VP - National Accounts & Retail

IKIO is seeking a senior commercial leader to build the company’s national-accounts and retail vertical across multi-site retailers, specialty retail, restaurant/QSR, healthcare, banking, and other distributed-location organizations. The role owns the commercial journey from executive access and account strategy through paid pilot, vendor approval, rollout governance, repeat business, and profitable account expansion.

The ideal leader does not simply “know retail” or manage inherited accounts. We need someone who can reach facilities, construction, store development, procurement, energy/sustainability, finance, and operations decision-makers; establish a program-level business case; and convert relationships into measurable, collectible revenue while developing the team underneath them.

Core Accountabilities

• Own the national-account vertical strategy, qualified pipeline, pilots, rollouts, forecast, commercial performance, and account-allocation discipline.

• Build and maintain multi-threaded executive maps across facilities, construction, procurement, store development, energy/sustainability, finance, and operations.

• Convert introductions and relationships into qualified opportunities with verified need, decision-maker access, economic value, timing, contracting route, and dated next decision.

• Create paid pilot and audit structures with agreed scope, success criteria, commercial assumptions, field/installation path, post-pilot decision process, and rollout governance.

• Drive account expansion through standards, new-store/remodel programs, replacement programs, category expansion, service learning, case studies, and executive business reviews.

• Apply enterprise pricing and margin discipline; growth must create acceptable gross profit and cash collection, not merely volume.

• Coordinate national installer, distribution, contractor, technical/applications, logistics, and service pathways without turning the VP into the day-to-day project coordinator.

• Coach account managers and future enterprise AEs from “servicing” into structured commercial ownership, discovery, multi-threading, follow-up, and expansion.

• Maintain one primary owner for every account and clearly distinguish relationship source, influence, account ownership, and fulfillment contribution.

• Use CRM and account plans as operating tools: decision group, opportunity hypothesis, value, margin, stage, close window, next decision, risks, and expansion path.

Candidate Profile

• Current portable relationships with senior facilities, construction, procurement, store-development, operations, energy/sustainability, and/or finance stakeholders at multi-site organizations.

• Track record of personally opening strategic accounts and converting executive relationships into pilots, national programs, remodel/new-store rollouts, or equivalent repeat business.

• Experience navigating complex buying centers and vendor qualification processes rather than relying on one internal champion.

• Strong understanding of multi-site program economics, pricing, gross margin, payment terms, supply/lead-time constraints, service requirements, and operational consequences of commercial promises.

• Ability to turn a successful pilot into a governed rollout—standard, scope, stakeholders, success metrics, installation/fulfillment route, service loop, and expansion decision.

• Strong people leadership: can recruit/coach 3-7 year builders, create account cadence, and make salespeople more commercially independent.

• Lighting experience is valuable but not mandatory if the candidate has strong multi-site commercial experience and can learn the technical solution quickly.