Director, DoN Growth Campaign Leader (X-BAT Family of Systems) (R6365)

Shield AI•Dallas, TX

11h

About The Position

Shield AI is seeking a Director, DoN Growth Campaign Leader to lead the internal operating rhythm for the company’s Department of the Navy (DoN) unmanned aircraft system pursuits, including the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. The role integrates information across concurrent X-BAT Family of Systems campaigns and gives the VP, Mission Solutions a decision-ready view of campaign health, priorities, dependencies, risks, mitigations, and resource requirements. Opportunity-focused Go-To-Market (GTM) leaders retain ownership of customer relationships, account and capture strategies, win strategies, price-to-win, proposal content, and pursuit outcomes; this role enables their success by coordinating the broader organization and resolving shared-resource friction. The Director connects DoN pursuits with activity across other Services, allied and partner nations, product and engineering, government approvals, aircraft availability, ship and at-sea test windows, airworthiness and shipboard suitability, internal investment, and industrial strategy. The position maintains the authoritative DoN campaign picture and operating cadence, including campaign reviews, risk and dependency management, executive dashboards, action tracking, investment recommendations, and escalation of decisions requiring VP or executive attention. It is accountable for integrated campaign planning, campaign-health reporting, cross-campaign risk and conflict escalation, the path-to-win roadmap, and recommendations on investment prioritization and sequencing. This is a senior, high-visibility leadership-by-influence role spanning multiple concurrent Navy and Marine Corps pursuits across the X-BAT FoS, representing a multi-billion-dollar addressable opportunity. It leverages dedicated capture-operations and analyst support, with an expectation to build the team as the portfolio scales. The Director develops and co-stewards annual campaign and indirect investment against prioritized returns, holds a standing seat in DoN bid/no-bid and investment-prioritization reviews, and sets the agenda for executive campaign reviews. The role is described as a pipeline toward senior DoN growth or general-management leadership at Shield AI. The Director also personally drives execution of critical customer responses, including RFIs, RFPs, CSOs, and other solicitation vehicles, by assembling cross-functional inputs, managing schedules, and driving on-time submission. The responsible GTM lead retains ownership of win strategy, price-to-win, and proposal content. External customer engagement by the Director takes place in support of, and at the invitation of, the responsible GTM lead. Shield AI’s core values are Do What Honor Dictates, Live as a Servant Leader, and Pursue Excellence. The role calls for servant leadership, with success measured by the outcomes of the GTM leads it supports. The position is a full-time regular employee role. The listed base salary range is $190,000–$290,000 per year; final compensation depends on experience, clearance, and location. The full-time regular employee offer package includes pay within the listed range, bonus, benefits, and equity. Relocation support is available where applicable.

Requirements

Be a U.S. person as defined by ITAR (22 CFR 120.62).
Be able to obtain and maintain a DoD Top Secret/SCI clearance and Special Access Program (SAP) eligibility.
Have 12–20+ years of experience in capture management, program management, strategic operations, business operations, technical program management, or a comparable cross-functional leadership role.
Demonstrate success leading highly complex initiatives with interdependent workstreams across engineering, business development, operations, finance, and executive leadership.
Have working knowledge of Department of the Navy funding and fielding processes, including ASN(RD&A), NAVAIR program-office dynamics (particularly PAE(A)) and unmanned aviation, Navy and Marine Corps resource sponsorship and requirements staffing (N9/N98), the Marine Corps aviation requirements process, and the PPBE/POM cycle and Navy budget submission rhythm.
Understand rapid-acquisition pathways such as OTAs, CSOs, Middle Tier of Acquisition, SBIR/STRATFI, DIU, ONR, and NavalX, including transition from prototype to program of record.
Demonstrate ability to influence without direct authority and drive accountability across functions and geographies.
Have strong executive communication skills, including leadership briefings, dashboards, metrics, and decision-support materials that lead to decisions.
Have operational rigor in integrated schedules, critical paths, milestones, action tracking, dependency management, and risk mitigation.
Be comfortable working in ambiguous, fast-changing environments with competing priorities across multiple time zones.
Have a working understanding of naval aviation dependencies, including NAVAIR airworthiness and flight-clearance processes, shipboard integration and suitability, environmental and marinization requirements, ship and at-sea test-window availability, and DT/OT execution at Patuxent River and associated ranges.
Demonstrate a service orientation toward supported GTM leads and sound judgment about when to escalate versus resolve issues quietly.

Nice To Haves

Active DoD Top Secret/SCI clearance and current Special Access Program accesses.
Experience supporting Department of Defense, aerospace, autonomy, robotics, aviation, or defense-technology organizations.
Naval aviation background through U.S. Navy or Marine Corps operational, test, staff, or acquisition experience, or equivalent industry experience delivering aircraft to the Department of the Navy.
Experience in business development, capture, proposal operations, strategic planning, or growth organizations running multiple concurrent U.S. Government pursuits.
Familiarity with export and international mechanisms relevant to DoN pursuits, including foreign disclosure determinations, FMS/DCS pathways, and security cooperation planning.
Experience building executive dashboards, KPIs, operational scorecards, or portfolio health metrics.
Experience supporting executive staff, chief-of-staff organizations, Strategy and Operations teams, or enterprise PMOs.
Fluency with integrated schedule and work-management tools such as Microsoft Project, Smartsheet, or Jira.
An advanced degree or relevant certification such as an MBA, PMP, or Lean Six Sigma.

Responsibilities

Build and maintain an authoritative, integrated DoN campaign picture across X-BAT FoS pursuits, including strategy status, critical paths, milestones, dependencies, decision points, and campaign health.
Enable GTM leads with templates, playbooks, data, competitive inputs, cost and schedule inputs, and cross-functional access to support their capture plans.
Coordinate engineering, product, export, legal, contracts, finance, government relations, and business operations against a prioritized campaign plan.
Identify cross-campaign competition for aircraft, test windows, ship or range availability, engineering effort, approval bandwidth, and indirect funding; present executive leadership with tradeoffs and recommendations.
Run campaign reviews, gate reviews, risk registers, action tracking, and executive dashboards to support timely decisions on bid/no-bid, investment, and prioritization.
Work with Finance and Business Operations to track campaign investment, indirect spending, and resource planning against priorities and expected returns.
Capture lessons from campaigns and develop repeatable tools, templates, metrics, and playbooks; support accountability, urgency, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Personally coordinate execution of critical RFI, RFP, CSO, and other solicitation responses by assembling cross-functional inputs, managing response schedules, and driving on-time submissions.
Develop and co-steward annual campaign and indirect investment against prioritized campaign returns.
Identify and escalate cross-campaign dependencies, conflicts, and risks; provide recommendations on investment prioritization and sequencing.
Support external customer engagement only in support of, and at the invitation of, the responsible GTM lead.