a founding member of the sales team. You will build on the considerable success of existing founder-led sales, by establishing and executing on enterprise sales efforts at First Street. As a Director you will take ownership of enterprise clients. We are building a small initial sales team that will focus on industry verticals where First Street has an established reference customers. Future growth will arise in pursuing additional industry sectors.
As a founding Account Executive, you will report directly to the Head of Sales, and will collaborate with colleagues across business development, product, climate science and data, as you successfully grow sales efforts and revenue across targeted accounts. As a Director, there is ample opportunity to grow into people management if desired.
What you’ll do:
Our mission: We exist to connect climate change to financial risk
Our data: We create physics-based, deterministic models of flooding, wildfire and hurricanes, and advanced statistical models of extreme heat, air quality, drought, hail, severe convective storms, winter storms, and more. All of this data is used to create property-level financial risk metrics and macroeconomic variables to quantify the impacts of climate change.
Our customers: We empower governments at the highest levels to make smart regulations, businesses to avoid bad investments, and everyday Americans to understand their personal risk from climate change. We are relied on every day by:
- Agencies ranging from the U.S. Department of Treasury to Fannie Mae
- The world's biggest banks such as Bank of America and Wells Fargo
- Institutional investors like Nuveen and Blackstone
- Millions of users on Redfin, Realtor.com, Homes.com, and more
Come join us and use your talents to create solutions to address humanity's biggest problem.
Team & Role Overview:
This Account Director role presents the opportunity to join First Street as a founding member of the sales team. You will build on the considerable success of existing founder-led sales, by establishing and executing on enterprise sales efforts at First Street. As a Director you will take ownership of enterprise clients. We are building a small initial sales team that will focus on industry verticals where First Street has an established reference customers. Future growth will arise in pursuing additional industry sectors.
As a founding Account Executive, you will report directly to the Head of Sales, and will collaborate with colleagues across business development, product, climate science and data, as you successfully grow sales efforts and revenue across targeted accounts. As a Director, there is ample opportunity to grow into people management if desired.
What you’ll do:
- Own large, brand name enterprise accounts
- Manage all aspects of the sales process including lead identification and management, qualification, structured progression through sales stages, deal negotiation and closing
- Build and maintain strong relationships with key decision makers and stakeholders at prospects, with functions including enterprise risk, credit, data analytics / quantitative modeling, climate risk / sustainability, finance / accounting
- Collaborate with internal subject matter experts to identify value and deliver tailored demos and proposals that address business needs / pain points for prospects
- Understand prospects’ challenges and needs, and effectively translate knowledge of First Street product into customer benefits
- Conduct meetings, product demos, presentations and negotiation with prospects
- Build and manage a robust sales pipeline, including tracking and reporting
- Consistently exceed sales quota targets. This is a quota-carrying sales position with a strong focus on new logo acquisition
- As required, travel to meet with prospects in support of sales efforts
- Experience in enterprise sales and/or business development
- Track record of selling data / SaaS / software to financial institutions (specifically banks, investment managers, or insurers) or to the real estate sector (REITs, investment managers, or non-bank lenders)
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with ability to build relationships and influence key decision makers at all levels
- Strong presentation skills with the ability to communicate complex technical solutions to non-technical stakeholders
- Curiosity and willingness to learn about First Street’s product, and a passion for [climate risk]
- A hunter mentality with strong work ethic, and a drive to succeed in a fast-paced, high-energy environment
- Track record of meeting and exceeding sales revenue targets
- Proven capability to execute go-to-market strategy within target industry verticals
- Demonstrated ability to generate new leads through a variety of sources
- Education minimum requirement - Bachelor’s degree in a relevant discipline
- Experience in selling climate solutions to enterprise customers
- An analytical mindset - given our science-based, analytical approach to climate risk
- A passion for making a difference - through spreading the use climate risk data to empower decision making
- Passion: We are driven by our shared goal to fight climate change
- Impact: We only focus on things that move the needle
- Urgency: We move quickly because the world depends on it
- Positivity: We are optimistic and enthusiastic in all that we do
- Competitive salary commensurate with experience
- Ownership interest in the company via Employee Stock Option Plan
- Hybrid Schedule with in-office work days on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday
- 15 vacation days along with 13 company holidays and 10 sick days
- Health benefits covered at 100% for employee or a significant contribution for family plans
- Vision and dental benefits with partial employee contribution
- 12 weeks of paid parental leave
- Access to One Medical, Teledoc, HealthAdvocate, Kindbody, and Talkspace
- Company 401k program
- Commuter benefits
- Life Insurance
- Tech startup environment
- Weekly team meals and an office stocked with coffee and snacks
- Working on the world’s biggest issue with other passionate professionals