Unify
Director of Business Development
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Commercial Partnerships (Sales Development) Director
Role Purpose
Reporting to a senior executive leader, the Commercial Partnerships Director is responsible for shaping and delivering the organisation's commercial growth strategy, driving revenue generation, developing strategic partnerships, and ensuring the organisation remains closely aligned with the evolving needs of customers, partners, industry, and government stakeholders.
The role leads a multidisciplinary commercial function encompassing business development, sales operations, bid management, and work-winning activities. Operating within a complex matrix environment, the successful candidate will be accountable for revenue growth, commercial performance, strategic partnerships, and the delivery of measurable organisational impact.
Key Responsibilities
- Develop, refine, and implement the organisation's commercial strategy, ensuring alignment with corporate objectives, market opportunities, and broader sector priorities.
- Drive commercial success through the identification, development, and conversion of high-value contracts, strategic partnerships, and collaborative opportunities.
- Provide commercial leadership and governance across major bids, proposals, and negotiations, ensuring commercially robust, strategically aligned, and financially sound outcomes.
- Build and maintain senior-level relationships across industry, government, academia, and partner organisations to influence strategic opportunities and secure long-term collaboration.
- Lead and develop a high-performing commercial leadership team, fostering a culture of growth, accountability, and customer focus.
- Identify emerging market opportunities and translate them into compelling value propositions that deliver measurable customer and stakeholder outcomes.
- Coordinate cross-functional teams to ensure alignment between commercial objectives, programme delivery, and organisational priorities.
- Maintain oversight of sales pipelines, forecasting, budgets, and commercial performance, ensuring revenue and margin targets are achieved.
- Lead commercial negotiations, contract development, and risk management activities across a diverse portfolio of opportunities.
- Monitor, analyse, and report on key performance indicators, strategic milestones, and commercial outcomes to executive leadership.
- Act as a senior escalation point for complex commercial challenges, providing innovative and pragmatic solutions to achieve business objectives.
- Make informed decisions in complex stakeholder environments, balancing commercial, operational, and strategic considerations.
- Represent the organisation at conferences, industry forums, and stakeholder events, acting as an ambassador for its capabilities and strategic ambitions.
- Identify opportunities to enhance market visibility, support sector growth, and strengthen domestic and international engagement.
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Essential Experience and Knowledge
- Demonstrable success in business development, sales, and commercial leadership, with a track record of securing high-value contracts and strategic partnerships.
- Extensive industry network and strong understanding of market dynamics, funding mechanisms, stakeholder landscapes, and emerging commercial opportunities.
- Strong understanding of advanced technologies and their application in solving complex operational, industrial, and governmental challenges.
- Proven ability to lead and inspire senior, cross-functional teams within complex matrix organisations.
- Significant experience developing and executing commercial strategies that deliver sustainable growth and market expansion.
- Strong stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to build trusted relationships and translate customer requirements into actionable commercial and technical solutions.
- Excellent communication and influencing skills, with experience engaging senior executives, government stakeholders, and industry leaders.
- Accomplished public speaker capable of translating complex technical concepts into compelling strategic narratives.
- Extensive experience leading high-value proposals, business cases, and commercial negotiations.
- Strong analytical and strategic thinking capability, with the ability to navigate ambiguity and develop customer-centric solutions to complex challenges.
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Desirable Experience and Knowledge
- Understanding of dual-use technologies and their application across commercial, government, security, and defence sectors.
- Experience working within technology, innovation, research, aerospace, space, defence, or other advanced engineering environments.
- Knowledge of public sector procurement, innovation funding mechanisms, and collaborative research programmes.
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