Director Bid Capture

Kepler is on an audacious mission: to bring the internet to space. Founded in 2015, our ambition is to provide internet connectivity in space, whether in LEO, MEO, GEO, or beyond. With an expanding base of early customers and our first 23 satellites in orbit, Kepler is continuing to grow and expand its most important asset – the Team!

We invest heavily to deliver the best services to our customers, and so we’re on the hunt for top-tier candidates. This unique role will assist the Global Business Development and Product teams with revenue, quality customer bookings and product development goals. Our new Europe-based Director Bid Capture will report directly to the Kepler Communications VP Global Business Development and be pivotal in growing Kepler’s European business commercially, shape and provide business support for European Space Agency Programs and manage the Always on Low data rate (S/L-band) Product Group at Kepler.

The ideal candidate will have demonstrated business development experience in Europe with new product introduction as well as building and scaling a full commercial organization. A track record of successfully developing products and services in new markets is required. Partnering effectively with both external and internal resources will be critical in this position. The role will have the responsibility for spearheading one of Kepler’s services, its vision, the product strategy and roadmap. You will work closely with a small product team to prioritize features based on customer insight and market intelligence and define service level agreement and pricing. You will work closely with the sales and marketing teams to position the service and build a compelling story that clearly articulates the products' value prop. Anticipate having to navigate pre-product-market-fit territory.

As part of a small, passionate, and accomplished team of experts, you will participate in the strategic development of Kepler offerings, customer relationships and strategic vision - laser focused on the Kepler Vision of putting the internet in space. We are seeking a proactive, self-driven, service-oriented individual with excellent oral, written, and interpersonal skills that can thrive in a fast-paced environment.

This position will directly impact the history of space development and the growth of the space economy requiring your dedicated commitment and detailed attention towards effective and timely development of Kepler hardware, the service it makes possible, as well as supporting that of our critical suppliers.

Role Summary

1. European Commercial Business Development

2. European Space Agency Business Development

3. Product Manager – Always on Low Data Rate Service

Responsibilities:

• Acts as Strategic Market Visionary and coordinate with the design and development of high-level technical solutions, concepts, and technologies for new market opportunities from inception through commercialization in concert and coordination with marketing and engineering.
• Collaborate with the product team to create and prioritize the features roadmap for all future Kepler Network development.
• Collaborate with the leadership team to establish Kepler Network product positioning, pricing, and strategy.
• Collaborate with marketing and engineering to determine key capability demonstrations for greater customer penetration.
• Create an exceptional sales organization that can cover government and civil space (i.e., space agencies), commercial space (i.e., Planet Labs, Spire etc.) markets.
• Maintain an accurate sales forecast, and sales pipeline across all areas of the sales organization.
• Work with technical writers to create bid and proposal teams with a rapid 2-week response cycle to RFPs.
• Establish relationships with all relevant government funding agencies and create a strategy to capture government funding in support of developments required for The Kepler Network product roadmap.
• Establish quotas and compensation plans for all commercial team members. 
• A Customer Champion that contributes to the development of marketing and sales materials for new technical concepts and solutions including customer presentations and proposals.
• Travel approximately 40% domestic and international.
• Understand and represent user needs for one of the Kepler services. 
• Monitoring the market and develop a deep understanding of the competitive landscape. 
• Define the vision and product strategy.
• Align all internal stakeholders with the vision for the product i.e., what’s the problem we’re solving, why are we solving it, who are we solving it for.
• Work together with the product owner and project manager to prioritize feature backlog, organize sprint planning sessions, and participate in daily scrums.
• Own and maintain a product agile brief that can be referenced by anyone in the organization. 
• Become the voice of the customer within Kepler and encourage a customer first mentality.
• Collaborate with the sales team to gain insights on customer dialogues, their pain points, challenges in conversation. 
• Engage with customers (internal and external) and partners to deliver roadmap updates, get product feedback, and identify additional challenges and opportunities. 
• Collaborate with marketing team to correctly position the services.
• Help build product processes within Kepler to enable product-led development. 
• Maintain an up-to-date roadmap.
• Identify, prioritize, and secure business opportunities across the European Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency 
• Establish and maintain active engagement with relevant stakeholders within each space agency from program managers to senior leadership
• Take part in trade shows and conferences to understand upcoming RFPs and influence new RFIs 
• Manage new business acquisition processes from the first point of contact to developing a solution and bidding the program
• Establish and maintain strong relationship with internal teams that will be instrumental in supporting bids 
• Lead the bid-no-bid process and development of the RFP reply for both solicited and unsolicited proposals
• Partner with internal teams to successfully transition a contract award to the relevant implementation team and maintain a pulse on progress to manage external stakeholders

Requirements:

• 10+ years of directly related experience or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 5+ years in an executive-level technology leadership position.
• Bachelor's degree in an engineering or scientific field.
• Experience working with commercial and government customers and an existing network of relevant industry contacts and a solid understanding of the commercial drivers for success in the space sector or related industry.
• Experience managing and mentoring individuals and cross-functional team building across BD & Product capture teams within an agile environment.
• Strong ability to convey technical topics in easy-to-understand business terms and work collaboratively with internal cross-functional teams and external partners.
• Intellectual horsepower with the ability to identify new opportunities, drive clarity, create focus and make tough decisions in complex and dynamic contexts.
• Ability to present with credibility a strategic opportunity or business case to executive leadership.
• A track record of building and growing successful businesses, products, or departments with scale-up companies through hyper-growth and forecast future challenges.
• Demonstrated ability to manage through ambiguity and competing priorities.
• Knowledge of small satellite systems, RF, and Optical communications
• Identify, prioritize, and secure business opportunities across the European Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency 
• Experience seeing a company bring a product to market for the first time.
• Experience seeing a company run a product post-product market fit. 
• Experience working in a fast-paced environment where decisions must sometimes be made without an abundance of data and information. 
• Strong analytical skills coupled with genuine curiosity, and a data-driven mindset. 
• Experience working with a cross-functional product team (e.g., hardware, software, infrastructure etc.). 
• Ability to ruthlessly prioritize product features based on data or feedback from internal and external stakeholders. 
• Experience with B2B products and services. 
• Superb verbal and written communication skills. 
• Strong creativity and conceptual skills. 
• Demonstrates excellent influencing/negotiation skill.
• Ability to travel regularly to be in direct contact with relevant stakeholders
• Ability to work in a fast paced, often unstructured environment and can find the necessary tools, information, etc. to accomplish goals
• Strategic mindset to pair space agency programs with companywide growth initiatives
• Master's degree or PhD in technology or a business discipline. 
• Experience with the ESA bid and proposal systems (eg. ESAStar) and relevant programs (eg. Scylight).
• Experience with CSA STDP and other AOs
• Experience in optical or RF communications.
• Experience successfully driving products to market. 
• Experience working in a high growth start-up environment.