Business Development Lead, US in London

Science runs on trust, but the machinery that produces that trust is failing. Peer review is slow, opaque, inconsistent and increasingly gamed, and AI-generated papers are already forcing top venues to ration submissions rather than check them. No one is the credible, independent arbiter of research quality. We think there should be one.

XSci is building that layer: a place where a paper goes first, after it is written and before it goes anywhere else, to be checked by domain experts working with AI. Reviewers are paid, every verdict has a named expert behind it, and reading is free. We are a Delaware public benefit corporation, and our charter commits us to making the evaluation of science as open, as fast and as fairly rewarded as its production. In November 2026, Nature reported on our launch and our model of paying reviewers at the preprint stage:

The role

You will own US business development: partnerships with publishers and society journals, and with universities, research institutes, pharma and biotech R&D groups and science funders. The two groups are worked in parallel and reinforce each other.

The first measure of success is concrete: journal channels agreed, pilots running, and institutional agreements that cover an institution's researchers.

What you will do

Publishers and journals

• Open and progress conversations with US-based publishers and society journals, from the large houses to the many smaller and society-run titles.
• Make the case for working with us: more and better submissions arriving with expert reports attached, and faster validation for editors, with no integration work on the journal's side. Early partners help shape the program.
• Move conversations to pilots, and connect partner journals with the institutions we work with.
• Coordinate with the London team on global publishers, and take the US side of relationships that begin in Europe.

Universities, institutes, pharma and funders

• Build and work a named list of US universities, research institutes, pharma R&D groups and funders. Research offices, library and scholarly-communication leads, and heads of internal pre-submission review are the people you will most often be talking to.
• Make the institutional case: an institution-level agreement covers its researchers, and certified papers travel with their reports to whichever journal the author chooses.
• Run the full cycle: discovery, demo, pilot design, procurement, signature.
• Present the quality record: a transparent view of which of the institution's output is ready for stronger venues, useful for journal targeting and research evaluation.
• Attend and work the conferences where both sets of partners are.

Running the function together

• Keep one shared pipeline and one set of pitch materials with London. Flag what lands and what does not in the US so the pitch improves for both regions.
• Bring what publishers and institutions ask for back to the product team.
• Write up every real conversation so the rest of the company can learn from it.

What we are looking for

Must have

• 5+ years selling to universities, research institutes, or pharma R&D, or 5+ years inside a publisher, scholarly-infrastructure company or research office with direct responsibility for partnerships.
• An established network among US research-office, library, publishing or funder decision-makers that you can draw on from day one.
• Proof you have closed institutional or enterprise deals with long procurement cycles, and run pilots that converted.
• Comfortable introducing something new. You can make the \"why this helps you\" logic concrete for each partner without leaning on a long list of references.
• Strong communicator in person and in writing. The job is a mix of meetings, conference conversations, email and short proposals.
• Able to work independently in a different time zone from the rest of the company, with a standing early-morning overlap with London.

Strongly preferred

• You have sold to scholarly publishers.
• Experience with preprints, peer review, research assessment or grant evaluation.
• A science PhD or equivalent research experience, so you can talk to researchers as a peer.
• Experience at an early-stage company.

You will spend the first weeks building a tiered list of US institutions and publishers, adapting the pitch with the London team, and booking the first discovery calls. By the end of the quarter the aim is to have several pilots in discussion across both groups, a conference calendar for the rest of the year, and a clear written view of what US partners need.