A new and interesting opportunity to work in our growing Business Development team has arisen! We are looking for an experienced and passionate business development expert to join our team delivering the Catapult Space Commercialisation Engine (SCE) at Space Park Leicester. SCE is an innovation mechanism for driving new space-based products and services to market. This role will involve establishing and managing a pipeline of businesses using the SCE, deliver orders, revenues, margin, and market impact in accordance with the aims and objectives of the SCE.  The BD lead will build a solid knowledge of the space ecosystem, developing relationships with stakeholders from across business and academia, reporting on progress and targets for the programme.

We are looking for someone with a passion for supporting and growing businesses and exploring the potential for non-space organisations to growth through the adoption of space technologies. You will be commercially driven, with excellent communication and personnel skills. This a real opportunity to make a difference, in a sector that is growing rapidly – your ideas will be instrumental in developing the Catapult’s capabilities. 

You will work closely with our other business development leads and our vertical market-focussed initiatives across Extractive Industries, Climate, Transport /Infrastructure, Health / Wellbeing and Sustainability.

Key Responsibilities:

• Development of strong partner relationships that support the Sector strategy and maximises commercial exploitation opportunities for UK industry.

• Alignment of business development activities with market opportunities to secure high impact commercial and research activities that deliver sector activities with a focus on strategic initiatives.

• Communicate with colleagues across the Catapult to ensure customer needs shape the organisation’s response.

• Identify opportunities to improve engagement and systems to ensure the delivery of excellent customer experience.

• Develop SCE strategy to hit and exceed Order Intake and Revenue Targets

 Skills & Experience required:  

• Demonstratble experience as a business development manager, business innovation manager, sales executive or a relevant role. 

• Proven track record in delivering creative interventions to facilitate business growth/support/solutions.  

• Proven track record in delivering revenue targets within a commercial technical environment. 

• Experience of developing partnerships with investors and customers. 

• Demonstrable experience of effective and successful team working. 

• Substantial experience of the management of complex and extensive stakeholder relationships across a range of organisations. 

• Intellectual capacity and strong influencing skills able to gain ‘buy in’ to new opportunities and to facilitate changes in behaviour. 

• Strong influencing and negotiation skills and delivery of complex projects involving multiple stakeholders. 

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, including highly developed verbal and written communication skills and the ability to deliver formal presentations to a range of audiences. 

• An understanding of project and programme management in a commercial setting. 

Desirable (but not essential) experience:

• Experience of working with or within the space sector, with knowledge of Geospatial and/or Earth Observation applications

• Experience of levering public funding mechanisms to support R&D and innovation. 

You know you have been successful when… 

• You have established partnerships for the Space Commercialisation Engine with sponsors and investors. 

• You have developed a pipeline of businesses for the SCE, delivering impactful projects and new products and services.

• You have taken businesses through the diagnostic stage and complete Space Commercialisation Engine process.  

• You have developed strong partnerships with external stakeholders.  

• You have established the Space Commercialisation Engine as a strong and recognised brand for Innovation within the space sector and beyond. 

How we work:

We strive to create a high trust environment that enables team members to bring their whole selves to work – this helps to create the foundations of an innovation culture.
Our shared values are critical to this:

• We care - for our people, our partners, and our planet

• We connect - and engage with people and ideas

• We learn - and grow, as people and as an industry

Underpinning this is our belief in great teams, our combined efforts will always deliver outcomes beyond that of any individual providing we are honest through debate, experiment and reflect, and create shared resolutions in support of our purpose. Live these values, work to our principles, take ownership to deliver, and we are certain you will thrive with us.

This job description set outs the skills and experience we believe are needed to be able to do this job but, research also tells us women are much more likely than men to take this list of requirements as absolute and self-select out of the process. If you think you can deliver this role then we want to hear from you, regardless of the boxes you didn’t tick.