Head of Corporate Development

Airwallet; Odense; On-site; DKK 900,000 - 1,400,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension

Health insurance

Job summary

Airwallet ApS, based in Odense, is seeking a strategic leader to spearhead corporate development and M&A initiatives across Europe and the UK. You will identify target acquisitions, evaluate value, and drive deal execution with the CEO.

You will own the market map, model underwriting, lead due diligence, and coordinate advisors, with the goal of closing the first acquisition within the year and building a repeatable playbook.

Qualifications

• Five or more years across corporate development, M&A advisory, growth equity or transaction services.
• Real financial modelling ability and ability to build valuation and deal structures.
• Experience with businesses that sell physical devices and hardware is a plus.
• Willingness to do proprietary outreach to founder-owned businesses.

Responsibilities

• Build market map and underwriting model for Europe and the UK.
• Lead direct outreach to founder-owned businesses; target multiple conversations to close one deal.
• Determine true value by separating recurring revenue from hardware sales and modeling costs.
• Lead diligence and coordinate external advisors across financial, legal, tech and IP workstreams.
• Negotiate and structure the deal with the CEO, including valuation, warranties, earn-outs and financing.
• Own the first 90 days post-close and drive integration until handover to ops.
• Write the playbook to accelerate subsequent deals.

Skills

Corporate development

M&A advisory

Financial modelling

Deal sourcing

Negotiation

English fluency

Job description

About Airwallet

Airwallet replaces coins with cashless payments in laundry, trusted by operators in more than 50 countries.

Airwallet ApS is the Danish parent, headquartered in Odense, and is the employer for this role. Airwallet Inc. is our US subsidiary, based in Florida. We are 40 people, founder-led, and profitable.

Why this role exists

Our market is fragmented. Across Europe and the UK there are dozens of small hardware-led payment system developers selling into laundry, most of them founder-owned, most of them running on ageing technology, and most of them without a succession plan. Very few of them will ever be sold through a broker.

We have not bought anyone yet. This role exists to change that, and the brief is one acquisition done properly rather than a pipeline of processes. If the first one works, we build toward a steady cadence from there. If it does not, we would rather find that out after one than after three.

Being profitable is what makes this credible. We are not hiring someone to build a pipeline in the hope that funding shows up later.

The work sits with the CEO today alongside running the company, which means it happens in the gaps. You will be the first person at Airwallet ApS whose job is to find these companies, get to know their founders, decide which ones are worth buying, and then make the acquisition work once it closes. There is no corporate development function to inherit and no committee to write papers for. Deal volume will be low and your ownership of each deal will be close to total.

What you will own

• Building and maintaining a live view of every relevant target across Europe and the UK, scored on recurring revenue quality, installed base, hardware generation, ownership structure and intellectual property position.
• Direct outreach to founder-owned businesses that are not for sale yet. Fifteen to twenty first conversations a year is roughly what it takes to get to one closed transaction.
• Working out what a target is actually worth, which means separating genuine recurring revenue from hardware sales, sizing the installed base, and modelling what it costs to bring those locations onto Airwallet.
• Leading diligence and coordinating our external advisors across the financial, legal, technical and intellectual property workstreams.
• Negotiating and structuring the deal alongside the CEO, including valuation, warranties, earn-outs and financing.
• Owning the first ninety days after closing, then handing over to an integration owner in the operating organisation while staying accountable for how the acquired business performs.
• Writing the playbook as you go, so that the second deal is faster than the first.

The first twelve months

You should expect to spend the first quarter building the market map and the underwriting model, the second quarter in first and second conversations, the third quarter in diligence on your first serious target, and the fourth quarter negotiating. The first acquisition is the deliverable, not a pipeline report.

What we are looking for

Essential:

• Five or more years across corporate development, M&A advisory, growth equity or transaction services, including at least one deal you took from origination through to closing.
• Real financial modelling ability. You build the valuation and the deal structure yourself, in a spreadsheet, with nobody underneath you to hand it to.
• Experience with, or genuine appetite for, businesses that sell physical devices. A large part of the value in these targets sits in installed hardware, and you need to be comfortable getting into that detail rather than treating it as somebody else's workstream.
• Willingness to do proprietary outreach. Much of this job is cold approaches to founders who have not thought about selling, and building relationships over quarters rather than weeks.
• Commercial judgement on recurring revenue. You can argue with a seller about retention, churn and revenue quality and be right.
• Fluent English. German, Spanish or French is a meaningful advantage given where the targets are. Danish is not required.

Advantage:

• Experience integrating an acquired company, particularly the parts that went badly.
• Background in payments, fintech, IoT or unattended retail.
• Experience working with Nordic debt providers or growth equity funds.

Compensation and terms

• Fixed salary plus bonus. The bonus is deliberately not tied to closing transactions. A meaningful part of it is deferred and linked to how acquired businesses retain revenue in the year after closing, and to integration cost against budget. We want the right deal, not more deals.
• Pension and health insurance.
• Direct reporting line to the CEO and a standing seat in the strategic discussions where these decisions get made.

Process

First conversation is with the CEO. We expect to hold final conversations in Q4 2026.