Founding BD Lead – Defense & Public Sector

Praetori; Netherlands; Hybrid; EUR 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Praetori is hiring a Founding Business Development Lead to open doors in European defence, intelligence, public security and critical infrastructure. You will build relationships with ministries, agencies, primes, and operators, earning credible conversations through deep operational insight.

You will be among the first commercial hires, shaping outbound strategies, pipelines, and reference-able pilots across Europe, working closely with founders and engineers.

Qualifications

• You can point to specific complex, high-value deals you personally opened and moved, and name the outcome.
• A record of opening and advancing complex, high-value deals into government, defence or enterprise, from a standing start.
• Fluency in long, multi-stakeholder cycles where trust and technical credibility decide the outcome.
• The ability to learn a hard domain deeply and hold your own with serious operators.
• Writing and presence that make senior people want the next meeting.
• Self-direction bordering on the entrepreneurial. You build the process, not wait for one.
• Willingness to travel across Europe. Fluent English.

Responsibilities

• Map the European defence, intelligence, public security and critical-infrastructure landscape, and identify where Praetori creates decisive advantage.
• Run disciplined, research-led outbound to senior operators. Earn meetings through relevance, not volume.
• Build a real command of each account's mission, constraints and procurement reality.
• Uncover the operational problems beneath stated requirements, and shape opportunities Praetori can own.
• Build trust across technical, operational and procurement stakeholders through long sales cycles.
• Navigate public-sector and defence procurement with patience and precision.
• Partner with forward deployed engineers to run credible discovery and shape early pilots.
• Keep an honest pipeline. Forecast conservatively and close out dead deals early.

Skills

High-value deals

Multi-stakeholder sales

Domain learning

Written communication

Self-direction

Travel readiness

English fluency

Job description

Praetori is hiring a Founding Business Development Lead to open doors in European defence, intelligence, public security and critical infrastructure. You will build relationships with ministries, agencies, primes, and operators, earning credible conversations through deep operational insight.

You will be among the first commercial hires, shaping outbound strategies, pipelines, and reference-able pilots across Europe, working closely with founders and engineers.