Head of Commercial Partnerships

Carbon13 is a Cambridge and Berlin-based venture builder, early-stage investor and corporate innovation partner in climate and Earth's vital systems. We back companies that protect and restore Earth's systems, with over 100 ventures already in our portfolio and new cohorts launching continuously across Cambridge and Berlin.

Our corporate partners have included Arm, Barclays, Siemens Energy Ventures, HSFK and EY, with active conversations underway with several other companies. We're also building activity with research and commercial innovation funders such as UKRI and EIT.

We're entering a growth phase, with expansion into the Netherlands planned for 2027 - and we're hiring a senior commercial leader to build the corporate partnership engine that funds and scales that growth.

The Role

Own and grow Carbon13's corporate partnership revenue. You'll personally originate and close partnerships across our productised three-tier Growth Phase offer - Headline Growth Partner, Vertical Innovation Partner, and Discovery Partner - and across our five sector themes: Chemicals & Materials, Enabling Platforms, Food Systems, Built Environment, and Energy & Mobility.

You'll inherit a strong platform: an active pipeline and a credible list of existing brand partners. Your job is to convert that into signed, recurring commercial revenue, while sharpening and scaling the commercial function. This is a senior, hands-on role - not a strategic advisory position, and not a rebuild from scratch. The product exists, the pipeline exists, the pitch materials exist. What we need is someone who can personally close deals, tighten the sales motion, and grow the commercial engine alongside the team we have.

What You'll Own

• Deal origination and closing - your primary focus. Personally source, shape and close corporate partnerships against our three-tier Growth Phase offer. Take direct ownership of live pipeline conversations, with the ambition of signing partnerships within your first six months. Bring your own network of relevant corporate contacts into play from day one.
• Growing corporate partnership revenue. Build materially on our existing corporate revenue base, with a clear ambition to at least double it over your first 24 months. You'll be judged on deals signed and recurring revenue delivered - not on relationships managed or pipeline generated in isolation.
• Product and proposition refinement. Sharpen and extend our tiered partnership offer as you take it to market. Test what resonates with which customer profiles, refine pricing where the market signals a different level, and help shape new revenue lines beyond current sponsorship - including talent, community, and structured partnership programmes.
• Team leadership. Line manage our Corporate Partnerships Lead, who runs account management on existing partners. Work closely with the Senior Team, drawing on the wider organisation for lead generation, costing, programme design and portfolio expertise. Advise on how the commercial function should resource up as it scales.
• Representing Carbon13 externally. Be a confident, credible senior voice for Carbon13 with corporate partners, at industry events, and across the wider climate tech ecosystem - freeing up the CEO to focus on Group-level activity only they can own.

About You

You've closed corporate partnerships or complex commercial deals personally, at meaningful ticket sizes, in a sector where the customer is a large industrial, energy, construction, financial services, or corporate innovation buyer. You bring your own network and understand how those buyers make decisions.

You're energised by building on a strong foundation rather than inheriting a finished playbook, and comfortable moving fast without a lengthy discovery phase before contributing. You're as credible discussing decarbonisation pathways with a corporate sustainability lead as you are discussing pilot budgets with a head of innovation.

We're not looking for management consultants or strategy-first thinkers. We're looking for someone who has personally signed contracts, personally managed commercial pipelines, and personally represented a business at senior level.

What you'll bring

• A track record of personally originating and closing corporate partnerships or complex commercial deals at £50k+ ticket size.
• An existing network of corporate contacts in sectors relevant to Carbon13: industrials, energy, construction, financial services, or corporate innovation and venturing.
• Experience selling innovation access, deep tech, hardware or sustainability propositions to industrial or corporate buyers (rather than a purely SaaS, martech or ad tech background).
• The ability to build compelling, tailored commercial propositions from an existing product base, adapting to very different types of partner.
• A proactive, self-starting mindset - comfortable operating in a business that is mid-growth, mid-raise and still resolving the size and structure of its future funds.
• Strong commercial instincts paired with genuine strategic thinking about how partnerships create wider portfolio value.
• Comfort with line management of a small commercial team.

What We Offer

• Salary, available at 4 or 5 days per week (pro-rated for 4-day working).
• Performance-related variable pay linked to new partnership revenue, structured against agreed milestones.
• Share options in Carbon13 Group under a 4-year vesting schedule with a 1-year cliff - with the intention that senior commercial leadership shares meaningfully in the long-term value they help create.
• Participation in Carbon13's shadow carry structure at the appropriate level, aligned with commercial contribution to portfolio outcomes.
• Hybrid working with a Cambridge base and regular travel to Berlin as our European partnership footprint grows.
• The opportunity to shape a role and function in a purpose-driven, growth-stage business at the centre of European climate tech.

Where This Can Go

This role is scoped as senior commercial leadership at Head level, with a clear path to Chief Commercial Officer as the function scales and revenue matures. For the exceptional performer, the trajectory beyond that will be shaped by what you build and what Carbon13 becomes - but we'd rather be honest about the near-term ceiling than over-promise.

If your ambition is to run a commercial function at scale and, over time, take on broader leadership as we grow, this is a role built for that trajectory.

Carbon13 is committed to building a diverse team and welcomes applications from all backgrounds. If you're unsure whether your experience fits, please apply - we'd rather have the conversation than filter you out.