Vice President, Business Development

Remote

Business Development

This role begins as a 90-day independent contractor engagement, with the potential (not guaranteed) to convert to a full-time position. You will lead Aclima's business development efforts and drive commercial priorities, execution, and results. You will serve as a trusted commercial representative of Aclima, exercising independent judgment in consequential customer and partner discussions and making decisions within agreed authority. You will occasionally brief the board on commercial performance, pipeline outlook, and strategic recommendations.

You will lead opportunities from qualification and customer discovery through proposal development, commercial negotiation, contracting, and handoff to delivery. You will coordinate internal specialists, maintain momentum across customer stakeholders, and bring clear recommendations when executive decisions are needed. Success means closing business, creating opportunities for expansion, and enabling the CSO and co-founder to delegate commercial execution with confidence.

For now, this is a hands-on role with no direct reports. You will personally conduct outreach, lead customer meetings, write proposals, negotiate terms, and manage the pipeline. You must be able to sell an evolving technical offering and turn early customer engagements into a repeatable commercial approach.

• Taken the lead on business development efforts and priority opportunities, reducing the CSO's involvement in day-to-day pipeline management.
• Converted priority opportunities into signed, funded engagements where feasible and advanced others through agreed customer purchasing milestones.
• Established clear paths from initial engagements to continuing service or expansion.
• Developed reusable proposals, commercial approaches, and customer insights that strengthen the pipeline.
• Maintained a credible pipeline and demonstrated clear judgment about priorities, forecasts, and use of company resources.

Specific commercial targets will be outlined in the contractor agreement. These describe what we hope to see during the engagement and are not conditions for conversion. Any offer of a full-time role is at Aclima's sole discretion, based on business needs, budget, and overall fit, regardless of whether these goals are met.

• Own selected strategic accounts and opportunities, including those initiated by the CSO, from qualification through signed agreement and delivery handoff.
• Establish each opportunity's customer need, executive sponsor, budget owner, decision process, purchasing requirements, and path to close.
• Create a viable commercial path where no established buying process exists: develop the business case, build internal sponsorship, identify potential funding sources, and shape an engagement the customer can approve.
• Lead development of proposals, scopes, pricing, and commercial terms with input from product, engineering, science, finance, and legal. Ensure commitments reflect delivery capacity and sound economics.
• Manage the pipeline: lead customer conversations, coordinate contributors, resolve obstacles, and maintain clear ownership of next steps. Use independent judgment and bring specific recommendations when executive approval is needed.

• Structure initial engagements to support continuing services, additional locations, and repeatable offerings.
• Build deep, trusted relationships with customers, industry leaders, and decision-makers to develop new business within agreed priority markets. Recommend where to concentrate or discontinue effort. Work with external lobbyists and government affairs…