ClearSpace is recruiting an experienced Business Development Director – Institutional to support the development and growth of ClearSpace's institutional pipeline across the Group. This role focuses on public-sector and institutional customers, including the European Commission and wider European Union programmes, the European Space Agency (ESA), Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES), and the UK Space Agency (UKSA), and national and international space and defence agencies. The successful candidate will develop and foster relationships with existing and prospective institutional customers, shape and lead bids, and secure institutional funding for ClearSpace. They will be responsible for cross-cutting BD-related areas including proposal production and capture management across institutional programmes, and will work with ClearSpace leadership to maintain close relationships with agency and member-state stakeholders.
The Role
The Business Development Director – Institutional will draw on the responsibility areas below, covering capture management, bid production, and wider BD/commercial activities, with a focus on institutional customers and funding programmes.
Key responsibilities
Capture Management
- Keep track of institutional bid opportunities from sources such as the European Commission and the European Union (including the EIC and Horizon Europe), the European Space Agency (ESA), and national and international space agencies, and make propositions as to which future projects fit which opportunities.
- Maintain a database of future projects suitable for different institutional bid types and funding instruments, and work with the business team to support prioritisation of projects and R&D, feeding into service and capability strategy.
- Be responsible for the successful coherence of institutional captures across ClearSpace entities.
- Work with the business development team to evolve customer, stakeholder, and competitor analyses across institutional programmes.
- Support development of financial inputs to government and ESA budgets supporting funding allocation to key programmes; support programme financial estimation across multi-year budget cycles.
- Track member-state and Commission policy and budget developments (e.g. ESA Ministerial cycles, EU work programmes) that shape future institutional opportunities.
Bid Production
- Take responsibility for managing and coordinating institutional bids, or parts of bids as required, through the Business Acquisition Process from call opening to bid submission (leading or supporting negotiation as needed).
- Control overall production of the bid volumes to ensure delivery on schedule and in compliance with institutional requirements (e.g. ITT conditions, ESA tender rules, EU grant criteria).
- Draw on other relevant teams in ClearSpace (as needed for larger bids), including projects, engineering, procurement & contractual, finance, and commercial teams, and independently take initiative for smaller bids.
- Ensure bid execution according to the bid Product Assurance/Quality Assurance philosophy; conduct bid/no-bid reviews and later-stage bid reviews (e.g. gold/red team) as appropriate, and conduct win-theme analysis.
- Control bid finances, working with the finance team, national managing directors and with external partners on multi-partner/consortium-style bids to assign and control finances, including ESA geo-return and consortium-share considerations.
- Coordinate partner inputs (scope, finances), with the procurement team as needed, for multi-partner/consortium-style institutional bids.
BD/Commercial Activities
- Support BD events and conferences, customer-facing engagements with institutional stakeholders, and partner engagement for key partners.
- Support account management efforts with institutional agencies (e.g. European Commission, ESA, EIC, DLR, CNES, LSA, UKSA etc ) and national space customers as directed, specifically around In-Orbit Servicing (IOS) and Active Debris Removal (ADR) activities.
- Lead and support policy-style engagements that the BD team is involved in, including member-state and Commission-level discussions.
- Support the Product Development team in defining new and/or iterative products and services aligned to institutional programme needs.
Must Have
- Significant experience in bid management in the space industry, with a strong preference for experience across institutional bids (e.g. ESA, EU/EIC, DLR, CNES, national agencies), such as Space Safety, Space Transportation, ARTES, GSTP, ITTs, EIC Accelerator, or Horizon Europe.
- Excellent understanding of the institutional space ecosystem, including relevant member-state or stakeholder discussions and negotiations.
- Strong commercial awareness and risk and opportunity management.
- Excellent interpersonal, organisational, and written/verbal communication skills, including to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Strong understanding of the space industry and ecosystem, specifically around In-Orbit Servicing (IOS) and Active Debris Removal (ADR) activities.
Nice to have
- Deep familiarity with EU and ESA funding instruments such as the EIC Accelerator, Horizon Europe, ARTES, and GSTP.
- Understanding of defence procurement processes and export control considerations (e.g. ITAR, dual-use export licensing).
- Existing relationships with institutional stakeholders across the European Commission, ESA, DLR, CNES, or national agencies.
- Experience bidding into domains such as in-orbit servicing, active debris removal, and space situational awareness; space segment bid capacity desirable, ground segment bid capacity also useful but not essential.
- Experience of ESA bid financials, including Procedures, Specification and Standards (PSS) form generation.
- Professional-level French or German in addition to fluent English, given the customer and member-state landscape.
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