The rise of the SaaS Account Executive in APAC

Why AE hiring was taking priority

Across the SaaS businesses CherryPeople was working with in APAC in 2025, demand for AE hires was consistently ahead of demand for BDR, SDR or GTM leadership roles.

That’s a meaningful shift in emphasis. Building pipeline matters. Building a leadership bench matters. But in the market at the time, the priority was converting pipeline into closed revenue — and that meant putting experienced closers on the ground.

CherryPeople’s own client hiring activity through this period reflected the same pattern. AE briefs made up the clear majority of the search work coming through the desk.

Revenue roles were getting the attention

When growth expectations sharpen, hiring priorities tend to move toward roles with a direct line to revenue.

That’s what was happening across SaaS businesses in APAC through 2025. Individual contributors who could carry a number and close it — rather than roles further back in the funnel — were where the hiring energy was going.

It wasn’t that BDR and leadership hiring stopped. It was comparatively softer, and less urgent, than the demand for experienced AEs who could start producing quickly.

The best AEs were not necessarily applying

The AEs businesses most wanted to hire in 2025 usually weren’t the ones actively job hunting.

Strong performers with a track record of hitting quota tend to be busy doing exactly that — inside businesses that are, for the most part, trying to keep them. Finding them meant going to the market directly, rather than waiting for an application to land.

That had a direct effect on how searches needed to be run. A job ad was never going to reach the strongest candidates. A proactive, direct approach was.

The AEs worth hiring were rarely the ones applying.

APAC expansion was increasing competition for talent

Through 2025, more SaaS businesses were expanding their commercial footprint across APAC — building out Australia, entering Japan, growing coverage in New Zealand and Singapore.

Each new entrant competing for the same experienced sellers made an already narrow pool narrower still.

That mattered most in markets where relevant SaaS sales experience was hardest to find, and where a candidate with a genuine track record often had several credible options at once.

What this meant for hiring teams in 2025

For hiring teams building out AE functions in this environment, a few things mattered more than usual.

• Moving quickly, because strong candidates weren’t sitting in the market waiting to be found.
• Approaching the market directly, because the best AEs weren’t the ones applying.
• Being realistic about what an experienced AE hire in a competitive, in-demand category actually cost — in time, effort and package.

None of that was unique to APAC. But it was sharper here, in markets where the pool of genuinely experienced SaaS sellers was smaller to begin with.

A snapshot of the market at the time

This reflects what CherryPeople was seeing across its APAC search work in May 2025 — not a live read on where the market stands today.

Markets move. Hiring priorities shift as businesses grow, budgets change and competitive conditions evolve.

That’s the value of keeping a piece like this in the archive — not as ongoing advice, but as a record of what the market was doing at a point in time.