Also called: AE, Account Exec
TL;DR
The sales rep who owns the deal cycle from qualified opportunity to signed contract, carrying revenue quota.
Account Executives are the closers. They take a qualified opportunity from discovery through demo, technical evaluation, procurement, and signature. AEs carry annual quota typically 4 to 6× their on-target earnings; achieving quota is the primary measure.
AE specialization (SMB, mid-market, enterprise) tracks ACV and cycle length: enterprise AEs work fewer, larger, longer deals; SMB AEs work many short ones. Mixing AE profiles in the wrong segment produces predictable underperformance.
An enterprise AE carries a $1.2M annual quota, owns 25 named accounts, runs ~12 active opportunities at any time with avg ACV $95k, and earns $130k base + $130k commission at 100% attainment with 10× accelerator past 100%.
AE quota attainment and ramp time appear in the GTM and Use of Funds slides for sales-led companies.
A sales rep responsible for outbound prospecting and inbound qualification, handing qualified opportunities to Account Executives.
An outbound-focused sales rep who creates pipeline by prospecting target accounts, often used interchangeably with SDR.
The post-sale owner of the customer relationship, responsible for adoption, retention, and expansion of an account.
The set of qualified opportunities currently moving through the sales cycle, segmented by stage and weighted by probability.
The percentage of qualified sales opportunities that result in closed-won deals over a given period.
A composite measure of how quickly a sales team converts pipeline into closed revenue, derived from deals × win rate × ACV ÷ cycle length.
Deckmetric scores your pitch across 10 VC frameworks and against 8 investor types.