Business Development Lead

We are building the world's decision infrastructure: the strategic twin of every industrial organization for complex combinatorial problems. We unlocked what wasn't possible before: mapping reality with its levers and constraints into a computer, then running n-dimensional optimization on critical value-chain decisions. We help Europe stay strong and the German Mittelstand make good decisions between market shifts, orders, machines and people.

Founded by Dana (CEO) and Erik (CTO) from RWTH research, backed by a €2.8M round led by Vorwerk Ventures, with customers live on our optimization models.

We move fast. We care. No patience for problems left unsolved.

Your mission

This is not a traditional sales role. We are looking for a Business Development Lead to own our entire go-to-market: how we are positioned, which channels we build, which partners we choose, which customers we go after and the deals themselves. Everything between us and the market is yours. Pipeline comes first, and you carry your own accounts to signature. You are the first hire next to Dana for the commercial side of the company, and the first person who does strategy with her rather than for someone else. There is no layer between you and the decision, nobody here writes a recommendation for someone else to act on. You will sit in board and investor conversations, and in front of the managing directors of the companies we sell to.

You will operate as a strategic player-coach with a high intensity in execution: roughly 60-70% of your time in the market with supply chain leaders, leading controllers and managing directors, and roughly 30-40% building the engine behind it.

We will not sugarcoat it: short deadlines, high workload, and a market that has not heard of us yet why you are here.

What you'll own

• Customers and deals. You identify, qualify, run and close them yourself — discovery, Proof of Value, executive sign-off, contract. How you get there is your call: creative, direct, whatever is fastest to a qualified conversation.
• The thesis: which segments, which entry decisions, which price logic, which channels. You own the argument, not just the execution, and you correct it when the data disagrees. Recurring market requirements go to Product with frequency and evidence, not as anecdotes and you co-own the direction and the decisions that are being made on eye level.
• Demand: positioning and messaging, website structure and copy, outbound campaigns, events and industry associations, case studies from our pilots that engineers and controllers actually believe and the discipline to shut down a project that does not move the company forward.
• Partners: implementation partners, operations consultancies, adjacent vendors. Where co-sell gets us to revenue faster than direct sales, and where we want to build strategic alliances. You build it, including the commercial and legal structure.
• Build your own team, once you have executed on the basis yourself. When the outcomes are sorted, you can hire into your domain, train the people you bring in, and move further into the leading centre of the company as it grows.

Requirements

• 5+ years in consulting, commercial leadership or complex B2B sales into industrial customers, with a technical or analytical foundation: engineering, Operations Research, computer science or similar. What matters most: you have owned outcomes end to end, projects, customers, deadlines and numbers.
• You understand internal structures in larger organisations, how the people and structures are and how to leverage yourself through it with clear qualification.
• Strong in storytelling. You are very precise on the point with the facts while genuinely enjoying to engage with human and make the cake bigger, able to motivate people, be funny and smart enough to turn messy operational problem into a story that a supply chain manager, a controller and a managing director each recognise as their own, on a call and on a page.
• Strong in data understanding and data models. Business cases, ROI logic, channel economics: you build them yourself. Excel counts, and enjoying that work matters more than the tool.
• You are VERY structured and hyper biased for action, and you have shown you play to win wherever life has put you so far.
• German C1 or higher, fluent in English.
• NRW-based (Cologne office), optionally Munich, Stuttgart, Berlin area or else willing to work hybrid. Open to find a way if we fit.

This role is not for you if you would rather direct than do, need clear departmental boundaries to work, need meaningful budget to be effective, or need more than three days before your first customer conversation.

Benefits

• Impact. You work with substance and sell value. You lead and decide.
• Ownership. You choose the strategy, the channels and the people. No approval loops, no discount sign-off across three levels.
• The people next to you. You work directly with the researchers and modellers, have access to tech deliveries and execute and build on eye level with the founders.
• Exposure. You present your own result to the board, you sit in the core strategy conversations, and you stand in front of the managing directors of the companies we sell to and the decision makers we build strategic alliances with.
• Feedback speed. You will know directly what you are up to, we speak out loud, we adjust, we grow. Together.
• High stakes. Competitive salary and relevant room in the equity package (VSOP) to match your contribution and your career development.
  

Process: intro call with Dana, second call with one from the team, a 60 to 90-minute live case exercise, then team conversations online and together in person. Before you decide, ask us to put you on a call with someone who will tell you the good, the bad and the ugly.

"Hustle the day, analyse at night, reinforce something outstanding." Period.