Business Development Lead San Francisco

Flynavi; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Early-stage equity

Flight training for pilot's license

Impactful work in aviation

Job summary

Flynavi is looking for a founding Business Development professional in San Francisco to expand its presence in the aviation market. You will lead the full cycle of business development, from sourcing relationships to deploying solutions in flight schools and airlines.

The role demands a proven track record in aviation sales, strong communication skills, and the ability to manage complex deals with minimal guidance. You'll be instrumental in shaping the company's growth by building a business development team.

Qualifications

• Track record in aviation sales with experience selling to airlines, business aviation, or flight schools.
• Ability to manage deals from start to finish.
• Willingness to travel extensively to meet customers.

Responsibilities

• Own the business development cycle from first contact to deployment.
• Build and manage a pipeline of aviation customers.
• Negotiate and close commercial agreements.

Skills

Aviation sales experience

Strong commercial instincts

Excellent communication

Comfort with ambiguity

Job description

Navi captures everything a pilot sees and hears and turns it into automated debrief intelligence. The platform is live at flight schools, business jet operators, and the U.S. Air Force — and demand is accelerating. You're the person who turns that demand into deployments.

About the role

This is a founding business development role. You own how Navi expands across the aviation market — airlines, charter operators, and the training centers that produce the next generation of pilots. You own the full cycle: sourcing the relationship, running the pitch, closing the deal, and standing up the deployment that follows.

Navi is deployed at Embry-Riddle, Purdue, UND, Sling Pilot Academy, and the United States Air Force. The market is wide open and the product is proven. What we need now is someone to go take it.

You won't be handed a playbook. You'll write it — and then build the team that runs it.

What you'll do

Own the full business development cycle from first contact to signed deal to live deployment — across airlines, private jet operators, and flight training centers

Build and manage a pipeline of aviation customers — identify the right targets, get in the room, and move deals to close

Run pitches and product demos for operators, training directors, and aviation executives — translating Navi's capabilities into outcomes they care about

Negotiate and close commercial agreements, then partner with the team to make every deployment a success

Develop the go-to-market strategy for new segments — figure out what works, document it, and turn it into a repeatable motion

Represent Navi in person at customer sites, industry events, and on the road — this is a relationship business and you'll be where the customers are

Hire and build the business development team as we scale, setting the standard for how Navi sells

About you

A track record in aviation sales — you've sold into airlines, business aviation, flight schools, or training organizations and you know how the industry buys

Demonstrated ability to own deals end to end, from sourcing through close, with minimal direction

Strong commercial instincts — you can read a room, build trust fast, and move a complex deal forward

Comfortable in ambiguity and moving fast without a defined roadmap — you've built pipeline from zero

Willing to travel extensively and meet customers in person, while spending some time each month with the team in San Francisco

Excellent communicator who can speak credibly to pilots, training directors, and C-suite executives alike

You want to build, not just sell — you're excited to stand up a team and a function, not inherit one

Nice to have

An existing network across airlines, charter and fractional operators, or collegiate and military flight training programs

Experience selling technical or hardware-plus-software products into regulated industries

Background as a pilot, or deep familiarity with flight operations and training workflows

Why this role matters

Navi only changes aviation if it gets into cockpits. The product is built, proven, and trusted by the most demanding operators in the world. The bottleneck now is reach. This role is how Navi goes from a category-defining product to the aviation standard — and the person who owns it will shape how the entire company grows.

What you'll get

Early-stage equity — real ownership in a category-defining company

Flight training — earn your pilot's license and sell with true domain expertise

Impact you can see — the deals you close put Navi in cockpits at airlines, flight schools, and the U.S. Air Force

A role that scales into commercial leadership as we grow

How we work

Find a way. We don't wait for permission or perfect information. Ideas come from anywhere regardless of title. Figure it out, ship it, iterate.

Creativity over control. First principles over process. We'd rather have a creative solution that's 80% right today than a perfect one next quarter.

Update fast. Come in with a hypothesis, throw it away when the data says otherwise. Ego has no place here.

Intensity with focus. We work hard because the mission demands it. Clarity on what matters is how we make that sustainable.