Head of Sovereign Partnerships

Matter Intelligence • San Francisco, CA

3d

About The Position

Matter Intelligence is seeking a Head of Sovereign Partnerships to establish and lead the company’s government and strategic business-development activities across the Indo-Pacific. The Head will initially focus on Japan and South Korea with future opportunities across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The role will be responsible for translating Matter’s technology into country-specific opportunities, establishing relationships with government and industry decision-makers, developing regional market-entry strategies, building qualified pipelines, and converting priority opportunities into funded programs and long-term customer relationships. This is not solely a relationship-management or account-representation position. The Head will own the complete regional business-development and capture lifecycle: market intelligence, account planning, customer discovery, partner development, opportunity qualification, capture strategy, proposal development, procurement navigation, negotiation, and contract conversion. The successful candidate will combine deep knowledge of Indo-Pacific defense and government markets with the ability to operate effectively inside a technically ambitious, early-stage company. This person must be equally comfortable briefing senior government leaders, working through acquisition and contracting details, building partnerships with established aerospace and defense companies, and helping Matter’s technical teams shape products around real customer missions. The Head will work closely with Matter’s executive, engineering, product, legal, finance, and operations teams.

Requirements

• Approximately 8–12 or more years of experience in international business development, government sales, capture management, strategic partnerships, or a closely related field.
• At least five years of relevant experience working with defense, intelligence, space, civil-government, or national-security customers in the Indo-Pacific.
• Demonstrated experience developing and closing complex government, defense, aerospace, technology, data, or enterprise opportunities.
• Track record of managing long-cycle, multi-stakeholder sales and capture processes.
• Strong understanding of government acquisition, procurement, budgeting, contracting, and tender processes in one or more priority Indo-Pacific countries.
• Established network among relevant government, defense, intelligence, aerospace, space, geospatial, or technology stakeholders in the region.
• Experience building country strategies, account plans, capture plans, partner strategies, and qualified pipelines.
• Ability to engage credibly with senior government officials, military officers, intelligence professionals, acquisition personnel, engineers, and industry executives.
• Ability to understand technically complex products and translate them into mission, operational, and economic value.
• Experience coordinating proposals, demonstrations, negotiations, and contracts across multidisciplinary teams.
• Strong commercial judgment, including the ability to distinguish genuine opportunities from unfunded interest.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.
• Ability and willingness to travel extensively throughout the region and periodically to the United States.
• High standards of integrity and demonstrated ability to operate appropriately in sensitive government and international environments.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in Earth observation, remote sensing, spectral imaging, geospatial intelligence, satellite systems, defense technology, aerospace, artificial intelligence, or data and analytics.
• Experience selling to or partnering with defense and intelligence organizations in Japan, South Korea, Australia, or Singapore.
• Demonstrated success closing multi-million-dollar or multi-year government contracts.
• Experience with both direct government sales and partner-led market-entry models.
• Experience working in an early-stage or high-growth technology company.
• Knowledge of U.S. export-control requirements and international technology-transfer considerations.
• Familiarity with sovereign capability requirements, data-residency considerations, industrial-participation programs, offsets, or local-content requirements.
• Experience structuring demonstrations or pilot programs that subsequently converted into operational procurements.
• Professional fluency in Japanese or Korean.
• Additional language capability relevant to Southeast Asia.
• Existing eligibility for access to relevant government, defense, or industry facilities and programs.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute Matter’s government and strategic business-development strategy for the Indo-Pacific.
• Create differentiated market-entry plans for each priority country based on mission demand, acquisition structures, available budgets, local industrial requirements, and Matter’s technical readiness.
• Identify the defense, intelligence, civil-government, scientific, environmental, infrastructure, and commercial missions where Matter’s sensing and intelligence capabilities provide the strongest customer value.
• Prioritize markets and opportunities based on revenue potential, strategic importance, probability of capture, time to contract, technical fit, and required investment.
• Maintain a regional operating plan that defines target countries, priority accounts, opportunity pipelines, expected bookings, partner strategies, and resource requirements.
• Provide Matter’s leadership with clear recommendations regarding where the company should invest, partner, establish a local presence, or defer market entry.
• Establish relationships with defense ministries, armed services, intelligence organizations, civil-government agencies, space agencies, research organizations, and other relevant public-sector institutions.
• Develop trusted relationships with senior mission users, technical stakeholders, acquisition officials, procurement organizations, and executive decision-makers.
• Lead customer discovery to identify operational problems that can be addressed through Matter’s aircraft-based sensors, space-based sensors, satellite systems, data products, and intelligence capabilities.
