Head of Startups - India and South Asia
- India
Posted 8 days ago
About the role
NVIDIA Inception is our free global programme for start-ups building with AI, data science and accelerated computing — now more than 40,000 companies worldwide, with over 2,000 of them based in India alone. South Asia is one of the fastest-moving corners of that network: a market whose density sits in applied and vertical AI — medical imaging, drug discovery, edge vision, agentic and sovereign AI, robotics, agri-tech, AI governance — rather than in frontier model labs.
We are looking for an Inception Regional Lead to own that motion end to end. This is a builder’s role with a commercial edge. You will set the regional strategy, lead a team of Inception Partner and Community managers across India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and neighbouring markets, and be personally accountable for how much NVIDIA hardware, software and cloud the region’s start-ups design in and consume. You will spend real time on the ground in founders’ offices, because that is where stalled accounts turn into concrete asks. And you will act as the connective tissue between start-ups and the rest of NVIDIA — worldwide field operations, solution architects, developer marketing, the reseller and cloud partner ecosystem, and NVentures.
What you’ll be doing:
Own the South Asia Inception strategy and number. Set regional priorities, coverage model and account tiering across strategic, member, community and prospect accounts; forecast and report on pipeline, design wins and consumption to programme and field leadership.
Lead and grow the team. Manage, coach and develop a team of Inception Partner and community programme managers. Set territory and vertical coverage, run the operating cadence, and raise the bar on technical fluency and commercial rigour across the team.
Drive commercial outcomes with start-ups. Move accounts from awareness to technical discovery to a named workload — running workload, benchmark and target-metric discovery, qualifying architecture and annual cloud spend, and landing hardware and cloud asks through the Inception Benefits Catalog, rebate programmes, DGX Cloud credits and preferred pricing.
Build the partner and reseller motion. Work with OEMs, resellers, cloud and NVIDIA Cloud Partners and system integrators so that start-up demand converts cleanly into fulfilled orders and deployed capacity.
Deepen the ecosystem. Build durable relationships with the region’s VCs and accelerators through the Inception VC Alliance, and with research parks, IITs and university incubators, government innovation bodies and industry associations, to generate high-quality inbound and give members a route to capital and customers.
Land the technical value. Partner with solution architects and developer relations to get members productive on the NVIDIA stack — NIM, NeMo, Nemotron, Riva, Isaac Sim, Omniverse, Morpheus, Clara, Jetson, DGX and AI Enterprise — and drive Deep Learning Institute training, hackathons, workshops and bring-your-own-project days at scale.
Tell the region’s story. Work with developer and Inception marketing on co-marketing plans, technical blogs, member showcases, testimonials and video, and represent Inception at GTC, AI Summits, and regional start-up and investor events.
Run the programme cleanly. Own member onboarding, tier qualification, data hygiene and reporting in NVIDIA’s programme and CRM systems, so that regional performance is measurable and auditable.
Bring the market back to NVIDIA. Feed structured intelligence on regional workloads, competitive pressure, sovereign AI initiatives and funding trends to product, field and executive stakeholders.
What we need to see:
12+ years of experience across start-up ecosystem development, developer or partner programmes, technology alliances, business development or technical sales — with at least 5 years leading and developing a team.
BS/BTech in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or a related technical field, or equivalent experience. MBA or advanced degree welcome.
Demonstrated ownership of a commercial target in a technology business, with a track record of turning early-stage relationships into revenue, design wins or measurable platform adoption.
Working technical fluency in AI and accelerated computing: you can hold a credible conversation with a founder or CTO about model training and inference, GPU selection and sizing, on-premises versus cloud trade-offs, and where NVIDIA’s software stack fits.
Deep, current knowledge of the South Asian start-up ecosystem — founders, investors, accelerators, incubators, research institutions and the policy environment — and the network to open doors quickly.
Proven success operating in a large, matrixed organization, influencing sales, marketing, engineering and executive stakeholders without formal authority.
Outstanding written and verbal communication; comfort presenting to founders, investors and NVIDIA executives with equal ease.
Willingness to travel frequently across the region.
Ways to stand out from the crowd:
Direct experience at a start-up, VC firm, accelerator or incubator — you know how founders actually make decisions and where programmes create or destroy value for them.
Hands-on background with GPU infrastructure, cluster deployment or MLOps, or prior experience as a solution architect or developer advocate.
Experience building go-to-market motions with cloud providers, OEMs, resellers or system integrators in India.
A public track record in the AI community — speaking, writing, or convening founders and investors.
Experience with sovereign AI, regulated-industry AI (healthcare, financial services, public sector) or edge and robotics deployments in emerging markets.