Head of AI Startups

Who we are

About Stripe

Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. Millions of companies - from the world’s largest enterprises to the most ambitious startups - use Stripe to accept payments, grow their revenue, and accelerate new business opportunities. Our mission is to increase the GDP of the internet, and we have a staggering amount of work ahead. That means you have an unprecedented opportunity to put the global economy within everyone's reach while doing the most important work of your career.

About the team

Stripe is building the economic engine for AI – and it’s working. Today, 88% of the Forbes AI 50 are building on Stripe (and most of the remaining 12% are pre-monetization).

The AI GTM team is focused on helping AI-native businesses monetize and scale. We're in a unique position—partnering with the world's most ambitious AI companies (like OpenAI, Anthropic, ElevenLabs, and NVIDIA) to help them grow. This is one of the fastest growing parts of the business, and we need more great people to help us continue to accelerate.

What you'll do

As a Sales Manager on the EMEA Startup team at Stripe, you will leverage your sales leadership and product expertise to drive growth through existing strategic AI customers. Reporting to the Regional Sales Lead for Startups, you will lead a team of Account Executives responsible for expanding Stripe's relationship with some of the most important European AI companies in the world—across payments, billing, and beyond.

You will be instrumental in leading in-depth product discussions with customers, developing consultative and solution-based sales strategies, and building deep knowledge of the AI industry and its unique monetization challenges. You will collaborate closely with Product, Marketing, Product Marketing, and User Operations teams to develop and execute against our go-to-market strategy.

Responsibilities

• Develop the long-term vision for a growing AI GTM team and scale day-to-day operations.
• Lead and manage a team of Account Executives managing existing AI accounts (driving revenue expansion, product attach, and retention) and looking for new business opportunities. Establish strategic plans and objectives to drive growth across the AI GTM business line, guiding execution to KPIs.
• Build and develop a high-performing team, fostering a strong culture of energized and engaged Stripes while investing in the growth and development of your team. Coach and guide the team in developing consultative and solution-based sales skills throughout the sales cycle.
• Be accountable for driving revenue, increasing product attach rates, and growing existing clients at high rates.
• Engage with Product, Marketing, and User Operations teams to influence our product roadmap (you are on the frontier!) and accelerate our growth trajectory for our AI industry users.
• Serve as both an internal and customer-facing expert on Stripe's products, particularly as they apply to AI-native business models (usage-based billing, marketplace payments, embedded finance, agentic commerce).
• Build strong relationships with customer executives (CEO, CFO, CTO) and serve as a trusted advisor on how Stripe can support their growth.
• Create best practices and improve the business and customer engagement model.

Who you are

Sales leader: You are an adept sales leader, capable of engaging in business-level and technical conversations at multiple levels of the organization. You see value in competitive situations and enjoy working on products that require both deep product understanding and technical knowledge, especially for AI industry users.

People developer: You are a strong people leader who builds high-performing teams through coaching, accountability, and culture. You're as comfortable working with clients as with internal stakeholders (including executives) and are excited to become an expert and share your knowledge. You possess an organized, self-starter mindset and excellent communication skills, with a track record for improving the processes and organizations around you.

AI enthusiast: You have deep context in the AI industry and are energized by keeping up with new developments in the space. You bring a user-first mindset— you approach every customer interaction as a consultative partner rather than a transactional seller.

Technically curious: You understand APIs, webhooks, and modern developer tools—and you can hold credible conversations with engineering leaders about how Stripe's infrastructure fits into their stack.

Minimum requirements

• 8+ years of sales leadership experience, launching and growing high-functioning sales teams/products.
• 10+ years of experience in hyper-growth SaaS or technology environments 
• Demonstrated success managing existing/growth customer portfolios and driving revenue expansion.
• Proven ability to be a self-starter, capable of driving business results without significant supervision.
• Ability to understand complex technical requirements and craft solutions across multiple stakeholders.
• Deep understanding of AI industry dynamics, business models, and monetization strategies (usage-based pricing, API-first distribution, agentic commerce).
• Strong product acumen—ability to learn and articulate complex product capabilities, understand how they work technically, and connect them to user needs.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including strong presentation skills for in-person meetings with multiple stakeholders.
• An enthusiastic "roll up your sleeves" mentality.
• Proven ability to lead complex negotiations involving bespoke agreements with commercial and enterprise businesses.

Preferred qualifications

• Industry experience in payments, financial infrastructure, developer tools, or AI/ML platforms.
• Existing relationships within the AI ecosystem (AI labs, AI-native SaaS companies, developer platforms).
• Experience selling complex platform solutions involving multiple products.
• Prior experience at a growth-stage software company or a leading payments/fintech company.
• Familiarity with Stripe's product suite and how AI companies leverage financial infrastructure to scale.