Account Executive, Higher Education

Acquia is the open digital experience company. We provide the world’s most ambitious organizations with products built around Drupal to allow them to embrace innovation and create moments that matter. At Acquia, we believe in the power of community and collaboration — giving our customers and partners the freedom to build tomorrow on their terms. Headquartered in the U.S., we have been named one of North America’s fastest growing software companies by Deloitte and Inc. Magazine, rated a leader by the analyst community, and named one of the Best Places to Work by the Boston Business Journal. We are Acquia. We are building for the future and we want you to be a part of it!

Higher education is one of Drupal’s largest and most passionate communities. Colleges and universities across North America rely on their websites and digital channels to recruit students, engage alumni and donors, support research, and serve campus communities — all while meeting rising expectations for accessibility, security, and governance. As the Account Executive for Higher Education, you will help these institutions modernize their digital experience and get more from their investment in Drupal and Acquia.

This is a role for a disciplined, process-driven seller. Higher education deals involve many stakeholders, formal procurement, and long decision cycles, so we’re looking for someone who lives the MEDDICC sales methodology every day: qualifying rigorously, building champions, getting to the economic buyer, and forecasting with accuracy.

As the Account Executive, Higher Education, you will...

• Own new business and expansion across an assigned territory of colleges, universities, community colleges, and university systems in the United States and Canada
• Identify new opportunities, manage, and close deals across Acquia’s higher education customer and prospect base
• Run every opportunity using MEDDICC — qualify and progress deals by defining Metrics, engaging the Economic Buyer, shaping Decision Criteria, mapping the Decision Process, Identifying Pain, developing a Champion, and understanding the Competition
• Maintain complete, current MEDDICC qualification in Salesforce and use it to drive accurate forecasting, deal reviews, and pipeline inspection with leadership
• Build mutual action plans with customers that map the full institutional decision and procurement process, from first meeting to signature
• Engage senior campus leaders, including CIOs, CMOs, Vice Presidents of Marketing & Communications, Enrollment Management, and Advancement, as well as central web, IT, and digital teams
• Navigate decentralized campus environments, building consensus between central IT, university marketing, and individual colleges, schools, and departments, and identify and coach champions across them
• Quantify business value for institutions — such as enrollment and recruitment impact, cost savings from web consolidation, accessibility risk reduction, and team efficiency — and tie it to the economic buyer’s priorities
• Manage public and institutional procurement processes, including RFPs, cooperative purchasing agreements and consortia, and multi-stakeholder approvals, aligning deal timing with academic and fiscal-year budget cycles
• Stay current on competitor offerings in the higher education CMS and DXP market and be able to identify their strengths and vulnerabilities
• Turn client feedback into meaningful strategies to drive new business and address competitive risks
• Influence client decisions and advocate for client needs to broker win-win solutions
• Work closely with Account Management, Renewals, Solutions Consulting, Product, and Professional Services teams to ensure seamless implementation and effective ongoing account growth
• Handle full-life-cycle sales in an individual contributor role, building and maintaining a qualified pipeline that meets team coverage expectations
• Engage with implementation and channel partners who serve the higher education market to drive and co-sell opportunities
• Represent Acquia within the higher education and Drupal communities, including industry conferences, user groups, and regional events
• Work cross-functionally with demand generation and marketing teams to cultivate pipeline through targeted higher education campaigns
• Collaborate efficiently across internal teams and nurture an atmosphere of trust and open communication
• Travel to campus visits, client meetings, and industry events across the US and Canada as needed

You’ll enjoy this role if you are/have...

• A genuine interest in higher education and the role digital experience plays in an institution’s mission
• A believer in sales process and qualification discipline — you’d rather disqualify early than chase a deal without a champion or a clear path to the economic buyer
• Intellectual agility and an entrepreneurial attitude; demonstrates drive, initiative, energy, and a sense of urgency in acquiring and serving clients
• Patience and persistence for longer, consensus-driven sales cycles, paired with the discipline to keep deals moving
• Ability to learn and absorb new products quickly and rapidly adapt to changing business and customer demands
• Smart, results-oriented, upbeat, and a track record of out-performing your peers
• Looking for aggressive career growth
• Passion, drive, and creativity

What you’ll need to be successful...

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience
• Demonstrated mastery of the MEDDICC sales methodology (MEDDPICC or a similar framework also considered), with a track record of using it to qualify, forecast, and close complex, multi-stakeholder enterprise deals
• Strong sales and new-business origination experience in enterprise software, preferably selling CMS, DXP, or SaaS solutions
• Experience selling into higher education institutions; experience with both US and Canadian institutions is a strong plus
• Familiarity with higher education procurement, including formal RFPs, cooperative and consortium purchasing, and board or committee approval processes
• Experience negotiating large strategic deals across all phases of client development: prospecting, proposal development, negotiation, and ongoing relationship management
• A proven ability to build and coach internal champions and to gain access to economic buyers in complex organizations
• Consistent forecast accuracy and strong CRM hygiene (Salesforce preferred)
• Working knowledge of the issues that matter to campus digital leaders, such as web accessibility requirements (e.g., ADA Title II, WCAG, and AODA in Ontario), security, data privacy, and governance of large, multi-site web estates
• Strong understanding of the SaaS business model for solutions delivery
• Experience and the know-how to work in a fast-paced technology environment
• Confident presentation skills and presence in front of senior campus leadership, with the communication skills to articulate a value proposition to a wide range of organizational and functional levels
• French language proficiency is a plus for engaging institutions in Québec and other francophone communities