Vice President, Business Development

Your New Role and Team

Sanctuary is hiring a hands-on, enterprise-focused Vice President of Business Development to spearhead strategic client relationships and lead high-value sales engagements. While current traction includes automotive, electronics manufacturing, and logistics, this role is not confined to specific industries. It demands a leader who can both close complex deals and creatively explore new markets where our technology can have transformative impact.

This is not just a traditional team-building sales leadership role. It is also about being the lead on high-stakes, enterprise accounts, guiding them from first contact through pilots and into scalable rollouts. You will report to the CEO and collaborate closely with Marketing, Product, and Customer Success to shape and execute commercial strategies that align with both CapEx (equipment sales) and OpEx (recurring revenue/service) models.

You will lead a lean, high-impact team including a Business Development Director, Solutions/Sales Engineer, and Customer Success Manager, and act as the driving force in navigating multi-phase buying journeys. The ideal candidate is a strategic and persistent account builder with experience in strategic selling into Fortune 500 or similarly scaled organizations, who is just as comfortable in the boardroom as they are building trust on the plant floor. You know how to uncover value, challenge assumptions, and move opportunities forward with urgency and empathy, wherever the next opportunity may arise.

• Enterprise Sales Ownership
• Build and execute strategic account plans using structured stage-gate frameworks and contingent commitment models
• Own the entire sales process end-to-end: lead generation, stakeholder mapping, relationship building, pilot negotiation, phased deployment, and deal closure
• Drive full-cycle enterprise sales engagements with Fortune 500/1000-level clients, from initial outreach to pilot rollout and full-scale deployment
• Develop trust and credibility with client stakeholders by demonstrating a deep understanding of their business operations and challenges
• Customer Engagement & Commercialization Strategy
• Actively pursue new accounts in high-potential industrial sectors such as automotive, electronics, and logistics, while continuously exploring untapped verticals where Sanctuary’s technology can unlock value
• Collaborate with Marketing, Product, and Engineering teams to co-develop customized proposals and proofs of concept
• Tailor and adapt sales strategies to support both CapEx models (hardware and support contracts) and OpEx models (robot-as-a-service or recurring revenue)
• Team Collaboration & Cross-Functional Leadership
• Act as the voice of the customer, ensuring client needs inform the product roadmap and commercial strategy
• Provide direction and mentorship to the BD team, Solutions Engineers, and Customer Success stakeholders
• Orchestrate internal resources to ensure technical, operational, and strategic alignment
• Business Intelligence & Relationship Development
• Build long-term, trust-based relationships focused on value creation, not transactional selling
• Speak the language of industrial buyers, even without a robotics background
• Use creative, non-traditional approaches to reach decision-makers
  
  
  

Qualifications

Your Experience

• 10+ years of experience in enterprise business development, solution sales, or complex consultative selling into Fortune 500 accounts with dollar values exceeding $50 million
• Proven track record of selling into Fortune 500 or similarly scaled enterprise organizations, with complex decision-making involving multiple stakeholders
• Demonstrated ability to close high-value, multi-year commercial agreements and find ways to accelerate the sales cycle via innovative business and payment models
• Familiarity with structured enterprise sales methodologies such as SPIN, MEDDIC, or Challenger, and complex sales methodologies like Strategic Selling and Large Account Management Process (LAMP)
• Experience managing technical sales processes, working closely with engineers or solution architects to support client evaluation and deal execution
  
  
  

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with operational workflows in logistics and automotive industry
• Background in automation, robotics, industrial tech, or AI/ML
• Experience operating across both hardware sales and recurring-revenue (ARR) models
  
  
  

Traits

• Hunter mindset: You thrive on sourcing and closing new opportunities
• Deep listener: You do not just pitch — you decode customer operations and challenges
• Business empath: You understand the customer’s world and help them imagine a better one
• Persistent and patient: You push the deal forward without being pushy
• Scrappy and hands-on: You are ready to jump on a flight or rework a pitch deck yourself if that is what it takes
• Strategically adaptable: You are comfortable selling into an evolving product and business model landscape
• Team-centered: You lead by influence and work cross-functionally with ease and respect
  
  
  

Working at Sanctuary AI

Sanctuary AI is an equal opportunity employer; employment with Sanctuary AI is governed based on skills, competence, and qualifications and will not be influenced in any way by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status. In 2023, Sanctuary AI moved into a state-of-the-art office facility and has been recognized by LinkedIn as a Top Startup company.

Compensation And Benefits

Sanctuary offers a market-leading compensation package that includes competitive salaries, equity stakes, and a full suite of benefits for permanent employees, encompassing health coverage, paid time off, cutting-edge work facilities, and worksite flexibility by role. Our commitment to fairness ensures that our total compensation consistently surpasses market standards.

About Sanctuary AI

Founded in 2018, Sanctuary builds humanoid robots and a novel control system for them that integrates symbolic logic and reasoning with data-driven robot foundation models. We use our robots to collect vision, audio, touch, and proprioception data from the perspective of the robot while they perform real-world work tasks. We use that data to train multimodal robot foundation models. Because our systems are vertically integrated, we can design, deploy, and refine at scale. Our mission is to create the world's first human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots.

Recruiting and Employment Agency Notice:

Recruitment and hiring is conducted internally by Sanctuary AI. We are not seeking or soliciting any new agency partnerships or agreements at this time. Any employment agency or professional recruiter (“Agency”) that provides an unsolicited resume(s) or otherwise presents a prospective job candidate through the Sanctuary AI career site or directly to any Sanctuary AI employee, irrevocably grants to Sanctuary AI the unrestricted right to engage, hire, or contract with that candidate at Sanctuary AI's sole discretion without any compensation to the Agency. We appreciate your interest in working together, and should the need arise our Talent Acquisition team will contact any external firms directly.