Job Description

What You’ll Do

The Zendesk for Startups team is seeking an entrepreneurial, relationship-driven leader to serve as our first dedicated Venture Capital (VC) Ecosystem Manager, Americas. This is a highly visible, field-based role designed to embed Zendesk deeply within the venture capital ecosystem and accelerate our impact with high-growth portfolios.

You will act as Zendesk’s dedicated presence within top VC firms—building durable partnerships that drive qualified pipeline, strengthen brand affinity, and reinforce Zendesk’s position as the category leader in AI-powered Service and Customer Experience. Working closely with our Bay Area– and Austin–based teams, you’ll consistently surface and engage high-potential startups and their investors, turning ecosystem access into measurable business outcomes.

This role is equal parts strategic and hands-on: shaping our VC engagement strategy while personally owning relationships, programs, and on-the-ground execution. As a part of this role, you will be expected to travel regularly across the US East Coast and Southeast to meet with fund operators and their portfolios.

What You Bring to the Role

This is a first-of-its-kind role at Zendesk, created for someone who thrives at the intersection of venture capital, startups, and go-to-market execution. You’ll deepen relationships with a curated group of venture capital firms across the Americas, elevate Zendesk’s thought leadership, and create scalable programs that convert influence into accelerated growth.

We’re looking for someone who:

• Thinks strategically and leads with executive presence: You bring a proven ability to work credibly with top-tier venture capital firms, their partners, and portfolio founders. You build trust quickly, influence senior stakeholders, and position Zendesk as the leading voice in AI for Service within the startup ecosystem.

• Builds and activates communities: From VCs and founders to accelerators, ecosystem partners, or internal sales teams, you’re fluent in negotiating and aligning diverse stakeholder needs. You translate relationships into durable growth opportunities for Zendesk.

• Represents the brand with passion and empathy: You are an enthusiastic ambassador for Zendesk—showing up thoughtfully and authentically at community events, partner forums, and industry conferences. You take ownership of elevating brand awareness while cultivating meaningful, long-term relationships.

• Designs high-impact programming: You design and execute end-to-end exclusive, experiential VC programs that give partners a compelling view into Zendesk’s platform, vision, and growth engine.

• Drives measurable business impact: In close collaboration with Startup Marketing and Sales, you convert ecosystem access into qualified pipeline, warm introductions, and faster deal cycles—bridging influence with revenue.

• Forges enduring partnerships: You move beyond transactional, one-off activations to build repeatable, long-term VC partnerships that compound value and momentum for the Zendesk brand across investor and founder communities.

Basic Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in venture capital, startups, or partnerships within the technology sector

• Excellent communication, presentation, negotiation, and interpersonal skills, specifically with key stakeholders in the VC and startup ecosystem

• Data-driven, strategic, with a knack for execution, delivering on-time and at a high bar

• Deep understanding of the VC ecosystem, including key players, funding dynamics, and emerging trends—particularly in AI and agentic AI workflows

• Demonstrated ability to build and sustain high-value relationships with investors, portfolio companies, and strategic partners

• Strong track record of generating qualified marketing pipeline and contributing to revenue growth

• Ability to operate independently while collaborating effectively in a fast-paced, sales-driven environment

• Ability to travel (up to 35% of time) between key cities in the US East and Southeast, and LATAM (e.g., Mexico City and Sao Paulo)

Preferred Qualifications

• Startup Ecosystem Expertise: Background in venture capital or experience running startup programs, accelerators, or ecosystem partnerships; established investor network in the Bay Area, Austin, and/or New York.

• Ecosystem Partner Engagement: Proven experience partnering with early-stage VCs, CVCs, angel networks, accelerators, and incubators, with a record of successful, repeatable collaborations.

• Community Building: Hands-on experience cultivating self-sustaining startup communities and facilitating meaningful engagement between investors, their portfolios, and ecosystem partners like Zendesk.

• Practical GTM & Tooling Expertise: Familiarity with Zendesk products (and ideally platforms like Salesforce or Airtable), plus a strong working knowledge of startup go-to-market motions, including acquisition, retention, and scaling.

Measuring Success

Here’s what you can expect to deliver in the first 12 months of the role:

• Design and execute tailored, scalable engagement models for venture capital partners, enabling portfolio companies to unlock differentiated value and benefits beyond the standard program offering.

• Proactively surface and address VC partner priorities, creating “must-attend” moments through curated, invitation-only community events and programs that build trust, deepen relationships, and elevate Zendesk’s brand within the venture ecosystem.

• Establish systematic, repeatable frameworks to assess, monitor, and optimize the health, impact, and strategic value of Zendesk’s VC partner relationships over time.

• Lead 1–2 flagship, high-impact community motions that convene top VC partners and portfolio leaders in priority markets (San Francisco, New York, Austin, São Paulo), strengthening Zendesk’s presence in key innovation hubs.

This is not a traditional partnership role. It is a field-based business development engine built to accelerate pipeline growth and elevate Zendesk’s brand in the most competitive innovation ecosystem in the world. If you’re passionate about startups, fluent in the VC landscape, and driven to deliver real business impact, we’d love to hear from you.

#LI-WO1

The US annualized base salary range for this position is $124,000.00-$186,000.00. This position may also be eligible for bonus, benefits, or related incentives. While this range reflects the minimum and maximum value for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations, the offer for the successful candidate for this position will be based on job related capabilities, applicable experience, and other factors such as work location. Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only (or OTE for commissions based roles), and do not include bonus, benefits, or related incentives.

Hybrid: In this role, our hybrid experience is designed at the team level to give you a rich onsite experience packed with connection, collaboration, learning, and celebration - while also giving you flexibility to work remotely for part of the week. This role must attend our local office for part of the week. The specific in-office schedule is to be determined by the hiring manager.

The intelligent heart of customer experience

Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.

Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working, enables us to purposefully come together in person, at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world, to connect, collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.

As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency, we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position, in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity, equity, & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here.

Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please send an e-mail to peopleandplaces@zendesk.com with your specific accommodation request.