Sales Team Lead

We are a fintech start-up that has found product-market fit, and we are looking for a hands-on commercial leader to build and lead the sales function across our fintech and financial infrastructure businesses.

This is not a pure strategy, advisory, or executive role. We are looking for a player-coach: someone who can define the sales direction, personally find and close early customers, build the sales process, and gradually develop a high-performing sales team.

The first stage of the role is deliberately hands-on. Before scaling the team, you will be expected to understand the market from direct conversations, identify the right ICP, test the messaging and channels, and create a repeatable sales motion based on real opportunities.

Your mission

Build a predictable business development and sales engine — starting with your own deals and turning what works into a scalable team process.

What you will do

1. Personally sell and build the first pipeline

• Own a personal pipeline of qualified opportunities.
• Find, contact, qualify, negotiate with, and close early customers and strategic partners.
• Lead discovery calls, product conversations, commercial negotiations, and follow-ups.
• Work directly with founders, executives, fintech entrepreneurs, financial institutions, payment companies, and other senior decision-makers.

2. Define and validate the ICP

• Identify the highest-potential customer segments for the company's products and services.
• Research markets, companies, decision-makers, buying triggers, and competitive alternatives.
• Define ICPs, personas, use cases, qualification criteria, and disqualifiers.
• Test which segments, geographies, products, and value propositions convert best.
• Bring market feedback to Product, Compliance, Operations, and Leadership.

3. Build the sales process

• Design, together with marketing, the sales funnel from prospecting and qualification to proposal, negotiation, onboarding, and expansion.
• Create practical sales playbooks, messaging, qualification frameworks, and follow-up standards.
• Set up and maintain CRM discipline, pipeline stages, forecasting, and reporting.
• Track conversion, sales cycle, pipeline quality, and revenue metrics.
• Turn successful personal practices into repeatable processes for the future team.

4. Lead outreach and go-to-market experiments

• Oversee inbound, outbound, partner, referral, and intro channels.
• Personally test cold outreach and help build a scalable outreach motion.

5. Build and lead the sales team

• Hire, onboard, coach, and manage sales and business development team members as the function grows.
• Build a culture of ownership, disciplined follow-up, curiosity, and commercial accountability.

6. Work cross-functionally to close and deliver deals

• Coordinate with Product, Compliance, Operations, Legal, and Finance to make deals executable.
• Ensure customer expectations are realistic and accurately translated into internal next steps.

What we are looking for

• Strong full-cycle B2B sales and business development experience with a complex product.
• Experience defining ICP, entering new markets, and testing acquisition channels.
• Hands-on experience with outbound / cold outreach, inbound qualification, partnerships, or referral channels.
• Background in fintech, payments, banking infrastructure, B2B SaaS, technology, or another complex B2B environment is strongly preferred.
• Ability to quickly understand the technical, regulatory, and commercial aspects of a product.
• Strong CRM, pipeline management, forecasting, and sales-process skills.
• Excellent English and Russian — confident communication with senior stakeholders.
• High ownership, commercial judgement, resilience, and willingness to do the work personally before scaling it through a team.

This role is a strong fit if you

• Enjoy building from zero and taking responsibility for commercial outcomes.
• Prefer evidence from real customer conversations over assumptions and presentations.
• Can switch between selling, analysing the market, improving the process, and coaching a teammate.

How to apply