Head of Business Development
About The Position
Horizen Labs is hiring a Head of Business Development to build and lead its commercial engine as quantum computing moves from research into real enterprise value. The role owns partnerships and revenue, identifying enterprises, ecosystem partners, and research institutions to adopt the company’s solutions and converting early interest into signed, recurring contracts. Reporting to the CEO, the Head of Business Development will set BD strategy, build the pipeline, close strategic deals, and grow a team as revenue scales. The role works closely with Engineering and Product, which lead deep technical discovery, while leading customer relationships, deals, and partnerships.
Requirements
- At least 7 years in enterprise business development, strategic partnerships, or strategic sales in deep tech, HPC, cloud, AI infrastructure, or other complex technical platforms.
- At least 3 years leading a function or team.
- A track record of building commercial traction from an early stage, such as taking frontier technology from $0 to $1M+ ARR or landing marquee design partners and multi-year contracts with Fortune 500 enterprises.
- Experience closing complex, high-value deals with long sales cycles and multiple stakeholders across the C-suite, R&D, and procurement.
- An established network in Defense, enterprise R&D, the cloud and HPC ecosystem, or the quantum industry.
- Technical fluency in quantum computing, HPC, or advanced simulation sufficient to discuss use cases, constraints, and value credibly.
- Comfort with both strategic leadership and hands-on work, including personally running outbound efforts and negotiations.
Nice To Haves
- Quantum industry experience is strongly preferred.
- Relevant backgrounds include BD or GTM leadership at a Series A–C quantum or deep tech startup; Director of Strategic Partnerships or Alliances at a cloud or HPC vendor; or enterprise sales leadership for complex technical platforms.
Responsibilities
- Set BD strategy by defining target verticals, ideal customer profiles, priority accounts, the annual BD plan, and revenue targets.
- Build and own the pipeline by generating and qualifying opportunities through outbound efforts, executive networks, events, and partner referrals, with disciplined forecasting.
- Lead strategic deals end to end, including negotiating design partner agreements, paid pilots and proofs of concept, and multi-year platform access and co-development contracts, in partnership with Legal and Finance.
- Convert pilots into recurring revenue by agreeing on success criteria up front and driving early engagements into multi-year commercial agreements.
- Build strategic partnerships, including co-sell and channel relationships with cloud providers and marketplaces, HPC vendors, systems integrators, hardware partners, universities, and national labs.
- Shape pricing and packaging for access, software, and services in collaboration with Product and Finance.
- Share customer, partner, and competitive insights with Product and Engineering to inform roadmap priorities.
- Represent Horizen Labs at conferences and in industry consortia, and engage with analysts, investors, and government stakeholders.
- Identify and secure co-development grants and government programs alongside partners.
- Hire and lead a BD and partnerships team as revenue scales.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Director
Education Level
No Education Listed
