Head of Business Development
Head of Business Development at Seabound — London, United Kingdom
- Company: Seabound
- Location: London, United Kingdom
- Employment type: FULL_TIME
- Salary: USD 90000–120000 / year
- Posted: 2026-07-17
About this role
About Seabound
Seabound is an award-winning startup decarbonizing global shipping by capturing CO₂ emissions directly onboard ships. To date, we’ve completed two world-first pilots; raised >$10M in equity and grant funding from top investors including Lowercarbon Capital, Collaborative Fund, Y Combinator, and Eastern Pacific Shipping; and partnered with leading shipping and industrial players. Having recently completed our first full-scale commercial systems, Seabound is now entering its commercialization and scale-up phase.
The Role
We are seeking a Head of Business Development to lead and grow Seabound’s commercial function. Reporting directly to the CEO, you will own customer and key partner relationships; drive near-term commercial execution; and help build the foundations of Seabound’s long-term sales, business development, and partnerships capabilities.
This role will start highly hands-on and execution-focused, with scope to define longer-term strategy and take on broader commercial leadership responsibilities as the company scales.
What You’ll Do
Short-term (0–9 months): execution & deal ownership
Own Seabound’s commercial relationships across priority customers, ports, and strategic stakeholders
Secure short-term commercial deals for demonstrations and early deployments
Build the foundation for longer-term commercial agreements for broader fleet deployments, including long-term service agreements, with the aim of securing one or more of these in the short term
Where knowledge gaps exist, develop and maintain a deep understanding of the global shipping landscape, including key players, decision-makers, ownership structures, and strategic priorities, to inform customer targeting and engagement
Identify which customer segments, profiles, and use cases represent the strongest near-term and long-term fit for Seabound
Own pricing strategy and early unit economics across products and services, balancing commercial viability with deployment realities
Build and grow the customer pipeline and progress opportunities through it, with accountability for converting traction into contracted revenue
Work closely with customers to revise and refine Seabound’s product, business model, and commercial structures based on real-world needs and feedback
Develop a deep understanding of Seabound’s customer business cases, including regulatory drivers, cost structures, and economic trade-offs, and communicate these clearly and credibly to customers
Help prioritise customers, deployments, and commercial opportunities in line with company capacity and strategy
Track the competitive landscape and ensure Seabound’s offering remains differentiated as the market evolves
Identify and pursue opportunities to strengthen Seabound’s brand, credibility, and perception within the shipping industry
Represent Seabound externally in customer meetings, industry events, conferences, and partner discussions
Identify opportunities to reduce commercial or delivery costs through deal structure, partnerships, or customer insight
Mid-term (9–18 months): scale & structure
Continue progressing and converting commercial pipeline into contracted deployments
Secure longer-term commercial agreements, including multi-year service agreements and fleet expansion opportunities
Develop repeatable sales processes, frameworks, commercial reporting, and playbooks based on early learnings
Build out the commercial team and supporting processes as required to support growth
Work with external stakeholders — including partners, advisors, ports, and other ecosystem players — to originate and progress opportunities
Support commercial inputs into fundraising, grants, and project-finance discussions
Support regulatory engagement and advocacy efforts where required to unlock or accelerate commercial adoption
Ensure early commercial contracts are executed successfully, working closely with Seabound’s engineering and operations teams and feeding delivery learnings back into product and commercial strategy
Ensure commercial contracts are robust, scalable, and aligned with Seabound’s risk and delivery framework
Longer-term (18+ months): leadership & scope expansion
Expand and lead Seabound’s commercial team across sales, business development, and partnerships
Drive realised revenue growth from early commercial traction to tens, and ultimately hundreds, of millions in annual recurring revenue (ARR)
Contribute to shaping Seabound’s commercial strategy as regulation, markets, and customer needs evolve
Serve as a core member of the leadership team as Seabound continues to scale
Who You Are
10+ years of experience in commercial, business development, or sales roles
Comfortable operating in complex, B2B, long-sales-cycle environments (industrial, energy, infrastructure, maritime, climate tech, or similar)
Demonstrated history of originating, negotiating, and closing material commercial agreements
Confident engaging with senior stakeholders, including shipowners, C-suite executives, technical teams, and regulators
Sufficient technical acumen to engage credibly with Seabound’s engineering team and technical stakeholders at shipping companies
Comfortable working with financial models and regulatory frameworks, and willing to get into the weeds to understand and communicate the customer business case
Clear and persuasive communicator, able to explain complex ideas in writing, verbally, and through well-structured customer-facing materials and presentations
Strong sense of accountability and end-to-end responsibility
Comfortable with ambiguity and building things from scratch
Proactive, creative, and resourceful, with a willingness to think outside the box
Curious about climate, regulation, and how markets evolve, particularly where such changes affect commercial outcomes
Bias to action, experimentation, and learning by doing
Strong listener and quick learner, with the ability to synthesise new information and translate it into commercial action
Preferred Qualifications
Experience in shipping, energy, heavy industry, or infrastructure
Experience selling or commercializing a novel product, technology, or business model
Exposure to partnerships, joint ventures, or project-based commercial deals
Experience scaling a commercial function at a startup or high-growth company
Familiarity with regulatory-driven markets
Existing network across the shipping industry
Why Join Seabound
Help materially reduce emissions from the global shipping industry — one of the world’s hardest-to-abate sectors
Build a brand new category of technology for the shipping industry and commercialize a world-first climate technology
Join a tiny commercial team, with significant scope to shape how Seabound’s entire commercial function is built and operates
Take on outsized scope and responsibility as one of Seabound’s earliest and most critical commercial hires
Work closely with a strong, highly technical team, translating advanced engineering into real-world deployments and revenue
Play a central role in taking Seabound from first commercial deployments to scaled adoption across the global shipping industry
Competitive salary and meaningful equity