Director of Business Acceleration

Role Overview

Astera Labs is seeking a highly experienced and commercially driven Director of Business Acceleration to accelerate customer engagement, revenue growth, and strategic business execution across our product portfolio.

Key Responsibilities

• Partner closely with sales teams and strategic customers to advance opportunities from early engagement through commercial alignment, negotiations, long-term agreements, contracts, and purchase orders.
• Lead customer engagement strategies and support complex commercial discussions involving business terms, commitments, partnership structures, and long-term collaboration frameworks.
• Develop customer and market insights that help shape engagement strategies, competitive positioning, and revenue growth initiatives.
• Collaborate with Product Management and business leaders to ensure customer engagements align with broader product and business objectives.
• Create customer segment and regional playbooks that strengthen sales execution and improve win rates.
• Influence cross-functional teams to align around customer priorities, business goals, and operational execution.
• Drive process improvements that help scale the organization and support rapid business growth.
• Provide visibility and recommendations to executive leadership on key customer opportunities, strategic partnerships, and critical commercial decisions.
• Lead strategic customer deal pipelines from opportunity identification through commercial alignment, contract negotiation, long-term agreement structuring, and revenue conversion.
• Drive critical customer engagements and commercial alignment efforts that support long-term agreements and business growth.
• Persist with sales, Product Management, and executive leadership to structure and advance complex customer opportunities.
• Develop customer, segment, and regional playbooks covering relationship mapping, customer insights, competitive analysis, solution positioning, and negotiation strategies.
• Conduct win/loss analyses and market assessments to improve commercial effectiveness and customer engagement.
• Collaborate across sales, operations, product management, finance, and executive leadership to accelerate strategic customer opportunities.
• Support executive-level customer interactions and negotiations, helping drive alignment toward mutually beneficial business outcomes.
• Drive business process innovation through identification and implementation of operational improvements, tools, and scalable business practices.
• Monitor market trends, customer requirements, and competitive dynamics within cloud and AI infrastructure markets.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Supply Chain, Business, Marketing, or a related field.
• 12+ years of experience in product management, sourcing, supply chain, operations, sales, business management, business development, or other customer-facing roles within the semiconductor industry.
• Must have strong contracting and negotiation expertise, including experience structuring and negotiating long-term commercial agreements with customers.
• Demonstrated success influencing customer decision-making and leading negotiations resulting in strategic agreements, contracts, purchase orders, or long-term partnerships.
• Strong strategic thinking and analytical skills, with the ability to translate customer challenges into business opportunities and actionable engagement strategies.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to influence both technical and business stakeholders, including executive leadership.
• Ability to collaborate across cross-functional teams and drive alignment within complex organizations.
• Proven ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.
• Willingness to travel as required for customer meetings, industry events, and business engagements.

Preferred Qualifications

• Deep experience leading high-visibility customer negotiations and structuring complex long-term commercial agreements.
• Experience negotiating strategic commercial agreements involving technology adoption, supply commitments, product roadmaps, or long-term business partnerships.
• Demonstrated ability to develop customer strategies, competitive analyses, and go-to-market frameworks.
• Broad understanding of high-speed connectivity technologies, including PCIe®, Ethernet, CXL®, NVLink™, UALink™, and related industry standards.
• Experience working with hyperscalers, cloud service providers, AI platform companies, or large enterprise customers.
• Experience driving business transformation, operational scale, or process improvement initiatives.
• Track record of influencing executive stakeholders and leading complex cross-functional programs.