Kapalins
Website:
kapalins.com
Job details:
Cybersecurity and Enterprise Sales Head - India (Founding Seller)
Location: PAN India (Remote)
Compensation: INR upto 45 LPA fixed + attractive variable (upto 60 LPA)+ uncapped commission
Experience: 10+ years enterprise cybersecurity or enterprise SaaS sales, product-company background
MANDATORY EXPERIENCE REQUIRED: Cybersecurity Sales, AI Security background with SaaS based product company background and startup working exposure (sales from scratch without any team, as an IC) is mandatory requirement.
READ THIS FIRST:
This is a founding sales role with a leadership title. You will not inherit a team, a pipeline, a marketing engine or an SDR. For the first two to three quarters you carry the number yourself, alongside the founders. If you win, you build the team underneath you and the title becomes literal.
If you want to run a function that already exists, this is the wrong role, and we would rather say so now than in month four.
ABOUT KAPALINS:
Kapalins builds an AI-native security and governance platform for enterprises adopting generative AI: managing AI risk, model and data exposure, governance and compliance across LLMs, copilots and agentic systems.
Enterprises in India are deploying GenAI far faster than they are governing it. Security and risk teams are being asked to sign off on systems they cannot see. That gap is our market, and it is opening now.
We are hiring our first senior commercial leader in India.
WHAT YOU WILL ACTUALLY DO:
- Own the India number end to end: territory design, prospecting, discovery, POC, commercials, close.
- Build executive relationships with CISOs, CIOs, CTOs, CDOs and Heads of Risk across BFSI, IT/ITeS, pharma, telco and large conglomerates.
- Create budget where none is allocated. AI security is rarely its own line item yet, so you will sell into risk, data governance and compliance budgets first.
- Run the technical conversation yourself in the early days, with founder support. There is no SE bench to hide behind.
- Build the repeatable motion: ICP, qualification, objection handling, pricing guardrails, partner channels.
- Feed the roadmap. What you lose deals on will change what we build.
- Hire and lead the team once the motion is proven.
WHAT YOU NEED TO HAVE DONE:
We care about evidence, not adjectives. You should be able to walk us through, with specifics:
- 10+ years selling enterprise cybersecurity or enterprise SaaS into large Indian organisations.
- Product-company experience. Not services, not staffing, not reselling. You have sold a product with a roadmap, a POC and a competitor.
- Personally originated and closed net-new deals in the INR 25 lakh to INR 5 crore range. You can state the deal count, the average deal size, the cycle length and who you beat, and the numbers reconcile.
- Live relationships with CIOs, CISOs, CTOs and risk executives in India that you can call this quarter.
- Startup scar tissue. You have sold without brand recognition, without inbound and without a support structure, and you can describe honestly what did not work.
- Enough AI security literacy to hold a CISO's attention: shadow AI, data leakage into third-party models, prompt injection, agentic risk and tool access, AI governance obligations. You do not need to be a researcher. You do need to be credible in the first meeting.
A note on the AI part. If you have deep security selling credibility (DLP, CASB, IAM, data governance, GRC, cloud security into regulated buyers) and your AI knowledge is real but recent, please apply. The commercial track record is the harder half and we will invest in the rest. If your only AI signal is a headline change, this role will expose it in the first month.
WHO THIS IS NOT FOR:
- Sellers whose numbers came from renewals, expansion or an assigned book.
- People who have only sold inside a category leader with marketing-generated pipeline.
- Managers who have not personally closed a deal in three years.
- Anyone who needs process, brand and headcount in place before they can perform.
WHAT WE OFFER:
- INR upto 35 LPA fixed, a serious variable component, and uncapped commission. The top end of this role is a function of what you close, not a band.
- Meaningful equity in a company at the beginning of its story.
- A direct line to the founders, real influence over product and market strategy, and no layer between you and the decision.
- First-mover position in a category that is forming in India right now.
WHY SOMEONE GOOD SAYS YES:
Timing. AI security in India in 2026 is where cloud security was in 2016. There is a short window to be the person who defined the market rather than the person who joined it.
Ownership, not inheritance. You set the ICP, the pricing posture and the playbook. Very few people at your level get to do this without founding the company themselves.
Economics. Uncapped commission plus equity in an early company. If you build this, you own a share of what you built.
HOW TO APPLY:
Apply through LinkedIn. In one paragraph, tell us about one net-new deal you personally originated and closed: how you found the first conversation, who signed, and what nearly killed it. That paragraph matters more to us than your CV.
You can also write to swati.maheshwari@kapalins.com with the subject line: VP Enterprise Sales | [Your Name]
Know more: www.kapalins.com
Kapalins is an equal opportunity employer.
Click on Apply to know more.
