Enterprise Account Executive - Public Sector

Now part of IBM, Confluent brings its data streaming platform—built on Apache Kafka and Apache Flink—into IBM’s broader data and AI strategy. Together, IBM and Confluent help government organisations connect, process, and govern trusted, real-time data across hybrid environments, providing the live context that AI models, agents, and applications need to operate at scale. Based in Canberra, you’ll work with Australian Federal and State Government customers to turn data and AI priorities into practical outcomes. You’ll engage agency leaders and technical teams, navigate complex public-sector buying environments, and coordinate across IBM, Confluent, and partner teams to help customers move AI initiatives from experimentation into production. Develop and execute territory and account plans across assigned Australian Federal and State Government accounts, prioritising agencies, stakeholders, opportunities, and routes to market. Build and qualify pipeline, win new business, and deliver against quarterly and annual sales objectives across the public sector territory. Lead complex sales cycles from prospecting and discovery through solution alignment, business case development, procurement or tender processes, negotiation, and close. Engage executive, business, data and AI, architecture, engineering, security, and procurement stakeholders; connect technical capabilities to agency priorities and measurable outcomes. Identify how real-time data streaming can support government data and AI initiatives, including the delivery of current, trusted data to applications, analytics, AI models, and agents. Understand agency requirements for security, privacy, governance, resilience, and hybrid-cloud environments, and work with technical teams to shape appropriate solutions. Partner across IBM and Confluent sales, Solutions Engineering, Consulting, Customer Success, Professional Services, and channel teams to coordinate account strategy and deliver a strong customer experience. Build productive relationships with systems integrators, cloud providers, and other ecosystem partners to extend reach and support customer outcomes. Grow adoption and consumption within existing accounts, while maintaining disciplined opportunity management, deal strategy, CRM hygiene, and accurate forecasting. Represent IBM and Confluent credibly in customer and partner engagements; travel within Australia as business needs require. Proven success in quota-carrying enterprise software sales, ideally in the public sector or another complex, regulated environment. Experience engaging Australian Federal and/or State Government departments or agencies; experience across both levels of government is an advantage. Familiarity with public-sector procurement, tendering, budget and approval cycles, and multi-stakeholder buying processes. Experience owning complex sales cycles, from pipeline generation and account planning through solution development, negotiation, and close. A consultative, value-based selling approach, with the ability to connect data and AI capabilities to agency priorities and measurable outcomes. Ability to engage credibly with senior government stakeholders and technical audiences, including data and AI leaders, architects, engineers, security, and procurement teams. Experience selling SaaS, cloud, data infrastructure, integration, analytics, or open-source technologies. Familiarity with Apache Kafka, data streaming, stream processing, event-driven architectures, or distributed systems. Strong forecasting, opportunity qualification, negotiation, and communication skills; familiarity with MEDDPICC or another structured sales methodology. Ability to collaborate across IBM and Confluent teams and with systems integrators, cloud providers, and other partners. Willingness to travel for customer and partner engagements as needed. • Integration Agreement Knowledge: Deep understanding of integration agreements and their associated incentive plans, including terms and conditions, to inform management and oversight of the unique incentive plan. • Stakeholder Collaboration: Experience working with various stakeholders to ensure compliance and effective execution of incentive plans, driving seamless execution and communication. • Incentive Plan Optimization: Deep expertise in optimizing incentive plans to achieve business objectives, ensuring alignment with organizational goals and strategic priorities. Australia Sales Hybrid Professional CANBERRA, AU CANBERRA (0008) IBM Australia Limited Analytics Apache Kafka Artificial Intelligence Communication Distributed Systems Enterprise Software Forecasting Government Inform Integration Management Negotiation Optimization Procurement Public Sector Sales Security Software as a Service State Government Travel Stream Processing Compliance Account Execution Collaboration Confluent Account Planning Complex Sales Data Infrastructure Business Goal Setting