Sales Director

About the Sales & Marketing Team 

The global S&M team drives revenue growth for Aniai. In Korea, the team has deployed 45+ grills with 1000+ pre-ordered. In the US, 2025 has been a milestone year for the team, who deployed a showcase customer earlier in the year and secured our first revenue-generating customer. The US team has been hard at work fielding inbound leads from digital marketing, cold-calling potential buyers who are opening restaurants, building relationships with our enterprise contacts, and attending annual trade shows to increase our awareness and traction.

The current US S&M team has one marketing lead, an interim sales lead driven by the operations team and a part-time SDR. We're looking for a rockstar to achieve initial traction and bring disciplined execution to scale our organization.

About the Sales Director Role 

We are looking for a passionate Sales Director to drive growth in the US market. You will manage existing relationships with major burger franchises, corporations and SMBs, while also building our pipeline to catapult us to our next milestone. We set tough goals for ourselves as an organization and if you’re the right person, you will support us in a dramatic way. 

Our #1 goal going into 2026 is traction. Without traction, we shut down the org. We need someone who has a deep understanding of the kitchen equipment space, has pre-existing relationships with some of the top brands and has experience developing key sales through distributor and rep networks.

The job will be demanding but equally rewarding as you lead the charge to deliver critical growth.

Here’s the fine print: 

• Pipeline Management: Manage all US potential customer relationships, driving deal flow activities from lead to close.
• Sales Strategy: Develop and execute sales strategy, alongside marketing, to meet and exceed annual revenue goals.
• Enterprise Innovation Center & Testing Management: Project manage the entire PoC and innovation process. In this process, the potential customer will see if our product meets their standards and what changes need to be made.
• Manufacturing Reps: Build out a rep network across 5-10 key MAFSI regions, maintaining positive relationships to help them achieve desired KPIs.
• SDR Management: Manage our part-time SDR, ensuring they have the tools necessary to work on the top-of-the-funnel.
• Customer Presentations: Create and present Aniai to potential customers virtually and in-person at customer HQs.
• Trade Shows: Build top-of-the-funnel leads by attending regional and national trade shows and promoting Aniai’s products.
• Demos: Alongside our Field Service team, conduct product demos for potential clients, answering questions and highlighting our competitive advantages throughout the demo.
• Installations: Support Field Service Engineers during product installations in customer stores. Ensure seamless customer service through the initial robot deployment and training phase.
• Analytics: Track appropriate sales metrics, update and maintain Salesforce, and create reports against goals.

Requirements

We ask Everyone at Aniai to: 

• Have a bachelor's degree.

• Be excited to work at our NYC HQ 5 days per week. We pride ourselves in building community through our in-person culture. 

• Love burgers. What is your favorite burger? We want to know! 

• Communicate effectively and love cross-collaborative efforts. Our teams span across the US and Korea, which takes patience, kindness and communication to make it work. 

• Have a hustle mentality, solve problems and act quickly. We’re a rapidly growing startup, we don’t have time to waste. 

• (Bonus) Have experience in startups. 

• (Bonus) Have experience in robotics, kitchen equipment manufacturing, or restaurants. 

We ask the Sales Director at Aniai to: 

• Have made an incredible impact in their prior B2B sales/hardware experience. We think this takes roughly 10+ years to do.
• Have 5+ years working in the commercial kitchen equipment space, either working for a manufacturer, distributor or manufacturing rep.
• Have a deep understanding of the enterprise restaurant brand space, bringing your own rolodex to the table to secure top contracts.
• Travel to Innovation Centers or Corporate HQs as required. A valid driver's license may be required in remote areas.
• Have proven success marketing highly technical products. You can not only explain an advanced product to a 10yr old, but you can also get them excited about it.
• Be top tier communicators and negotiators. You listen empathetically and understand how to build genuine connections with everyone you meet.
• Not fear rejection. Sales cycles are long and losing deals is part of the game, and you thrive in this environment.
• Think outside the box, proactively solving problems and exercising sound judgement to move deals forward.
• Collaborate with marketing to drive growth together. It takes our entire team working together to accomplish our goals; we need synergy between Sales and Marketing.

Benefits

We’re focused on one thing and one thing only – growth. Our benefits reflect our ability as an early-stage startup to give our employees the space and resources they need to focus on growth and be successful here at Aniai. We hope to continue expanding our benefits as we expand our business, but today we offer the following: 

• Competitive Salary 

• Equity 

• 100% Covered Top-Tier Medical, Dental & Vision insurance 

• 15 Days PTO + 5 Paid-Sick Days + 7 Company Holidays 

• NYC HQ Loft with free coffee, snacks, drinks and more 

• Newest Apple Macbook + other equipment necessary to do the job 

• Team bonding activities 

• Access to Alpha Grill, and we guarantee plenty of burgers!