Founding Account Executive

Location

Washington, DC (headquarters) · On-site / Hybrid preferred On-Target Earnings: $300,000 (competitive base plus performance-based commission), with meaningful equity Verticals: Financial Services · Professional Services · Government

Summary

Capitol AI is hiring its Founding Account Executive: the first dedicated enterprise seller, focused on building pipeline and proving the go-to-market motions that the company will scale. This is not a role for someone waiting on inbound leads or an existing playbook. It is for an operator who can generate pipeline from a standing start, design and test repeatable GTM motions, open the most discerning accounts in financial services, professional services, and government, and close them.

Reporting to the VP of Sales, you will own the full sales cycle end to end, from first conversation to signed contract, selling sovereign intelligence infrastructure into institutions where the cost of being wrong is measured in regulatory exposure, market consequence, and national security. The right person is exceptionally skilled commercially and technical enough to be a thought leader in AI: someone who can hold the room with a CTO, a CISO, or a Chief Data Officer, then translate that credibility into revenue.

This is a foundational hire. The pipeline you build, the motions you prove out, the messaging you sharpen, and the accounts you land will set the template for how Capitol sells as the team grows. You will work closely with the VP of Sales, CEO and CTO, product, and engineering, and you will help shape a culture that is mission-focused and values openness, collaboration, and respect.

What You Will Do

Own the full enterprise sales cycle. Prospect, qualify, run discovery, lead technical demonstrations, navigate procurement and security review, negotiate, and close. You are accountable for pipeline and bookings from the first touch to the signature.

Win in three high-stakes verticals. Build and execute account plans across financial services, professional services, and government, prioritizing the institutions where sovereignty, auditability, and control are non-negotiable.

Be the technical voice in the room. Lead conversations with senior technical and business buyers such as CTOs, CISOs, Chief Data Officers, heads of AI, partners, and agency leadership. Speak fluently about secure on-premises and air-gapped deployment, model-agnostic architecture, governed agentic workflows, and the difference between generic AI and decision-grade infrastructure.

Build pipeline and prove the GTM motions. Generate qualified pipeline through outbound, partnerships, and targeted account work. Design, test, and refine the prospecting and sales motions that the team will scale, with the VP of Sales, as Capitol grows. Document what works, kill what does not, and feed insight back to product and marketing.

Carry Capitol's voice in the market. Represent the company publicly as a credible thought leader on sovereign AI: at conferences, in customer briefings, and in written and spoken commentary. Shape how the most critical institutions think about the future of enterprise AI.

Partner across the company. Collaborate closely with the VP of Sales, product, and engineering to align what we sell with what we build, and to ensure every commitment made in the field can be delivered in production.

What Makes a Great Founding AE Here

This role asks for a rare combination: the closing instincts of a top enterprise seller and the technical fluency of someone who could hold their own in an architecture review. The candidate we are looking for will:

• Have a genuine point of view on where enterprise AI is heading, and the ability to defend it in front of the most sophisticated technical and executive audiences.
• Understand the realities of regulated, mission-critical environments, including data residency, governance, evaluation, attribution, and audit, and why these requirements break most AI tools on the market.
• Be able to articul