Business Development Lead - Aerospace and Defence in London

About the role

Onodrim is building Europe's largest defence and industrial platform.

We acquire specialist manufacturers in critical defence and dual-use supply chains, then invest behind their growth with capital, technology and operating know-how.

The companies we buy are usually excellent at what they make and under-invested in selling it.

They have a handful of long-standing customers, a reputation inside a narrow circle, but no clear focus on finding the next programme.

The Business Development Lead for Aerospace and Defence changes that.

You'll own top-line growth for our portfolio companies in aerospace and defence, starting with the acquisitions we have already made in that space: work out where the demand is, get in front of the people who control it, and bring back signed business.

This is a sales role, and a self-directed one.

You'll come with your own view on how to grow the business and the drive to go and test it – with ministries and procurement agencies, armed‑forces users, primes, tier‑one integrators, and the partners who can open doors.

You'll represent Onodrim and its companies externally, at a level where what you say carries weight, and you'll be measured on what you close.

What you'll do

Build the growth plan.

For each portfolio company in your area, work out where the addressable demand is – programmes, platforms, customers, geographies – and write a plan with targets, priorities and a pipeline to get there.

Open doors.

Build and work relationships with ministries of defence, procurement agencies, armed‑forces users, primes, tier‑one integrators and partners across Europe; get the company into the conversations and tenders it is currently missing.

Own the pipeline.

Qualify opportunities hard, run them through the sales cycle – capture plan, proposal, negotiation, contract – and keep an honest, current forecast.

Close.

Bring in signed business and be accountable for bookings against the plan.

Represent the company.

Speak for Onodrim and its portfolio companies at conferences, industry bodies, customer briefings and in the press where appropriate, with the discretion the sector requires.

Shape the offer.

Take what you hear from customers back into product, pricing and positioning decisions with the company's leadership and our operators; make sure what is sold can be delivered.

Run proposals.

Lead or coordinate responses to RFIs, RFPs and framework tenders, including the teaming, pricing and compliance work behind them.

Work the partner channel.

Build teaming and distribution arrangements with primes and complementary suppliers where they get us to customers faster than going direct.

Inform what we buy next.

Feed market, customer and competitor intelligence to the deal team and the leadership: where demand is going, which capabilities customers are missing, which companies they wish existed.

Build the function.

Put the basics in place – CRM, pipeline reviews, capture process – at companies that have never had them, and help their own teams sell.

• What you'll bring
• A degree in engineering, business, economics, international relations or a closely related discipline; a technical degree is a plus.
• 5+ years in business development, consulting, sales or capture management in aerospace and defence, selling products to defence primes, European governments, procurement agencies and armed forces.
• A track record of closed business you can walk through: what you sold, to whom, for how much, and what you did to win it.
• Working knowledge of how the sector buys – programme and budget cycles, primes and supplier tiers, framework contracts, offsets, qualification, export control – and an existing network inside it.
• Enough technical fluency to understand what a manufacturer's product does, explain it credibly and know when to bring an engineer.
• Self‑direction: you have built a pipeline from nothing, set your own targets and hit them without a sales operations team behind you.
• Excellent communication in English, written and spoken – in a proposal, in a boardroom, on a stage – and the judgement to know what not to say.
• Comfort working alongside owner‑managers and engineers at small industrial companies, and the ability to bring them with you.
• Willingness to travel extensively across Europe to customers, partners, conferences and portfolio companies.
• Right to work in the UK, Switzerland or the EU, and eligibility for a national security clearance in at least one of our operating countries.
• Nice to have
• We operate our business in English; knowledge of a European language other than English is beneficial.
• Military service, or time inside a ministry of defence or procurement agency, that gives you first‑hand understanding of the customer.
• An existing national security clearance.
• Experience selling components, sub‑systems or manufacturing capacity into primes and platform programmes – the supplier side, not only the system side.
• Experience with NATO, NSPA, EDA or EU‑funded defence programmes and their procurement routes.
• Experience in a PE‑backed or acquisitive group where you grew the revenue of a newly acquired company.
• Familiarity with aerospace quality and certification frameworks (AS9100, EASA/EMAR) as they affect what customers will buy.
• Time in a start‑up or small team where you did whatever the business needed.
• Clearance in at least one of our operating countries.