Director, Business Development — Oil & Gas

Saronic Technologies

About The Position

Saronic Technologies is hiring a senior, hands-on business development leader to bring its autonomous and technology-enabled marine capabilities to offshore energy customers. The role connects customer discovery, product development, and commercial execution, using industry relationships to understand operational needs, collaborating with technical teams to shape relevant capabilities, and converting validated solutions into contracts. This is a senior individual-contributor role with executive-level scope and substantial autonomy. The Director owns account strategy and commercial execution from initial customer conversations through proposal, negotiation, and contract award, working with Saronic’s product, engineering, operations, and leadership teams. The role covers the Gulf of America and international markets and requires a discovery-led approach, evidence-based forecasting, and close collaboration with customers and technical teams. Success is measured by access to budget owners, the quality of validated customer insight, creation and progression of qualified pipeline, and conversion into awards and revenue. Specific targets will be agreed with the Vice President, Commercial within the first weeks.

Requirements

At least 15 years in offshore oil and gas business development, commercial leadership, logistics, or marine support, with a record of originating and winning complex, multi-stakeholder deals.
A deep, current network among Gulf of America operators and offshore drilling contractors, including established relationships in logistics, marine support, supply chain, and operations.
Demonstrated access to relevant decision-makers and a record of turning trusted relationships into commercial results.
Demonstrated success extending relationships, establishing contacts, and developing commercial opportunities across international offshore markets.
Practical command of offshore operations, logistics, and marine support, including the costs of service disruptions to operators.
Experience with discovery-led, consultative senior-level selling: diagnosing problems, validating impact, building a case for change, and navigating complex buying organizations.
Exceptional listening and questioning skills, including understanding customer motivations, constraints, and concerns, testing assumptions, and confirming understanding before proposing solutions.
Commercial and financial fluency in total cost of ownership, pricing, margins, and contract structures, along with strong executive communication and negotiation skills.
Self-direction, urgency, sustained momentum, personal accountability, follow-through, information sharing, and commitment to team success.
Demonstrated ability to translate customer needs into clear capability requirements, collaborate with technical teams on specifications and priorities, and use customer feedback to improve products and commercial outcomes.
Practical understanding of operator and driller vendor and technology qualification, including health, safety and environmental (HSE) requirements and technical approval processes, and the ability to navigate these with customer and internal teams.
Ability to work with ambiguity, build a new commercial market, and adapt as evidence and priorities evolve.
Ability to work effectively in executive settings and on vessel decks.

Nice To Haves

An MBA or relevant advanced degree.
Working experience applying Gap Selling and Level 5 listening, including tactical empathy and seeing situations from the customer’s point of view.
Experience commercializing new marine technology or building new offshore service models.

Responsibilities

Develop a focused market and account plan, prioritizing customers whose offshore needs match Saronic’s capabilities across the Gulf of America and international markets.
Use industry relationships to reach logistics leaders, marine managers, operations executives, procurement, and budget owners, and build multiple relationships within each target account.
Lead structured customer discovery to establish current operations, underlying problems, business impact, and desired future state before proposing solutions.
Build evidence-based business cases for change using information validated by customers.
Create qualified opportunities with named stakeholders, mapped decision processes, identified funding paths and timelines, and mutually agreed next steps.
Own opportunities from initial engagement through proposal, negotiation, customer evaluations against defined success criteria, and contract award.
Translate customer discovery into capability requirements and product specifications in collaboration with technical product and engineering teams, keeping customer needs and business economics central to product decisions.
Monitor customer evaluations against agreed success criteria and provide product teams with structured feedback on performance, capability gaps, and adoption barriers.
Bring validated product improvements back to customers without making unsupported commitments.
Maintain current CRM records, forecast from evidence, report concisely each week, and disengage from opportunities no longer supported by evidence.
Document and share repeatable account strategies, adapting them to regional buying practices and customer approval processes.
Navigate operator and driller vendor and technology qualification processes, including HSE requirements and technical approvals, in coordination with customer and internal teams.

Benefits

Comprehensive medical insurance; Saronic pays 100% of employee premiums and 80% of dependent premiums.
Dental and vision insurance; Saronic pays 100% of employee premiums under the basic plan and 80% of dependent premiums.
Generous paid time off and holidays.
Paid maternity and paternity leave.
Competitive salary with opportunities for performance-based bonuses.
401(k) plan with company match.
Stock options.
Basic life insurance and short- and long-term disability coverage.
Discounted pet insurance options, including a 24/7 telehealth helpline.
Free lunch benefit and unlimited free drinks and snacks in the office.