Astr Defence
Website:
astrdefence.com
Job details:
Business Development Lead – Defence
Astr Defence Private Limited
Astr Defence is an Indian defence technology company developing indigenous weapon systems, Counter-UAS solutions, smart fire-control systems and advanced ammunition technologies for the Armed Forces and homeland-security users.
As we move from product development into wider user engagement and market deployment, we are looking for a hands-on Business Development Lead – Defence to spearhead customer engagement, opportunity development, product demonstrations and market expansion across the Indian defence and homeland-security ecosystem.
Our Counter-UAS portfolio includes work in an emerging category of soldier-portable hard-kill Counter-UAS systems, intended to give frontline personnel an organic kinetic capability against hostile drones. This role offers the opportunity to help introduce and build adoption for a new class of defence capability rather than simply sell an established product category.
Role
The Business Development Lead – Defence will be a key customer-facing representative of Astr Defence and will work directly with the Founder/CEO and technical teams.
This is a hands-on field business development role, involving regular interaction with the Armed Forces, CAPFs, government agencies, defence organisations, DPSUs, private defence companies and other stakeholders.
The person should be comfortable independently representing Astr Defence in customer meetings, defence exhibitions, conferences, product demonstrations and field trials across India.
Extensive travel will be an integral part of the role.
Key Responsibilities
- Identify, develop and pursue business opportunities across the Indian Army, Indian Air Force, Indian Navy, CAPFs, homeland-security organisations and other government users.
- Build and maintain relationships with operational users, decision-makers, procurement stakeholders and other relevant defence ecosystem participants.
- Proactively secure customer meetings, capability presentations, product demonstrations and field evaluations.
- Understand operational requirements and capability gaps and translate them into actionable inputs for Astr Defence's product and engineering teams.
- Present Astr Defence's capabilities effectively to military officers, government stakeholders, technical evaluation teams and industry partners.
- Develop the market for emerging capabilities in Counter-UAS, hard-kill Counter-UAS, soldier-portable weapon systems, smart fire-control systems and related defence technologies.
- Help users understand the operational role and employment concepts of new product categories where established procurement benchmarks may not yet exist.
- Track customer requirements, RFIs, RFPs, EOIs, procurement programmes, trials and other relevant defence opportunities.
- Develop account plans and systematically progress opportunities from initial engagement through demonstrations, evaluations, procurement pathways and commercial discussions.
- Coordinate product demonstrations and field trials with customers and Astr Defence's engineering teams.
- Capture detailed user feedback from demonstrations, meetings and trials and ensure structured follow-up with internal teams.
- Represent Astr Defence at defence exhibitions, seminars, conferences, industry forums and government events.
- Develop relationships with DPSUs, defence primes, OEMs and other potential strategic or technology partners.
- Support preparation of capability presentations, technical-commercial proposals, responses to customer requirements and other business-development documentation.
- Maintain disciplined tracking of opportunities, customer engagements, follow-ups and next actions.
- Mentor and guide junior business-development team members as the function expands.
Must-Have Requirements
Applicants must have prior professional experience in Business Development / Sales / Capture / Customer Engagement in the Indian Defence sector. Candidates without Defence Business Development experience will not be considered for this role.
- Relevant experience working with Indian defence customers, defence companies, defence startups, OEMs, DPSUs or related organisations.
- Demonstrable understanding of the Indian defence ecosystem and defence procurement environment.
- Experience engaging with Armed Forces and/or government customers in a professional business-development capacity.
- Ability to identify opportunities, establish customer relationships and systematically progress engagements.
- Strong communication, presentation and persuasion skills.
- Ability to confidently address senior military, government and industry stakeholders.
- Sufficient technical aptitude to understand and present defence products and systems after appropriate product training.
- Ability to understand operational requirements rather than approach defence business development purely as conventional sales.
- Strong ownership mentality and willingness to personally drive meetings, demonstrations, follow-ups and opportunity development.
- Willingness to travel extensively across India for customer meetings, demonstrations, trials and industry events.
Desirable
The following would be advantageous but are not mandatory:
- Prior experience in Counter-UAS, UAVs, weapon systems, ammunition, fire-control systems, electro-optics, air-defence systems, RCWS or related defence technologies.
- Existing professional relationships across the Armed Forces, CAPFs, defence industry or government defence ecosystem.
- Technical/engineering educational background.
- Experience working in a defence startup or smaller defence company where the individual personally owned business development rather than operating within a large sales organisation.
- Experience coordinating or conducting product demonstrations, field evaluations or user trials.
- Experience with defence tenders, RFIs/RFPs, GeM and other government procurement processes.
- Experience working directly with founders or senior leadership in a growing defence company.
- Retired Armed Forces officer at the rank of Major or equivalent, particularly with relevant operational, weapon-system, air-defence, UAV/C-UAS or technical exposure.
The Person We Are Looking For
We are not looking for a conventional salesperson or someone whose contribution is limited to maintaining existing contacts.
We are looking for a person who can create opportunities.
Someone who is comfortable travelling to a military formation for a capability presentation, understanding the user's operational problem, coordinating a field demonstration, addressing questions with credibility, capturing feedback and systematically taking the engagement forward.
The ideal candidate combines defence-domain understanding, communication ability, relationship-building, commercial judgement and sufficient technical curiosity to represent a deep-tech defence company effectively.
This role will suit someone who wants to be closely involved in taking indigenous defence technologies from development to actual operational users and helping establish new capability categories within the Indian defence ecosystem.
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