Director, Space Initiatives, Global Government

ROLE DESCRIPTION SUMMARY

The Director, Space Initiatives, Global Government is responsible for leading, developing, and executing on strategic and commercial government programmes such as RFIs, RFPs, direct awards on Satellite, Constellation, Hosted Payload and other medium- to long-term opportunities. This position will manage the commercial development activities, including structuring and deploying new product and service solutions offerings to GGOV Government end-users, such as O3b mPOWER and meoSphere, SES Small GEOs and High Throughput Satellites (HTS), as well as other managed service and adjacent business capabilities. In this role, you will meet with GGOV leads and Government customers and translate their requirements into actionable plans using SES Fleet capacity or other strategic fleet and asset management initiatives. You will aspire to exceed the yearly backlog creation targets for your activities.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Plan and execute the full range of strategic commercial development projects and elements of new product development related to SES’s Doubling Down on Government (DDoG) business expansion plans
• Actively engage with Government end-users and appropriate institutions (European Nations, the European Commission, NATO … as well as their agencies) to understand current/future GEO/MEO/LEO and ground mission requirements
• Manage a pipeline of strategic opportunities, conducting analysis and providing inputs to new development programs. Identify, acquire and leverage related national and international public and/or private funding in order to facilitate complex project businesses
• Gather and disseminates business intelligence to provide early identification of new business opportunities, understand key success factors to win new business in a sovereign space environment
• Engage with customers, organise presentations, demonstrations, site visits to educate clients on products and understand their requirements
• Create partnerships with external teaming entities to improve chances of SES to be awarded or become a team player in final space initiative project awards
• Provide effective programme and account management oversight for strategic customers
• Be an active actor in overall SES’s change, integration and optimisation efforts

COMPETENCIES

• Understand customer (COM- and especially MIL-) SATCOM needs and demands, capable of identifying and designing solutions to later present and commercialise such to external and internal stakeholders
• Capable of effectively leading people and teams, including cross-functional bid teams
• Demonstrate a thorough understanding of the business of government customers and end-users
• Present highly developed negotiation skills for complex deals, with the ability to effectively design, engineer and contribute to commercial offers, lead negotiations, drive overall team efforts by personal engagement and in final be responsible for closing related contracts, deals and transactions
• Highly developed interpersonal and networking skills, with an ability to establish high-level business contacts in governmental and defence sector
• Strong communication skills and demonstrated experience in delivering effective sales presentations
• Ability to operate within a high pressure environment, or within short timeframes

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

• Minimum 15 years’ experience selling/using complex satellite and/or telecommunications services in the aerospace and defence industry and highly knowledgeable in the functioning of Government, defence and institutional organizations, with a demonstrated clear track record for numerical results over the past few years
• Ability to identify, analyze, segment, target, and win new business opportunities for satellite constellations and adjacent satellite-based solutions
• Demonstrated track record in the following:
  • developing, and managing, complex solutions using fixed and mobile satellite systems, in sensitive or high-security environments
  • government and institutional market development with current portfolio of customers and end-user relationships
  • strategic/forward-thinking in relation to satellite-related adjacent businesses to defence satcoms
• Demonstrate sound knowledge and detailed understanding of the following:
  • governmental budget cycles and public procurement rules and techniques
  • governmental lobbying and advisory methods with high-level contacts into various Global Government nations as well as Defence and Institutional Alliances
• Long-term experience managing geographically dispersed capture and business development teams
• Strong analytical, problem solving, and negotiation skills

OTHER KEY REQUIREMENTS

• Fluency in English; knowledge of other languages (preferably German and/or French) considered as an additional asset
• Willingness and ability to travel approximately 25% of the time, including internationally
• NATO, EU and respective Nation Security clearance