• Educate customers on Matter’s technology while gathering specific mission, performance, security, integration, contracting, and deployment requirements.
• Develop opportunities for demonstrations, evaluations, pilot programs, research agreements, data purchases, sensor sales, satellite partnerships, and operational programs.
• Build demand before formal procurements are released and help shape requirements around problems Matter is uniquely positioned to solve.
• Navigate country-specific acquisition processes, budget cycles, tender procedures, contracting mechanisms, security requirements, and industrial-participation expectations.
• Represent Matter at senior-level government meetings, industry events, trade missions, exercises, demonstrations, conferences, and partner engagements.
• Own the full lifecycle of qualified Indo-Pacific opportunities from initial identification through contract award.
• Develop capture plans that identify the customer mission, decision-makers, acquisition path, funding source, competitive environment, evaluation criteria, partner strategy, technical solution, pricing considerations, and actions required to win.
• Establish clear qualification standards and avoid committing company resources to poorly defined or low-probability opportunities.
• Maintain accurate account, contact, activity, pipeline, probability, value, timing, and next-action information in Matter’s CRM.
• Build and manage a forecast covering near-term pipeline development, proposal activity, anticipated awards, bookings, and long-term revenue.
• Coordinate internal bid and no-bid decisions with the Head of Government Growth and Matter’s executive and technical leadership.
• Lead or support responses to requests for information, requests for proposals, tenders, grant programs, research solicitations, and other acquisition opportunities.
• Coordinate proposal development across technical, legal, financial, operational, and executive stakeholders.
• Support commercial structuring, pricing, negotiation, and contract closure.
• Develop strategies for converting initial demonstrations or pilot programs into recurring data purchases, larger deployments, satellite programs, or multi-year contracts.
• Identify and develop relationships with regional aerospace and defense primes, satellite operators, system integrators, analytics companies, research organizations, universities, distributors, and specialized local partners.
• Determine where Matter should sell directly, work through a local representative, establish a reseller relationship, join a consortium, subcontract to a prime, or pursue an opportunity as the prime contractor.
• Build joint go-to-market and account plans with strategic partners.
• Evaluate prospective partners based on customer access, technical contribution, contracting position, reputation, incentives, and ability to improve Matter’s probability of winning.
• Develop sovereign or locally integrated solutions where required by customer policy or market conditions.
• Support negotiations involving teaming agreements, memoranda of understanding, reseller arrangements, data partnerships, joint demonstrations, and other strategic agreements.
• Ensure that partner relationships generate measurable access, opportunities, customer insight, or revenue rather than becoming passive affiliations.
• Translate customer missions and operational requirements into clear inputs for Matter’s engineering and product teams.
• Work with technical leaders to define demonstrations, pilot programs, minimum viable capabilities, product configurations, integration approaches, and development priorities.
• Ensure that proposed solutions are technically credible, operationally relevant, commercially viable, and deliverable within agreed timelines.
• Develop a strong working understanding of spectral imaging, Earth observation, remote sensing, geospatial intelligence, satellite systems, aircraft-based collection, data products, and analytics.
• Help create country- and mission-specific sales materials, concept-of-operations documents, technical briefs, demonstration plans, and customer presentations.
• Communicate product limitations and development dependencies honestly while creating credible paths from current capabilities to future operational programs.
• Provide structured feedback on regional customer requirements, competitors, pricing expectations, procurement barriers, and product demand.
• Work with legal and executive leadership to evaluate export-control, sanctions, data-security, technology-transfer, intellectual-property, licensing, and foreign-partner considerations.
• Incorporate applicable U.S. and local-country regulations into account and capture strategies.
• Identify localization, sovereign-control, data-residency, security, offset, local-content, or industrial-participation requirements that could affect an opportunity.
• Help determine when Matter may require local entities, employees, representatives, distributors, facilities, or other forms of in-country presence.
• Conduct appropriate diligence on consultants, representatives, partners, and intermediaries.
• Maintain high standards of ethics, transparency, recordkeeping, and compliance in all government and commercial engagements.
• Serve as Matter’s internal authority on Indo-Pacific government markets, customers, acquisition systems, competitors, and partnership ecosystems.
• Build repeatable regional business-development processes that can scale as Matter grows.
• Coordinate international activity with Matter’s U.S. government-growth strategy so that customer engagement, product development, and partnerships reinforce one another.
• Help determine the timing and structure of future regional hiring.
• Recruit and manage regional personnel, consultants, advisors, representatives, or channel partners as the business justifies expansion.
• Contribute to broader company strategy regarding international markets, product priorities, capital allocation, and organizational growth.
• Present a scalable plan for Matter’s longer-term regional presence, staffing, partnerships, and revenue growth.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation based on experience
• Early-stage equity package
• 100% employer-paid health, dental, and vision coverage
• Opportunity to work on novel sensing, data, and AI systems with real-world deployment paths to the largest industries in the world

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed