Senior Director of Business Development

Key Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and manage the International Business Development team and Portfolio BD Directors, setting clear pursuit priorities, performance expectations, and capture discipline across the organization.
• Establish consistent capture processes and reporting cadences across portfolios and international geographies to give executive leadership a unified view of the BD pipeline.
• Build BD bench strength through coaching, structured pursuit reviews, and hands-on involvement in the highest-priority opportunities.
• Opportunity Prioritization & Capture Strategy
• Apply deep, hands-on knowledge of the general defense capture process — both intra-Department of War (with a domestic U.S. emphasis) and international — to help Portfolio Vice Presidents and BD Directors correctly prioritize opportunities against resourcing and probability of win.
• Partner with Portfolio VPs to assess opportunity qualification, technical fit, and program timing, ensuring pursuit decisions are grounded in operational and technical realism rather than optimism.
• Identify and elevate “bold” plays — strategically significant opportunities that fall outside normal pursuit cadence and require accelerated tasking, dedicated resources, and direct executive sponsorship to pursue credibly.
• Price-to-Win Strategy
• Work directly with Portfolio Vice Presidents and Finance to develop and refine price-to-win strategy for priority pursuits, balancing competitive positioning against margin and delivery realities.
• Bring technical and operational judgment to price-to-win discussions, ensuring cost and schedule assumptions reflect genuine system and program maturity rather than aspirational positioning.
• Standardize a repeatable price-to-win methodology that can be applied consistently across portfolios and international campaigns.
• Executive Alignment & Strategic Reporting
• Report directly to the Chief Strategy Officer on BD pipeline health, prioritization decisions, resourcing gaps, and pursuit outcomes.
• Ensure BD priorities remain aligned with company vision and strategic plan, flagging misalignment between pursuit activity and corporate direction early.
• Proactively highlight resource needs — people, funding, or executive engagement — required to win priority pursuits, and make the case for reallocation when warranted.
• Serve as a key voice in strategic planning discussions, ensuring BD perspective informs company-level investment and portfolio decisions.

Required Qualifications

• Minimum of 5 years of business development experience within a successful defense start-up or a major defense prime, with direct responsibility for an emerging product line.
• Deep understanding of the general defense capture process, both intra-Department of War and international, with particular strength in domestic U.S. capture.
• Strong technical and operational pedigree sufficient to credibly guide Portfolio Vice Presidents and BD Directors on opportunity prioritization and technical fit.
• Demonstrated experience developing price-to-win strategy in direct partnership with Finance and Portfolio/Program leadership.
• Prior experience managing, mentoring, or directly leading a team of business development professionals.
• Able to operate effectively at the executive level, translating strategy into resourced, prioritized action across a distributed BD organization.
• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree in business, engineering, or a related field preferred.
• Active U.S. Secret clearance required.

Preferred

• 10 years of business development experience
• Top Secret/SCI clearance
• Prior U.S. military experience (uniformed or civilian) in a role relevant to weapons systems, capability development, and acquisition
• Experience leading BD across multiple mission areas or product portfolios simultaneously
• Established relationships across the U.S. Department of War acquisition community and/or international defense customers
• Experience standing up or maturing a formal capture and price-to-win process within a growing organization

CORE COMPETENCIES

• Executive judgment — balances technical realism, financial discipline, and strategic ambition when prioritizing pursuits.
• Team leadership — builds, coaches, and holds accountable a distributed team of BD Directors across portfolios and geographies.
• Capture process mastery — fluent in both domestic DoW and international capture pathways, from qualification through award.
• Cross-functional financial acumen — partners credibly with Finance and Portfolio VPs on price-to-win and margin trade-offs.
• Strategic communication — translates pipeline complexity into clear, decision-ready input for the Chief Strategy Officer and executive leadership.

Pay Range

$225,000 USD - $250,000 USD