Corporate Finance & Strategy Associate

Blackshark; Mont-Saint-Guibert; On-site; EUR 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Aerospacelab seeks a senior corporate finance professional to drive M&A, equity financing, and strategic partnerships. You will work directly with the VP to own substantial parts of live deals, from industry mapping to board memos and investor data rooms.

The role combines M&A, capital raising, corporate development, strategy, and investor relations under a single mandate, with exposure to the executive team. Hybrid Belgium-based role with international travel.

Qualifications

• 3–7 years in investment banking or related fields.
• Ability to build three-statement model, a DCF and an LBO from scratch.
• Rigour and accuracy: your numbers are right and your reasoning is clear.
• Clear, concise writing and clean Excel and PowerPoint materials that a board/investor can act on.
• Ability to carry several live deadlines at once and prioritise under pressure.
• Discretion with confidential information.
• Interest in European technological and industrial sovereignty.
• Fluent English; working French strongly preferred in Belgium.
• Eligibility to work in Belgium / EU.

Responsibilities

• Lead M&A and strategic transactions, including origination, due diligence, structuring and deal execution.
• Support financing and capital markets activities: equity raises, capitalization tables and term sheets.
• Develop investor relations materials and manage relationships with investors/lenders.
• Prepare board papers and investor communications; turn inputs into actionable analysis.

Skills

Investment banking

Financial modelling

Strategic thinking

Communication

Discretion & judgement

Fluent English

French language

Education

Engineering or technical degree

Tools

Excel

PowerPoint

Job description

About Aerospacelab

Our mission is supported by an ambitious vertically integrated approach: design & manufacture of small satellites combined with development of earth observation services.

Since its creation in 2018, the company has already grown substantially. Our team gathers more than 25 engineering expertise, from hardware design to software development & data science.

In 2026, Aerospacelab counts offices in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium), Toulouse (France), Lausanne (Switzerland) and US West Coast with more than 400 full-time employees, with the ambition to position itself as the European leader in small satellites.

Role overview

Reporting to the VP, Corporate Finance & Strategy, you work directly on the company’s most significant transactions: acquisitions and investments, equity financing, strategic partnerships and investor relations. The team is small and the mandates are large and live, so you own substantive parts of real deals early rather than support from a distance. In a given week you might move between a strategic mapping of the industry, a due-diligence stream, a board memo and an investor data room.

The seat offers unusual range for one role (M&A, capital raising, corporate development, strategy and investor relations under a single mandate) with direct exposure to the executive team and the company’s investors, and a growing volume of deals and financings as the company scales. You take ownership and responsibility early.

The position is full-time and permanent, based in Belgium (Mont-Saint-Guibert / Charleroi) with hybrid working and some international travel. Compensation is a competitive base plus equity participation in the business.

Key activities

M&A and strategic transactions

• Build and maintain business plans and transaction models: three-statement operating models, DCF and sum-of-the-parts valuations, returns and sensitivities.
• Support execution from origination and screening through due diligence, structuring, negotiation and integration planning across acquisitions, joint ventures, minority investments and partnerships.
• Coordinate diligence workstreams and manage external advisors: banks, legal, tax, technical and financial.
• Write the board and investment-committee papers: the analysis, the options, the recommendation.
• Support the shareholder-agreement, governance and capital-structure work tied to deals and financings.

Financing and capital markets

• Support equity rounds and other capital raises: equity story, investor materials, capitalisation table and dilution analysis, and term-sheet review.
• Build and run the investor pipeline and CRM; profile and prioritise targets across sovereign wealth funds, growth-equity firms, strategics and family offices.
• Prepare and run the data room and handle investor diligence requests.
• Contribute to public-markets work.
• Strategy and market intelligence
• Produce competitive and sector analysis across space, defence and deep tech: comparables, financing and M&A activity, market sizing, value-chain mapping.
• Build the business cases for new markets, programmes and capabilities.
• Turn commercial, technical and geopolitical inputs into the analysis leadership uses to decide.

Investor relations

• Prepare investor reporting and shareholder updates.
• Help manage relationships with existing investors and lenders.

Must have

• 3–7 years in investment banking (M&A, leveraged finance, ECM or coverage), private equity, growth equity, transaction services or strategy consulting.
• The ability to build, not just run, a three-statement model, a DCF and an LBO from scratch.
• Rigour and accuracy: your numbers are right and your reasoning is clear.
• Clear, concise writing and clean Excel and PowerPoint; materials a board or an investor can act on directly.
• The ability to carry several live deadlines at once and prioritise well under pressure.
• Discretion and judgement with confidential information.
• An interest in European technological and industrial sovereignty.
• Fluent English; working French strongly preferred and useful day-to-day in Belgium.
• Eligibility to work in Belgium / the EU.

Nice to have

• An engineering or technical degree; we want someone who can understand the products and the industry, not only the financials.
• Hands-on experience in aerospace, defence, space, hardware or another capital-intensive, technically complex industry.
• Cross-border M&A and public-markets experience (IPO, P2P, PIPE).

Shortlisted candidates complete a financial-modelling and strategic-case exercise as part of the interview process.