The posting
Inc42 Media is looking for a sharp, relationship-driven Assistant Manager / Manager – Key Accounts to own a book of BrandLabs accounts end-to-end – the single point of contact between our clients and our internal teams across content & marketing campaigns. This is a role for a persuasive communicator who can build deep, trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders, and use those relationships to retain and expand revenue from assigned accounts.
This role runs on a defined Key Account Management operating system — a scorecard that measures your accounts across Inputs (20%), Outputs (30%), and Outcomes (50%), a review cadence, renewal runways, and a governance layer. You won't have to invent the system; you'll operate it with discipline, make it hum, and — as you grow — help own and evolve it.
You'll own the full arc of an account — curating sharp concepts & proposals, orchestrating flawless delivery across BrandLabs properties (events, articles, videos, reports, custom programmes and more), and turning every campaign into a reason for clients to come back and spend more. Just as importantly, we want someone who is AI-native: you instinctively reach for AI tools to research faster, write tighter, build better decks, and free up time for the relationship-building that actually moves the needle.
Think of this as the role our best key-account leaders held earlier in their journey. You step in to run the OS on a live book of accounts today; the trajectory is to own it, sharpen it, and lead a pod as the vertical scales.
About Inc42 Media
Inc42 is India's #1 startup media & intelligence platform that informs, educates, and empowers startup & business leaders through its incisive reporting, insightful reports, curated events & communities, and industry-leading executive courses & programs.
Since launching in January 2015 and rising to become the authoritative voice on India's startup economy, we've moved markets, gotten the early scoop on billions of dollars of transactions, and told the inside story of some of the fastest-growing startups & industries alike. Our stories have been followed by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Reuters, TechCrunch, and other major outlets hundreds of times. Through Inc42 BrandLabs, we partner with enterprises & brands to create branded content & experiences that reach our audience of decision makers.
The Inc42 Impact
- Inc42 stories reach over 50 Mn+ people monthly
- Published more than 55,000 stories
- Successfully conducted 125+ events
- Launched 100+ research reports
- Receives 500+ startup applications monthly
- Worked with 350+ brands
Why This Role Is Unique
- Driving new revenue opportunities: You'll be the lynchpin on major revenue bets for Inc42 BrandLabs — retaining, growing, and cross-selling into your book of accounts.
- Anchoring relationships: You'll own client satisfaction and the metrics that matter — Net Promoter Score, repeat business, and account churn.
- Market experimentation: You'll help stand up new revenue channels and enable go-to-market motions for new formats and segments.
- Building for scale: This role is central to growing revenue from existing clients and is expected to develop into a team-leading position as the vertical scales.
What You'll Own
Your performance mirrors how every account is scored. The three layers below are exactly how success is measured — the weightings tell you where to spend your energy.
1. Relationship & Activity Discipline — Inputs (20%)
- Be the trusted point of contact for your accounts and build depth beyond a single stakeholder — widen coverage so no account depends on one relationship.
- Run a consistent meeting and interaction cadence (weekly / monthly / quarterly), logging planned-vs-actual so nothing slips.
- Keep the account record — the single source of truth — accurate and current: contacts, contract values, renewal dates, activity.
2. Concepts, Proposals, Delivery & Reporting — Outputs (30%)
- Curate customized content & branding concepts and translate them into compelling proposals, RFP responses, and pitch decks across BrandLabs properties.
- Own delivery quality end-to-end — plan execution, coordinate with internal production & content teams, marketing, event ops, Founders' Office, finance, and other stakeholders.
- Report campaign performance to clients and the sales team at a defined cadence, turning data into insight the client values.
3. Retention & Expansion — Outcomes (50%)
- Own the commercial outcomes for your book: gross revenue retention (keep what we have) and net revenue retention (grow it through upsell and cross-sell).
- Manage every renewal on its 90/60/30-day runway — no renewal should ever come as a surprise.
- Own client NPS, repeat business, and churn; anticipate needs before the client raises them.
4. Governance & No-Surprises
- Surface risks and escalations early through a structured, no-surprises review — flag a wobbling account before it becomes a lost one.
- Drive coordination with internal teams and improve the processes that make delivery smoother.
5. AI-Native Ways of Working
- Use AI tools smartly across the whole workflow — research and market mapping, proposal and deck drafting, meeting notes and follow-ups, reporting, and client communication.
- Continuously find ways to compress turnaround and raise output quality with AI, and share what works with the team.
How Success Is Measured
Concretely, you'll be measured on:
- Outcomes (50%): Repeat business, renewal timeliness, & NPS.
- Outputs (30%): Proposal quality and win rate, delivery quality, and reporting consistency.
- Inputs (20%): Cadence adherence, relationship coverage, and data hygiene on the account record.
Who We Are Looking For
Must-have
- Executive communication & relationship-building: builds trust fast with senior client stakeholders, holds their ground, and multi-threads an account. This is the single most important trait for the role.
- Revenue retention & expansion instinct: comfortable owning retention and driving upsell/cross-sell, and working a renewal to a timely close.
- Concept & proposal curation: turns a brief into a sharp concept and a genuinely persuasive proposal, deck, or RFP response.
- AI-native execution: already uses AI tools daily to research, draft, and speed up delivery — and eager to push further.
- Account & project management with P&L discipline: runs projects end-to-end and protects delivery quality and margin.
- Data & scorecard fluency: comfortable operating inside a metrics-driven system — reading a dashboard and making decisions from the numbers (sharp Excel/Google Sheets).
- Cadence & governance discipline: runs a review rhythm and a no-surprises escalation habit reliably, without being chased.
- 3–6 years of relevant experience (media solutions, consulting, SaaS, or brand/agency account management) with front-end client ownership. Bachelor's or Master's in Engineering/Tech, Sales, Marketing, Business, or equivalent.
Good-to-have
- Startup-ecosystem / media & branded-content domain knowledge — understands Inc42's world and audience.
- Negotiation skills, specifically on renewals and expansion pricing.
- Analytical storytelling — turning campaign performance into insight a client will pay to keep hearing.
- Comfort with CRM & project tools (e.g., Asana) and light BI/dashboarding.
- Early signs of team leadership / mentoring — this role is expected to grow into leading a pod.
Why This Role Is Special
- A system, not a scramble: you inherit a proven operating system and scorecard — clarity on exactly what good looks like from day one.
- Clear growth trajectory: operate the system now; own it, sharpen it, and lead a team as the vertical scales.
- Founder proximity & autonomy: direct exposure to leadership on high-stakes accounts, with the independence to drive outcomes your way.
- Massive visibility: be the face of Inc42 BrandLabs to some of India's most exciting brands and decision makers.
