VP of Strategic Accounts— Aerospace & Defense

Vice President, Strategic Accounts — Aerospace & Defense Location: Remote / hybrid. Preference for candidates near a major A&D hub with strong airport access — Los Angeles, Phoenix, Bay Area, Denver, San Antonio, Atlanta, Louisville, Cincinnati, Columbus (OH), Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Houston, or Las Vegas. Candidates near other A&D hubs (Seattle, Dallas/Fort Worth, Washington DC, Huntsville, Tampa, Orlando, St. Louis, etc.) will also be considered. Compensation: $210,000 – $250,000 base + 30% target bonus + equity. Reports To: Chief Commercial Officer About the Role The company is building out its Aerospace & Defense vertical and is hiring a Vice President of Strategic Accounts to lead the effort end to end. The role has two halves: a supply chain / operational-readiness half and a business development half. This is a build role, not a pure hunter role. You will own customer-facing growth across A&D primes and Tier 1/2 suppliers, and you will also serve as the company's internal point of contact for A&D operational readiness, guiding our plants on the certifications, cyber standards, and audit-preparation work required to deliver to defense customers. Why this role exists — and why we are anchoring it on the supply chain. Selling into A&D primes is not a cold-outreach problem. Primes work with partners who already speak their language: people who understand the supply chain, materials flow, packaging specifications, and program-side procurement cadence from the inside. The ideal hire spent the bulk of their career inside a prime, or a deeply prime-embedded Tier 1, and is now ready to take that fluency to the supplier side. We have already proven this play in another of our verticals: the leaders who built it came out of that industry's own supply chain ecosystem before joining us. We are looking for that same shape, tailored to A&D primes. A&D is currently a low single-digit share of the company's overall revenue. The successful hire will both expand existing footprint at Lockheed, Northrop, Honeywell, RTX, and Boeing and build the vertical's compliance and operational backbone so we can scale it to a meaningful share of revenue. You will not be carrying a quota into a fully-stood-up vertical. You will be helping us stand it up — starting by learning the company's real capabilities and production lead times, landing one or two Tier-1 "lighthouse" accounts as proof points, and building a repeatable, scalable process (and, over time, a small regional team) behind them. Responsibilities A&D Vertical Build-Out & Operational Readiness Serve as the company's internal single point of contact for A&D customer compliance and audit readiness across our national multi-site plant footprint Partner with plant operations leadership to drive readiness against AS9100, NIST 800-171 cyber requirements, DFARS clauses, ITAR-relevant handling, and prime-specific quality programs Quarterback prime-customer audits (e.g., Lockheed plant visits) end to end: paperwork, documentation, plant walk-throughs, follow-up Translate prime-customer requirements (cert language, MIL-STD packaging, first-article/POP test protocols, Technical Data Packages, classified shipping requirements, ESD handling, OEM delivery schedules) into concrete operational expectations the plant teams can execute against Work shoulder-to-shoulder with operations on the front end so A&D pursuits are fulfillable before they are sold — understanding the company's capabilities and limitations first, and never overselling what the plants can deliver Strategic Account Growth Expand existing A&D footprint at Lockheed, Northrop, Honeywell, RTX, and Boeing across both defense and commercial aerospace work Land new logos at primes and Tier 1/2 suppliers, ordnance/munitions manufacturers, drone/UAV makers, and emerging defense tech (Sierra Nevada, Anduril, Shield AI, Skydio, AeroVironment, Joby, Archer, etc.) Prioritize one or two Tier-1 "lighthouse" accounts as case studies that build the com…