Head of Business Development

About Seabound

Seabound is an award‑winning startup decarbonizing global shipping by capturing CO₂ emissions directly onboard ships. To date, we’ve completed two world‑first pilots; raised >$10M in equity and grant funding from top investors including Lowercarbon Capital, Collaborative Fund, Y Combinator, and Eastern Pacific Shipping; and partnered with leading shipping and industrial players. Having recently completed our first full‑scale commercial systems, Seabound is now entering its commercialization and scale‑up phase.

The Role

We are seeking a Head of Business Development to lead and grow Seabound’s commercial function. Reporting directly to the CEO, you will own customer and key partner relationships; drive near‑term commercial execution; and help build the foundations of Seabound’s long‑term sales, business development, and partnerships capabilities. This role will start highly hands‑on and execution‑focused, with scope to define longer‑term strategy and take on broader commercial leadership responsibilities as the company scales.

What You’ll Do

• Short‑term (0–9 months): execution & deal ownership
• Own Seabound’s commercial relationships across priority customers, ports, and strategic stakeholders.
• Secure short‑term commercial deals for demonstrations and early deployments.
• Build the foundation for longer‑term commercial agreements for broader fleet deployments, including long‑term service agreements, with the aim of securing one or more of these in the short term.
• Where knowledge gaps exist, develop and maintain a deep understanding of the global shipping landscape, including key players, decision‑makers, ownership structures, and strategic priorities, to inform customer targeting and engagement.
• Identify which customer segments, profiles, and use cases represent the strongest near‑term and long‑term fit for Seabound.
• Own pricing strategy and early unit economics across products and services, balancing commercial viability with deployment realities.
• Build and grow the customer pipeline and progress opportunities through it, with accountability for converting traction into contracted revenue.
• Work closely with customers to revise and refine Seabound’s product, business model, and commercial structures based on real‑world needs and feedback.
• Develop a deep understanding of Seabound’s customer business cases, including regulatory drivers, cost structures, and economic trade‑offs, and communicate these clearly and credibly to customers.
• Help prioritise customers, deployments, and commercial opportunities in line with company capacity and strategy.
• Track the competitive landscape and ensure Seabound’s offering remains differentiated as the market evolves.
• Identify and pursue opportunities to strengthen Seabound’s brand, credibility, and perception within the shipping industry.
• Represent Seabound externally in customer meetings, industry events, conferences, and partner discussions.
• Identify opportunities to reduce commercial or delivery costs through deal structure, partnerships, or customer insight.
• Mid‑term (9–18 months): scale & structure
• Continue progressing and converting commercial pipeline into contracted deployments.
• Secure longer‑term commercial agreements, including multi‑year service agreements and fleet expansion opportunities.
• Develop repeatable sales processes, frameworks, commercial reporting, and playbooks based on early learnings.
• Build out the commercial team and supporting processes as required to support growth.
• Work with external stakeholders — including partners, advisors, ports, and other ecosystem players — to originate and progress opportunities.
• Support commercial inputs into fundraising, grants, and project‑finance discussions.
• Support regulatory engagement and advocacy efforts where required to unlock or accelerate commercial adoption.
• Ensure early commercial contracts are executed successfully, working closely with Seabound’s engineering and operations teams and feeding delivery learnings back into product and commercial strategy.
• Ensure commercial contracts are robust, scalable, and aligned with Seabound’s risk and delivery framework.
• Longer‑term (18+ months): leadership & scope expansion
• Expand and lead Seabound’s commercial team across sales, business development, and partnerships.
• Drive realised revenue growth from early commercial traction to tens, and ultimately hundreds, of millions in annual recurring revenue (ARR).
• Contribute to shaping Seabound’s commercial strategy as regulation, markets, and customer needs evolve.
• Serve as a core member of the leadership team as Seabound continues to scale.

Who You Are

• 10+ years of experience in commercial, business development, or sales roles.
• Comfortable operating in complex, B2B, long‑sales‑cycle environments (industrial, energy, infrastructure, maritime, climate tech, or similar).
• Demonstrated history of originating, negotiating, and closing material commercial agreements.
• Confident engaging with senior stakeholders, including shipowners, C‑suite executives, technical teams, and regulators.
• Sufficient technical acumen to engage credibly with Seabound’s engineering team and technical stakeholders at shipping companies.
• Comfortable working with financial models and regulatory frameworks, and willing to get into the weeds to understand and communicate the customer business case.
• Clear and persuasive communicator, able to explain complex ideas in writing, verbally, and through well‑structured customer‑facing materials and presentations.
• Strong sense of accountability and end‑to‑end responsibility.
• Comfortable with ambiguity and building things from scratch.
• Proactive, creative, and resourceful, with a willingness to think outside the box.
• Curious about climate, regulation, and how markets evolve, particularly where such changes affect commercial outcomes.
• Bias to action, experimentation, and learning by doing.
• Strong listener and quick learner, with the ability to synthesise new information and translate it into commercial action.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in shipping, energy, heavy industry, or infrastructure.
• Experience selling or commercialising a novel product, technology, or business model.
• Exposure to partnerships, joint ventures, or project‑based commercial deals.
• Experience scaling a commercial function at a startup or high‑growth company.
• Familiarity with regulatory‑driven markets.
• Existing network across the shipping industry.

Why Join Seabound

• Help materially reduce emissions from the global shipping industry — one of the world’s hardest‑to‑abate sectors.
• Build a brand new category of technology for the shipping industry and commercialise a world‑first climate technology.
• Join a tiny commercial team, with significant scope to shape how Seabound’s entire commercial function is built and operates.
• Take on outsized scope and responsibility as one of Seabound’s earliest and most critical commercial hires.
• Work closely with a strong, highly technical team, translating advanced engineering into real‑world deployments and revenue.
• Play a central role in taking Seabound from first commercial deployments to scaled adoption across the global shipping industry.
• Competitive salary and meaningful equity.