Head of Sovereign Partnerships

ABOUT MATTER INTELLIGENCE Welcome to Matter, where we are building the future of vision AI: pairing a world-first sensor that sees molecular chemistry, temperature, and 3D shape with a Large World Model that will be the most powerful intelligence engine for the physical world. This system doesn't just see what something looks like; it understands everything from a single pixel. We call this Superintelligent Vision. Our team has delivered technologies to Mars for NASA/JPL, designed advanced sensors for U.S. Defense, and frontier artificial intelligence systems. We are now building the next generation of space- and airborne-based sensing systems. ABOUT MATTER INTELLIGENCE Matter Intelligence is developing advanced sensing and intelligence capabilities that help governments, operators, and autonomous systems better understand the physical world. Matter’s capabilities span aircraft- and space-based sensing, satellite systems, raw and processed data, and intelligence products derived from advanced spectral information. Matter is building its government business around difficult national-security, defense, intelligence, civil-government, and commercial missions where better sensing and faster interpretation can produce meaningful operational advantage. THE ROLE Matter Intelligence is seeking a Lead of Asian Business Development to establish and lead the company’s government and strategic business-development activities across the Indo-Pacific. The Lead will initially focus on Japan and South Korea with future opportunities across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The role will be responsible for translating Matter’s technology into country-specific opportunities, establishing relationships with government and industry decision-makers, developing regional market-entry strategies, building qualified pipelines, and converting priority opportunities into funded programs and long-term customer relationships. This is not solely a relationship-management or account-representation position. The Lead will own the complete regional business-development and capture lifecycle: market intelligence, account planning, customer discovery, partner development, opportunity qualification, capture strategy, proposal development, procurement navigation, negotiation, and contract conversion. The successful candidate will combine deep knowledge of Indo-Pacific defense and government markets with the ability to operate effectively inside a technically ambitious, early-stage company. This person must be equally comfortable briefing senior government leaders, working through acquisition and contracting details, building partnerships with established aerospace and defense companies, and helping Matter’s technical teams shape products around real customer missions. The Lead will work closely with Matter’s executive, engineering, product, legal, finance, and operations teams. GEOGRAPHIC SCOPE The Director will develop and execute country strategies across: - Japan - South Korea - Australia - New Zealand - Singapore - Indonesia - Malaysia - The Philippines Additional Indo-Pacific markets may be added as Matter’s international business develops. Japan and South Korea are expected to be initial priority markets because of their defense relationships, technological maturity, geospatial and remote-sensing demand, and ability to support regional expansion. CORE RESPONSIBILITIES REGIONAL STRATEGY AND MARKET DEVELOPMENT - Develop and execute Matter’s government and strategic business-development strategy for the Indo-Pacific. - Create differentiated market-entry plans for each priority country based on mission demand, acquisition structures, available budgets, local industrial requirements, and Matter’s technical readiness. - Identify the defense, intelligence, civil-government, scientific, environmental, infrastructure, and commercial missions where Matter’s sensing and intelligence capabilities provide the strongest customer value. - Prioritize markets and opportunities based on revenue potential, strategic importance, probability of capture, time to contract, technical fit, and required investment. - Maintain a regional operating plan that defines target countries, priority accounts, opportunity pipelines, expected bookings, partner strategies, and resource requirements. - Provide Matter’s leadership with clear recommendations regarding where the company should invest, partner, establish a local presence, or defer market entry. GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL-SECURITY BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT - Establish relationships with defense ministries, armed services, intelligence organizations, civil-government agencies, space agencies, research organizations, and other relevant public-sector institutions. - Develop trusted relationships with senior mission users, technical stakeholders, acquisition officials, procurement organizations, and executive decision-makers. - Lead customer discovery to identify operational problems that can be addressed through Matter’s aircraft-based sensors, space-based sensors, satellite systems, data products, and intelligence capabilities. - Educate customers on Matter’s technology while gathering specific mission, performance, security, integration, contracting, and deployment requirements. - Develop opportunities for demonstrations, evaluations, pilot programs, research agreements, data purchases, sensor sales, satellite partnerships, and operational programs. - Build demand before formal procurements are released and help shape requirements around problems Matter is uniquely positioned to solve. - Navigate country-specific acquisition processes, budget cycles, tender procedures, contracting mechanisms, security requirements, and industrial-participation expectations. - Represent Matter at senior-level government meetings, industry events, trade missions, exercises, demonstrations, conferences, and