Senior Staff Site Acquisition and Business Development Program Manager

Zipline • South San Francisco, CA

16h • Hybrid

About The Position

Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service, aiming to serve all humans equally by ensuring access to essential goods. They operate the world’s largest autonomous logistics system, making millions of deliveries globally. Zipline is seeking practical problem solvers who thrive on real-world challenges and rapid growth, motivated by building systems with a meaningful impact. The Senior Staff Site Acquisition & Business Development Program Manager will build the operating systems, tools, processes, reporting, and external-facing materials to scale site acquisition and business development across North America. This role requires a blend of real estate, analytics, execution, systems design, and storytelling expertise. The candidate will move between building pipeline models, improving CRM workflows, creating executive dashboards, supporting reviews, identifying bottlenecks, building playbooks, and developing pitch materials for various stakeholders. The role involves close collaboration with multiple departments including Site Acquisition, Business Development, Legal, Design, Permitting, Construction, Finance, Operations, Marketing, and Communications. The ideal candidate possesses strong real estate judgment, analytical ability, execution discipline, and excellent written communication skills. This is a high-intensity, fast-paced role requiring periods of extended hours, weekend work, and availability outside standard business hours. The position is hybrid with required in-office collaboration and may require up to 10% travel.

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience in site acquisition, real estate, business development, infrastructure development, strategic operations, program management, telecom, EV charging, logistics, retail expansion, renewable energy, or another multi-site deployment environment.
• Deep understanding of real estate workflows, including sourcing, qualification, LOIs, leases, access agreements, diligence, legal review, landlord negotiations, and handoff to deployment teams.
• Strong analytical and modeling skills, with the ability to build planning models, forecasting tools, dashboards, and decision-support materials.
• Experience building scalable systems, processes, playbooks, templates, reporting structures, or operating mechanisms for high-growth teams.
• Strong commercial judgment and the ability to understand how deal terms impact design, permitting, construction, operations, cost, timing, and risk.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to create clear, persuasive materials for both internal and external audiences.
• Ability to translate complex real estate, technical, operational, and deployment concepts into simple messaging that landlords, brokers, municipalities, and strategic partners can understand.
• Experience creating or managing pitch decks, collateral, website content, presentations, FAQs, business cases, or sales enablement materials.
• Strong cross-functional leadership skills and comfort working across Legal, Design, Permitting, Construction, Finance, Operations, Marketing, Communications, Business Development, and regional acquisition teams.
• High ownership, low ego, and a bias toward action in ambiguous, fast-changing environments.
• Strong attention to detail, especially around deal documentation, data integrity, external-facing materials, approval workflows, and handoff requirements.
• Ability to influence without direct authority and drive accountability across senior stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

• Experience supporting multi-region or national real estate acquisition programs.
• Experience with Salesforce or similar CRM systems, including pipeline architecture, reporting, dashboards, and data quality improvements.
• Experience working with legal teams on real estate contracting workflows, redline triage, approval processes, or template management.
• Familiarity with permitting, construction, design, utility coordination, zoning, access, title, easements, aviation, logistics, or other deployment-heavy functions.
• Experience building landlord collateral, broker programs, market launch materials, real estate pitch decks, partner-facing websites, or inbound acquisition funnels.
• Experience partnering with Marketing, Brand, Communications, or Product Marketing teams.
• Experience in a high-growth, hyperscale, infrastructure-heavy, or operationally intense environment.
• Strong spreadsheet, dashboarding, presentation, or business intelligence skills.
• Knowledge of commercial real estate, distributed infrastructure, logistics networks, retail expansion, telecom, EV charging, renewable energy, or industrial site development.

Responsibilities

• Own and improve the operating mechanisms that support Site Acquisition and Business Development across North America.
• Build and maintain planning, forecasting, pipeline, capacity, and performance models for the site acquisition organization.
• Develop dashboards and reporting that give leadership visibility into pipeline health, market progress, conversion, cycle time, blockers, forecasted closings, and deployment readiness.
• Create scalable tools, workflows, templates, and processes for sourcing, qualification, deal review, legal intake, stakeholder approvals, handoff readiness, and post-signature tracking.
• Partner with regional Site Acquisition Leads and Managers to identify where deals are getting stuck and build practical solutions that improve speed, consistency, and deal quality.
• Support recurring operating rhythms, including business reviews, pipeline reviews, executive updates, regional performance reviews, and cross-functional working sessions.
• Build and maintain playbooks for site acquisition, business development, broker engagement, landlord outreach, site qualification, objection handling, escalation paths, and handoff standards.
• Improve CRM discipline by refining stage definitions, required fields, reporting structure, pipeline hygiene, forecasting inputs, and data quality standards.
• Help define and maintain guardrails for deal terms, site requirements, landlord obligations, access rights, construction rights, utility needs, renewal rights, assignment rights, termination rights, and escalation requirements.
• Partner with Legal, Design, Permitting, Construction, Finance, and Operations to reduce rework, improve handoff quality, and ensure sites are structured for successful deployment.
• Develop external-facing enablement materials, including pitch decks, landlord one-pagers, broker materials, market launch decks, FAQs, objection-handling guides, case studies, and site host presentations.
• Partner with Marketing, Communications, Brand, and Business Development on website updates, partner-facing messaging, landing pages, inbound funnels, and other materials that support site acquisition and market expansion.
• Turn field feedback into clearer messaging, stronger collateral, better tools, and more effective acquisition strategies.
• Support market development efforts by identifying creative ways to generate inbound interest, improve broker engagement, increase landlord confidence, and strengthen Zipline’s presence in priority markets.
• Create feedback loops between Site Acquisition and downstream teams so lessons from Design, Permitting, Construction, Legal, and Operations improve future site selection, deal structure, and partner messaging.
• Drive cross-functional initiatives from ambiguity to execution, ensuring accountability against commitments, milestones, and business outcomes.

Benefits

• Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws or our own sensibilities.
• We value diversity at Zipline and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech.

What This Job Offers

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