Vertical Account Executive — News at GK Media Group | Lens
WHAT YOU'LL OWN
You are the first sales hire for the news vertical. Your accounts:
Top 50 US newsrooms — national dailies, large metros, public-radio newsrooms, digital-native publishers
Wire services and aggregators where IQS labels can be embedded at distribution
Newsroom-adjacent ops surfaces (CMS vendors, content-management partners) where the API is the wedge
Average contract value in news, per the GTM model: $24K small / $75K enterprise. You will close 6 institutional pilots in your first 12 months and convert at least 2 to paid contracts.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Build, qualify, and close a pipeline of news-org buyers (executive editors, standards editors, CTOs, head of platform)
Own the full sales cycle from first contact to signed contract; demo, scope, negotiate, close
Co-design the technical integration with our Engineering Lead and the customer's platform team
Translate journalist concerns (editorial independence, prior-restraint anxiety, bias accusations) into product-anchored answers our standards work already addresses
Feed every objection, integration question, and pricing pushback back into the GTM record for the next rep we hire
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
5+ years selling into newsrooms, publisher tech, or news-adjacent SaaS. A current Rolodex of editors and CTOs you can dial today is the non-negotiable.
Track record of closing six- and low-seven-figure annual contracts with editorial-quality buyers
Comfort selling a category that doesn't yet exist; you will create demand, not capture it
Ability to walk a standards editor through the IQS methodology without flinching at the technical detail
A 30/60/90-day pipeline plan you can sketch in the second interview without notes