The Catapult has organised itself into four Mission areas: Beyond Earth, Connected Earth, Autonomous Earth, and Sustainable Earth. Each Mission is tasked with developing a strategic portfolio of Interventions through which projects and services can be designed and delivered to achieve market impact. To align the Missions to the Market, the Catapult has established four strategic accounts as the focal point for engaging customers across four discrete domains: Defence and Security, Public Sector, Private Sector and Space Sector.

The Chief Commercial and Partnerships Officer is responsible for delivering a high performing commercial team to take us to the next stage of the company’s growth. A primary focus of the role is on driving revenue generation and margin growth from our Strategic Accounts.  They do this by building strategic partnerships with customers, stakeholders and suppliers ensuring alignment and growth for all.  The CCPO will oversee development and implementation of sales and marketing strategies, Account plans, forecasts and Sales KPIs, to achieve corporate revenue and margin targets.  The CCPO will collaborate with other members of the Executive Management Team (EMT) and their respective functions, to align commercial objectives with overall business goals and Mission led market intervention priorities and foster cross-functional teamwork and communication to drive overall business performance.

As the Chief Commercial and Partnerships Officer, you are:

• Responsible for Commercial and Partnerships Strategy – You will develop the company’s Commercial and Partnerships Strategy to harness the Catapult’s position and status as a neutral trusted convenor within the UK Space sector. Providing leadership and guidance to our Strategic Accounts and Missions you will enable them to grow their markets and deliver on their missions. This will involve qualifying new market opportunities, defining market engagement priorities, and creating plans to maximise revenue and market share.  You will do this in a way that maximises the positive impact for customers and the sector, making the right strategic partnerships to ensure all benefit from our commercial activities.

• Developing sales and market Intelligence – You will develop sales and market engagement plans with Strategic Account Directors, set targets and objectives, monitor performance, and oversee the implementation of Account sales plans. You will monitor industry trends, competitive landscape, and market dynamics to identify emerging opportunities and potential threats. Gather market intelligence, conduct market research, and use data-driven insights to make informed decisions with Account Directors and Mission leads.

• Leading the creation of partnerships – You will provide thought leadership on business development initiatives and help shape and negotiate strategic alliances or partnerships that drive business growth.

• Responsible for Strategic Finance Investment – Develop and shape the Catapult’s approach to securing external commercial investment for Account and Mission led opportunities. Build the Catapult’s internal capability for identifying and accessing a wide portfolio of different investor funds that meet business needs.

• Supporting Customer relationship management – Enable the building and maintenance of strong relationships with customers and partners. Work closely with the Account sales teams to ensure customer satisfaction, helping to resolve issues, and identifying opportunities for cross-selling or upselling.

• Overseeing pricing and revenue management –  shaping pricing strategies, ensuring optimal pricing for projects and services, product and facility development to maximise revenue and maintain competitiveness in the market.  Analyse market trends, conduct pricing research, and monitor pricing effectiveness.

• Create a high performing team – Build a customer focused CCPO team with ownership for the entire sales process from opportunity identification, qualification, order capture, sales revenue and margin retention. You will develop your team in order that they can see, and take advantage of, the opportunities of tomorrow and you will ensure they are excellent collaborators across both our business and the wider sector, seeking and responding to feedback continuously.
• Promoting Space Industry capability – Identifying opportunities for the Space industry to raise the visibility of their products and services for both domestic and international markets. Identify and shape new opportunities for commercialising products and services.

You will also:

• As a member of the organisations Executive Management Team contribute to corporate decision making including defining strategy and objectives as well as the allocation of people and capital to ensure successful delivery of SAC strategy.

• Advocate for the CCPO function internally and be the voice of the customer inside the Catapult. Develop and maintain strong working relationships across the Catapult and wider sector to ensure the smooth transition of winning business into project delivery. Act as internal customer for achieving Account sales revenue and margins from associated Mission led projects.  

• Work with the Chief External Affairs Officer to plan and oversee advertising and promotion activities and events that support and promote Catapult market engagements. Ensure the collateral used to support sales activities is appropriate, up to date and available to the Accounts and their BD and sales teams.

• Direct sales forecasting activities, set performance goals, measure the performance of sales efforts and take corrective action as necessary. Manage the CCO budget effectively by  reviewing and identifying changes to budget need and forecasting proactively.

• Work with other Catapults to ensure effective cross sector collaboration.

We expect that you will have the following skills and experience:

• Excellent track record of delivering through strategic partnerships.  Nuanced approach to partnering with understanding of how to ensure win-win relationships.
• Proven senior management and leadership experience, with strong commercial acumen, and the ability to plan and implement organisational strategies to meet operational objectives and manage performance within financial budgets.
• A strong track record of human resource management and staff development. Combining excellent leadership, influencing and communications skills, with a strong ability to build long term trusted relationships both internally and externally to the organisation.

• Knowledge/experience of the Space sector and the application of satellite technology, including an understanding of the UK Space supply chain capability.

• Comfortable at operating at a conceptual level with a clear focus on communicating clear value propositions to senior stakeholders and developing creative and client-pleasing solutions for complex business problems.

• A team player, skilled and experienced at working within a matrix organisation, maximising the impact of the skills available from supporting departments and resources.

• Broad knowledge and understanding of the UK Space sector with an ability to communicate and influence effectively with different stakeholders.

You know you have been successful when…

Your teams are working in a mutually supportive relationship with our Missions and have developed the presence in their domain to articulate our unique offering to existing and new customers, driving space technology and data adoption to grow the UK economy and enable the Catapult to continue to create impact.  Your teams are recognised as growing the space sector for the benefit of all whilst ensuring SAC meets its commercial objectives.

How we work….

We strive to create a high trust, high performance and inclusive environment that enables team members to bring their whole selves to work – this helps to create the foundations of an innovation culture. Our shared values are critical to this:

•            We care – for our people, our partners, and our planet

•            We connect – and engage with people and ideas

•            We learn – and grow, as people and as an industry

Underpinning this is our belief in great teams, our combined efforts will always deliver outcomes beyond that of any individual providing we are honest through debate, experiment and reflect, and create shared resolutions in support of our purpose. Live these values, work to our principles, take ownership to deliver, and we are certain you will thrive with us.

This job description set outs the skills and experience we think are needed to be able to perform in this job. However, if you believe you can deliver in this role then we want to hear from you.