Senior Account Manager

Zen Educate
Philadelphia, PA
Hybrid

Who this role is best for

Geared toward candidates with Pennsylvania K-12 education experience and strong leadership potential, comfortable with managing complex school district relationships and mentoring others.

Best fit for

  • Individuals who can systematically navigate school district operations and staffing processes
    — “Think systematically: You can effectively conceptualize and problem solve in a complex system”
  • Candidates who thrive in high-growth startups and are open to leadership progression
    — “This is a senior individual contributor role with a clear path to leadership”

Things to consider

  • Must be based in Philadelphia with a commitment to weekly in-person school visits
    — “Must be based in Philadelphia (Remote with weekly school visits)”
  • Requires a high level of coachability and openness to regular feedback
    — “You thrive in a high feedback environment - not only asking for feedback but quickly applying it”

How to stand out

  • Highlight experience working with Pennsylvania school districts in your resume and interview stories
    — “Pennsylvania K-12 experience: You’ve worked with or inside Pennsylvania school districts”
  • Demonstrate your ability to coach and mentor others through specific examples in your background
    — “Mentor other Account Managers through call shadowing, role plays and 1:1 support”
  • Emphasize your ability to build relationships through phone conversations and in-person visits
    — “Bias to phones and visits: You understand that aside from meeting schools and educators in person”
Pace · SteadyCollaboration · HighAutonomy · HighDecision Impact · Team

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • Built and maintained key district relationships
  • Developed growth strategies for partnerships
Typical background
SalesAccount Management

Skills & requirements

Required

Account ManagementSales StrategyClient Relationship ManagementNegotiation

Preferred

Product KnowledgeMarket Analysis

Stack & domain

Sales OperationsCustomer Reinvestment TrendsData AnalysisStrategic PlanningTeam LeadershipMentorshipEducation RecruitmentTechnology

About the role

Original posting from Zen Educate via Lever

Compensation:

Location: Must be based in Philadelphia (Remote with weekly school visits)

Type: Full-Time

Total On-Target Earnings (base + commission): $70,000 USD

👋 About Zen Educate 

Zen Educate is a technology company that helps match schools with temporary teaching staff (Substitute teachers, Paraprofessionals, etc.). Our mission is to change the world of education recruitment. Schools spend over $9bn a year on temporary educators, with over $2bn per year of that spent on fees that take money out of the education system. By leveraging the latest technology, we purpose built a platform that helps schools to pay less while teachers earn more.

We want students to have access to the best education possible. By improving transparency and communication between schools and teachers, we’re benefitting all parties and ensuring they can work together effectively.

This is your chance to join a high growth tech startup on the ground floor. We are a collaborative company and you’ll have the opportunity to contribute your own ideas to our ongoing success. We are passionate about learning and development, and aim to maximize both your personal and career growth.

We are backed by a $37m Series B funding of $37mil, the largest round in European EdTech this year. This is an exciting opportunity to make a difference and be part of a high growth start-up that is expanding rapidly in the UK and US markets.

👋 About the Role 

Pennsylvania is a priority US market for Zen. We are building a team to partner with districts, Intermediate Units and charter schools across the state, and we’re hiring a Senior Account Manager to own our most important district relationships and help shape the team as it grows. This is a senior individual contributor role with a clear path to leadership as the Pennsylvania team expands over the next one to two years.

🏗️ What You’ll Be Doing

Own the partner relationship with key Pennsylvania school districts, Intermediate Units (IUs) and charter networks, from building principals and HR teams up to business managers and superintendents

Strategize how to grow partnerships with these partners - systematically ensuring that they use more Zen educators and products over time

Anticipate partners’ staffing gaps before they’re reported, and take the lead on at-risk or high-potential accounts

Lead end-of-year re-contracting conversations, and coach other Account Managers through theirs

Complement the product marketplace with a human touch by deeply understanding school district and educator needs, priorities, and how Zen can help

Collaborate with our Growth and Educator Recruitment teams to make sure that educator supply and school demand are optimized in your region

Develop educator and school insights to inform Product, Marketing, Growth and Educator Recruitment teams on how we can provide more value to our customers

Get to know your educators: support educators into work, and through their work placements with Zen, spanning HR support, career coaching, and customer service.

Get your hands dirty. Like any true start-up, no two weeks will be the same and you dive right into the details and do whatever is needed to expand revenue and hit targets.

Mentor other Account Managers through call shadowing, role plays and 1:1 support (especially for new joiners), and lead parts of their onboarding and ongoing training

Lead by example - you not only follow but help set best practices across the team

Get better every single month - every day at Zen is a school day and opportunity to learn and grow. You will be engaging in regular role plays, practice objection handling, and will get a ton of feedback on what you are doing well so you can keep doing those things, and what to improve upon.

🧠 What We’re Looking For

Most importantly, you’ll bring at least one of these, ideally both:

Pennsylvania K-12 experience: You’ve worked with or inside Pennsylvania school districts, IUs or charter schools, for example in district HR or administration, education staffing, edtech partnerships or as a PA educator. You know how districts make staffing and purchasing decisions, who holds the budget, how board approval cycles work, and which clearances and permits educators need to work in PA schools.

Leadership experience or clear leadership potential: You’ve managed, coached or mentored others and can show how you raised their performance. You can work towards a player-coach and/or future leadership role at Zen through these qualities.

You’ll also bring:

Account management experience: [3+] years in account management, customer success, sales or partnerships, ideally in education or staffing, with a record of growing accounts and hitting targets. Alternatively, you have a strong track record working within Pennsylvania school districts.

Confidence with senior stakeholders: You lead conversations with district leaders comfortably and face difficult feedback directly.

Grit: You have a history of working hard through hard things. You push through failures and challenges with enthusiasm.

Coachability: You thrive in a high feedback environment - not only asking for feedback but quickly applying it.

Work ethic: You do not settle for the status quo. You push yourself and others to hold high standards, and consistently go beyond the call of duty to get the job done.

Empathy: You deeply understand people, their needs, and how to connect with them when serving them and problem solving.

Bias to phones and visits: You understand that aside from meeting schools and educators in person, the best way to build relationships is through conversations you have with them over the phone. You are comfortable hitting dials/day targets, and view the phone as one of the best tools you have in your toolbox. You also build trust in person through regular school and district visits.

Think systematically: You can effectively conceptualize and problem solve in a complex system of schools, educators, and our technology stack. You are energized by challenging problems, and are resourceful in your efforts to solve them.

Have the startup hustle: You have a strong bias for action. You are highly motivated and comfortable with change and ambiguity. You are also a team-player ready to pitch-in wherever you are needed most.

⭐ Benefits

Equity compensation

Role includes bonus

18 Paid Vacation Days and 10 Paid Company Holidays

Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance

401(k) retirement plan with no match

Sick leave

Paid biweekly

🚀 Ready to Apply

If you’ve read this far and you’re excited (maybe even a little nervous), we’d love to hear from you.

We welcome applicants with diverse backgrounds, and different experiences and perspectives - just like the staff who teach through Zen and the children at the schools we work with. We believe in hiring the best people from the widest pool and creating an inclusive atmosphere with a culture where people’s voices are heard and all our team can look forward to coming to work.

We value and respect all differences in all people (seen and unseen). We believe in an environment with equal access to career development opportunities and actively encourage applications from BAME candidates.

If you require any reasonable adjustments during your interview process with us, please do let us know.

Due to the high volume of applications, we regret that we are unable to provide individual feedback on initial submissions.

Source: Zen Educate careers (Lever)

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