Director of Government Relations

About Poseidon Aerospace:

Poseidon Aerospace is reimagining how the world moves goods. We build and operate full-size autonomous cargo aircraft;
Heron, a seaplane, and Egret, a STOL aircraft; each capable of carrying two tons of payload over a thousand nautical miles. From remote communities to contested logistics operations, our platforms unlock a new cost curve for air freight, making it faster, cheaper, and accessible anywhere it’s needed. Headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Washington, DC and Maine, we’re a small team building something consequential.

About the role:

We are looking for a Director of Government Relations to own Poseidon’s engagement with the federal government across both the legislative and executive branches. You will run our authorizations and appropriations strategy and our executive and interagency strategy, with the objective of converting mission needs into funded programs and enduring support for Poseidon’s platforms.

You will personally carry the work on the Hill and across the agencies, and as the function grows, you will build and lead the team behind it. You should be a self-starter who finds the path to an outcome and walks it.

What you’ll do:

Congressional and legislative strategy

• Define and lead Poseidon’s congressional strategy across the NDAA, defense, and homeland security appropriations, and oversight.

• Identify, draft, and advocate for authorization and report language that supports Poseidon’s platforms and the industrial base behind them.

• Drive annual appropriations and authorization campaigns to support program starts, plus-ups, and multi-year funding profiles that have direct and material impact on revenue.

• Build and maintain deep, trust-based relationships with Members and staff on HASC, SASC, HAC-D, SAC-D, and related subcommittees.

• Monitor, analyze, and engage the annual congressional policy making process, with particular focus on appropriations and defense and homeland security policy.

Executive branch and interagency strategy

• Engage the executive branch and interagency at senior levels to shape requirements, resourcing, and policy in Poseidon’s favor.

• Draft Poseidon’s congressional and executive-branch requests, and determine when, where, and how Poseidon can drive favorable outcomes.

• Serve as the primary relationship owner across relevant executive agencies and offices, translating their priorities into Poseidon’s program strategy and vice versa.

• Build constructive working relationships with regulators to streamline the approvals Poseidon needs to operate and test.

Function-building and cross-functional leadership

• Design, implement, and drive GR strategy across multiple business lines and spanning multiple fiscal years, aligned to corporate strategy.

• Work with growth and business-line leadership to identify business and policy opportunities and advise on the legislative and resourcing strategies to capture them.

• Lead coordination across communications, legal, corporate development, and engineering to execute in support of company-wide priorities.

• Stand up the systems, cadence, and eventually the team that scale the GR function as Poseidon grows.

Outreach, representation, and political engagement

• Draft and manage Poseidon’s engagement materials: white papers, one-pagers, decks, talking points, testimony, and hearing prep.

• Plan and execute Member and staff visits, demonstrations, and facility tours.

• Manage external lobbyists and consultants, and represent Poseidon in industry coalitions, trade associations, and think tanks.

• Support Poseidon’s Political Action Committee priorities and strategy.

Required qualifications:

• 7+ years of experience in the national security, government relations, or federal legislative or executive arena, with significant Capitol Hill engagement.

• Extensive defense and national security experience on Capitol Hill, in the executive branch, or in a comparable defense-industry government-relations position.

• Demonstrated success planning and implementing strategies that influence change in the legislative, policy, and budget process, with a track record of outcomes through the NDAA and defense or homeland security appropriations.

• Deep, working…