Vice President, Business Development

About the Role

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.

What Success Looks Like in the First 90 Days

• 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.

Responsibilities

Sales Execution and Account Ownership

• 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.

Market Development and Expansion

• 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 teams to advance these priorities.
• Work with marketing and community engagement to connect customer needs and community demand with a clear offering and funded deployment.

Sales Infrastructure and Operating Discipline

• Maintain a disciplined CRM process and credible pipeline forecast, with concise updates on progress, risks, decisions needed, and expected timing.
• Use AI tools to improve the speed and quality of research, preparation, proposal development, and commercial execution.

Must-have Qualifications

• A record of independently leading business development or a comparable commercial mandate and personally closing complex B2B or institutional sales, including paid pilots, technical services, software, data products, or comparable offerings.
• Experience selling an emerging product or service in a startup or similarly resource-constrained environment.
• Demonstrated ability to build and sustain deep relationships with customers, industry leaders, and decision-makers, and independently own strategic accounts through discovery, proposal development, negotiation, procurement, and contracting.
• Experience expanding initial engagements into repeat business, recurring services, or broader deployments.
• Strong commercial writing and executive communication skills, with the ability to make scientific and technical capabilities relevant to customer decisions.
• A demonstrated record of independently leading negotiations with senior decision-makers and making consequential commercial decisions that balance revenue opportunity, pricing, scope, delivery obligations, and the company’s reputation.
• Strong political acumen and confidence working with external lobbyists and government affairs teams, with sound judgment about stakeholder interests, institutional dynamics, and timing.
• High proficiency using AI tools to supercharge commercial work.

What You Bring

• Independent commercial owner: You take responsibility for pipeline results, organize the work required to achieve them, and resolve obstacles autonomously.
• Proven closer: You have personally closed complex, paid engagements involving multiple decision-makers and can explain your role in shaping the offer, negotiating terms, and securing commitment.
• Executive presence: You earn the confidence of senior customer and partner leaders, lead consequential commercial conversations independently, and exercise sound judgment when representing Aclima.
• Strong commercial judgment: You identify the customer’s need, budget, buying process, and reasons to act. You know when to advance an opportunity, change the approach, or stop.
• Independent strategic judgment: You challenge assumptions constructively, develop alternatives when opportunities stall, and recommend where leadership attention and company resources will have the greatest impact.
• Effective seller of emerging technology: You can turn technically complex capabilities into an understandable, purchasable offering while staying grounded in what the company can deliver.
• Resourceful, hands-on operator: You personally conduct outreach, lead meetings, write proposals, negotiate, and maintain the discipline required to move business forward.
• Mission alignment and stakeholder sensitivity: You care about environmental and community outcomes and can build credibility with commercial customers, public officials, technical partners, and community organizations.

Strong Plus

• Experience selling environmental solutions, geospatial analytics, climate technology, enterprise software and services, digital transformation, or other complex technical products, projects, and services. Deep air-quality expertise is not required.

Pay Transparency and Contract Structure

• This role begins as a 90-day independent contractor engagement.
• The engagement ends at the close of the 90-day term unless both parties agree in writing to extend it.
• Aclima may choose to offer a full-time position at its sole discretion; no offer of employment is promised or implied by this engagement.
• Contractor rate: to be agreed with the contractor.

To Apply

Please submit your resume. Be prepared to discuss complex deals you personally closed, the obstacles you overcame, and the commercial results you delivered.

Benefits If Converted to Fte

If Aclima offers and the candidate accepts a full-time position, Aclima offers competitive compensation, equity, and benefits including medical/dental/vision/Life/AD&D/LTD, 401K, wellness credits, and company events. Final compensation and benefits would be confirmed based on the converted role and level.