partner engagements. CAPTURE AND OPPORTUNITY MANAGEMENT - Own the full lifecycle of qualified Indo-Pacific opportunities from initial identification through contract award. - Develop capture plans that identify the customer mission, decision-makers, acquisition path, funding source, competitive environment, evaluation criteria, partner strategy, technical solution, pricing considerations, and actions required to win. - Establish clear qualification standards and avoid committing company resources to poorly defined or low-probability opportunities. - Maintain accurate account, contact, activity, pipeline, probability, value, timing, and next-action information in Matter’s CRM. - Build and manage a forecast covering near-term pipeline development, proposal activity, anticipated awards, bookings, and long-term revenue. - Coordinate internal bid and no-bid decisions with the Head of Government Growth and Matter’s executive and technical leadership. - Lead or support responses to requests for information, requests for proposals, tenders, grant programs, research solicitations, and other acquisition opportunities. - Coordinate proposal development across technical, legal, financial, operational, and executive stakeholders. - Support commercial structuring, pricing, negotiation, and contract closure. - Develop strategies for converting initial demonstrations or pilot programs into recurring data purchases, larger deployments, satellite programs, or multi-year contracts. PARTNERSHIPS AND REGIONAL ECOSYSTEM DEVELOPMENT - Identify and develop relationships with regional aerospace and defense primes, satellite operators, system integrators, analytics companies, research organizations, universities, distributors, and specialized local partners. - Determine where Matter should sell directly, work through a local representative, establish a reseller relationship, join a consortium, subcontract to a prime, or pursue an opportunity as the prime contractor. - Build joint go-to-market and account plans with strategic partners. - Evaluate prospective partners based on customer access, technical contribution, contracting position, reputation, incentives, and ability to improve Matter’s probability of winning. - Develop sovereign or locally integrated solutions where required by customer policy or market conditions. - Support negotiations involving teaming agreements, memoranda of understanding, reseller arrangements, data partnerships, joint demonstrations, and other strategic agreements. - Ensure that partner relationships generate measurable access, opportunities, customer insight, or revenue rather than becoming passive affiliations. PRODUCT AND TECHNICAL ALIGNMENT - Translate customer missions and operational requirements into clear inputs for Matter’s engineering and product teams. - Work with technical leaders to define demonstrations, pilot programs, minimum viable capabilities, product configurations, integration approaches, and development priorities. - Ensure that proposed solutions are technically credible, operationally relevant, commercially viable, and deliverable within agreed timelines. - Develop a strong working understanding of spectral imaging, Earth observation, remote sensing, geospatial intelligence, satellite systems, aircraft-based collection, data products, and analytics. - Help create country- and mission-specific sales materials, concept-of-operations documents, technical briefs, demonstration plans, and customer presentations. - Communicate product limitations and development dependencies honestly while creating credible paths from current capabilities to future operational programs. - Provide structured feedback on regional customer requirements, competitors, pricing expectations, procurement barriers, and product demand. INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND COMPLIANCE - Work with legal and executive leadership to evaluate export-control, sanctions, data-security, technology-transfer, intellectual-property, licensing, and foreign-partner considerations. - Incorporate applicable U.S. and local-country regulations into account and capture strategies. - Identify localization, sovereign-control, data-residency, security, offset, local-content, or industrial-participation requirements that could affect an opportunity. - Help determine when Matter may require local entities, employees, representatives, distributors, facilities, or other forms of in-country presence. - Conduct appropriate diligence on consultants, representatives, partners, and intermediaries. - Maintain high standards of ethics, transparency, recordkeeping, and compliance in all government and commercial engagements. INTERNAL LEADERSHIP - Serve as Matter’s internal authority on Indo-Pacific government markets, customers, acquisition systems, competitors, and partnership ecosystems. - Build repeatable regional business-development processes that can scale as Matter grows. - Coordinate international activity with Matter’s U.S. government-growth strategy so that customer engagement, product development, and partnerships reinforce one another. - Help determine the timing and structure of future regional hiring. - Recruit and manage regional personnel, consultants, advisors, representatives, or channel partners as the business justifies expansion. - Contribute to broader company strategy regarding international markets, product priorities, capital allocation, and organizational growth. - Present a scalable plan for Matter’s longer-term regional presence, staffing, partnerships, and revenue growth. REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS - Approximately 8–12 or more years of experience in international business development, government sales, capture management, strategic partnerships, or a closely related field. - At least five years of relevant experience working with defense, intelligence, space, civil-government, or national-security customers in the Indo-Pacifi…