SmartSea, powered by SITA, is seeking an accomplished and growth-driven Head of Commercial to lead its global sales and commercial strategy in the maritime technology sector. This role is central to SmartSea’s expansion, combining rigorous commercial governance and contracting discipline with a mandate to drive new customer acquisition, market penetration, and scalable revenue generation across products, services, and solutions.
As a member of the leadership team, you will shape and execute SmartSea’s go-to-market, sales, and commercial frameworks, ensuring our offerings are competitively positioned, contracts deliver long-term value, and growth targets are exceeded. Working closely with sales, product, delivery, finance, and legal teams, you will lead SmartSea’s global commercial expansion in a fast-evolving maritime market.
Commercial Strategy & Leadership
- Define and implement SmartSea’s international sales and commercial strategy, balancing growth ambitions with governance discipline.
- Drive new logo acquisition, market entry, and revenue growth, with clear accountability for pipeline creation, forecasting, and conversion.
- Establish competitive pricing models, margin management frameworks, and risk management policies across all offerings.
- Lead high-value customer and partner negotiations, structuring complex, multi-year agreements.
- Build repeatable, scalable sales processes tailored to market segments.
- Act as the executive lead in developing new business opportunities, partnerships, and alliances that accelerate SmartSea’s growth.
Sales, Market Development & Partnerships
- Personally engage with top prospects and strategic accounts to close high-value deals.
- Drive expansion into new markets and customer segments across the maritime value chain (shipowners, ports, offshore operators, and service providers).
- Build, coach, and inspire a high-performing sales and business development team with a hunter mindset.
- Develop compelling customer value propositions to differentiate SmartSea in tenders and direct engagements.
- Collaborate with the executive team to align sales and partnership strategies with product roadmaps and service delivery capabilities.
- Drive partner-led growth through alliances, joint ventures, and ecosystem development.
Contracting, Tendering & Governance
- Lead the end-to-end tendering process: bid qualification, proposal development, RFP responses, pricing, and negotiations.
- Oversee the drafting, review, and negotiation of customer and supplier contracts, ensuring alignment with SmartSea’s growth and risk profile.
- Manage the full contract lifecycle, including renewals, amendments, SLAs, dispute resolution, and performance tracking.
- Drive continuous improvement in tendering and contracting processes to increase win rates and reduce cycle times.
- Ensure compliance, transparency, and commercial governance frameworks are embedded across the business.
Stakeholder Engagement & Industry Leadership
- Represent SmartSea at industry forums, events, and with key customers as the commercial authority.
- Build strong C-level relationships with customers, partners, and suppliers.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure contracts are executable and value-realised.
- Position SmartSea competitively through market insights, competitive analysis, and thought leadership in maritime technology.
- 10+ years’ experience in international sales and commercial leadership, ideally in technology, services, or maritime/transportation industries.
- Proven track record of new business acquisition and delivering multi-million-dollar revenue growth.
- Demonstrated expertise in contracting, tendering, and negotiations, including multi-year, high-value agreements.
- Experience in scale-up or high-growth environments, driving global sales expansion.
- Strong understanding of SaaS, managed services, and solution-based commercial models.
- Excellent commercial acumen, with the ability to balance growth ambition, risk awareness, and profitability.
- Strong influencing and negotiation skills, able to engage credibly at the C-suite level.
- Fluent in English.
- Experience in the maritime, aviation, or transport/logistics technology sector.
- Background in developing strategic alliances, joint ventures, and partnership agreements.
- Knowledge of international contracting standards and commercial frameworks.
- Additional languages are an advantage.
- Visionary and results-driven leader, capable of setting bold growth targets while safeguarding SmartSea’s interests.
- Proven ability to recruit, coach, and inspire high-performing teams with both hunter and governance mindsets.
- Strong decision-making and governance skills, ensuring commercial integrity while accelerating growth.
- Thrives in a fast-paced, high-growth environment with a global customer base.
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Law, Finance, or a related field (required).
- Master of Business Administration (MBA) or equivalent (preferred).
SmartSea is an Equal Opportunity Employer and values a diverse workforce with many different countries and cultures represented in our business. SmartSea offers:
- Competitive salary package.
- Professional development and career growth opportunities.
- Exposure to various projects and functions in a fast-paced environment.
- Opportunity to work in a supportive team and contribute to real maritime projects.
- Work with cutting-edge technologies in a dynamic environment.
- Opportunity to lead critical infrastructure initiatives and drive innovation.
- Competitive compensation and benefits package.
- Career growth and professional development opportunities.
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