Business Development Lead - Radio Communications, Radar & Fire-Control Systems

About the role

Onodrim builds Europe's largest defence and industrial platform by acquiring specialist manufacturers and investing in their growth. Communications and radar are key areas, and the Business Development Lead for Radio Communications, Radar and Fire-Control Systems owns top-line growth for the portfolio companies in this domain. It is a self-directed sales role, accountable for bookings against a growth plan.

Key responsibilities

• Build a growth plan for each portfolio company, identifying demand such as tactical-communications and air-defence programmes, platform integrations, border and critical-infrastructure protection and export markets, with targets, priorities and a pipeline.
• Build relationships with ministries of defence, procurement agencies, signals and air-defence users, primes, system integrators and partners across Europe, getting the company into conversations and tenders it misses.
• Qualify opportunities, run them through the sales cycle and keep an accurate forecast.
• Bring in signed business and represent the company at conferences, industry bodies, customer briefings and trials.
• Feed customer feedback into product, roadmap, pricing and positioning decisions.
• Lead or coordinate responses to RFIs, RFPs and framework tenders, including teaming, pricing and compliance work.
• Build teaming, integration and distribution arrangements with primes and suppliers.
• Share market, customer and competitor intelligence with the deal team and leadership.
• Set up basic CRM, pipeline reviews and capture processes at companies that have none.

Required profile

• Degree in engineering, business, economics, international relations or a closely related field; electrical or communications engineering is a plus.
• 5+ years in business development, sales or capture management in defence communications, radar, electronic warfare or adjacent fields, selling to European ministries, procurement agencies, armed forces, primes or system integrators.
• Track record of closed business with details of what was sold, to whom and for how much.
• Knowledge of how the sector buys, including programme and budget cycles, framework contracts, offsets, qualification, spectrum and export control.
• Technical fluency to discuss radios, networks and radar with engineers and military users.
• Self-directed, able to build a pipeline from nothing and work alongside owner-managers and engineers.
• Extensive travel across Europe and right to work in the UK, Switzerland or the EU, with eligibility for a national security clearance in at least one operating country.

Nice to have

• European language other than English, military service in signals, air-defence or electronic-warfare, or an existing national security clearance.
• Experience selling radios, networks, radar or EW sub-systems to primes and platform programmes.
• Experience with NATO, NSPA, EDA or EU-funded defence programmes, counter-UAS and border-security buyers.
• Experience growing the revenue of a newly acquired company in a PE-backed or acquisitive group.
• Familiarity with the commercial-silicon and 5G ecosystem in defence.