We live in a world where technology is rapidly changing the educational experiences of students and teachers everywhere, and we have the opportunity to shape how this change takes place. Kira’s mission is to harness transformative AI technologies to make world-class personalized teaching and learning accessible to everyone. We are a rapidly growing startup backed by top-tier Venture Capital funds including New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Andrew Ng’s AI Fund, and Primavera.
Being able to implement large deployments successfully is increasingly becoming a critical part of Kira’s business. Our Deployment Strategists embed closely with our largest customers, including governments who are rethinking their education system completely with Kira, global education enterprises, and universities, to figure out how Kira can be deployed across the organization to teachers, students and administrators in way that is effective for them. They then deliver it alongside product, design, and engineering. As Head of Deployment Strategy, you will be the first leader of this team. This is a player-coach role. You will personally own a portfolio of Kira’s largest and most complex accounts, starting with an upcoming multimillion-dollar partnership with a university in London. You will also manage and coach the Deployment Strategists who own our other strategic accounts, and you will build the processes the team runs on from scratch in collaboration with Kira’s co-founders, and product and go-to-market team members.
This role is based in our New York City office (Tribeca, 4 days a week in person), with significant travel to the UK. That includes an extended on-site period at launch, then regular trips after that.
WHAT YOU’LL DO
Own Kira’s Most Complex Accounts
- Personally own a portfolio of large enterprise accounts, starting with a new multimillion-dollar partnership with a university in London
- Lead high-priority rollouts from contract signature through go-live, adoption, and measurable impact, and own renewal and expansion
- Build trusted relationships with customers’ most senior stakeholders, including executives, owners and investors, and academic and operational leadership, and manage the competing interests between them
- Run executive business reviews and the workshops that build alignment across a customer’s stakeholders
- Spend extended time on-site with customers, including in the UK, and get into the weeds of their operations to surface the problems most worth solving
Product Strategy & Solutioning
- Partner with product and engineering to solution how Kira should evolve based on real customer needs
- Push back when needed, both with customers and internally, and help prioritize what matters most
- Evaluate each customer’s context and decide which version or configuration of Kira works best for them
- Build prototypes with AI tools to test and validate solutions before they are built in full. No coding is required, but you need to be fluent in prompt engineering
- Translate technical capabilities into clear business outcomes that customers and executives can act on
- Stay hands-on in the product (configuring organizations, building AI-generated courses, defining workflows) so you can coach from experience
Lead and Develop the Deployment Strategy Team
- Manage and coach a team of Deployment Strategists, helping each one build the skills to own senior executive relationships on their own accounts
- Create the playbooks, SOPs, quality metrics, and operating rhythm for how Kira deploys. Most of this doesn’t exist yet, so you’ll design processes from scratch, test them, and refine what works.
- Step in alongside your team at high-stakes moments, such as executive escalations, renewals, scope negotiations, and difficult conversations, and show them how to handle these moments
WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR
- 8+ years of experience, including significant time leading complex, high-value client relationships. For example, you might be a Partner,…