cosine - Defence Account Director

London, England, United Kingdom+ Equity2w ago

In Office Director EMEA Government Director of Security Team Leadership Partnership Development Product Marketing Customer Onboarding Client Onboarding

Requirements

• You may have served in the UK Armed Forces or worked closely with Defence in engineering, capability development, acquisition, procurement, digital transformation or technology adoption. • You may subsequently have worked in consulting, technology, industry or an advisory role. What matters is that you understand how Defence works and can turn a customer need into commercial momentum. • Meaningful experience of the UK Defence ecosystem. • Strong existing relationships across Defence, Government or industry, and the ability to build new ones. • Experience introducing, acquiring or adopting complex technology. • The ability to structure ambiguous problems and turn them into actionable opportunities. • Strong commercial judgement and comfort being accountable for pipeline, opportunities and revenue. • The confidence to engage with operators, engineers, procurement teams, senior civil servants, military leaders and industry executives. • Genuine technical curiosity and the ability to learn enough about AI to have credible conversations with technical teams and customers. • The resilience to work through long Defence sales cycles while maintaining urgency and focus. • The independence and judgement to operate in a scale-up where the playbook is still being written. • You do not need to be an AI expert when you join. You do need to be intellectually curious, technically literate and able to communicate clearly without hiding behind jargon. • ___________________________________________________________________________ • WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE • Success ultimately means winning business and building enduring customer relationships. We aim to onboard at least 10 new client logos within the Defence account over the next 12 months and increase revenues by at least 300%. We expect that growth to come through credibility, judgement, customer insight and persistence rather than transactional selling.

Responsibilities

• Build and own a prioritised Defence account and opportunity strategy. • Develop trusted relationships with senior stakeholders across the MOD, Front Line Commands, wider Government and defence industry. • Identify operational problems, programmes and capability gaps where Cosine can make a material difference. • Translate customer needs into clearly defined use cases, propositions, pilots and programmes. • Navigate Defence stakeholders, budgets, acquisition routes, procurement processes and decision-making structures. • Lead opportunities from initial conversation through demonstration, technical evaluation, commercial agreement and delivery. • Work with Cosine’s technical teams to create credible customer propositions without overpromising. • Develop relationships with primes, strategic partners and specialist technology companies where this creates a stronger route to market. • Maintain disciplined account planning, pipeline management, qualification and forecasting. • Bring structured customer and market insight back to Product, Engineering, ML and senior leadership. • ___________________________________________________________________________ • Build a clear view of Cosine’s Defence proposition, capabilities and priorities. • Establish a focused account and stakeholder map. • Develop relationships with priority customers and partners. • Identify and qualify the most promising opportunities. • Create a disciplined approach to account planning, pipeline and forecasting. • Over time, you will help convert those opportunities into funded demonstrations, pilots and programmes, while shaping how Cosine is understood and adopted across UK Defence. • This is an opportunity to build Cosine’s Defence business from the ground up, with direct access to leadership and technical teams and genuine influence over our product, market strategy and customer relationships. • If you understand Defence from the inside, have strong customer instincts and want to help make sovereign AI operational, this is an opportunity to have significant impact.

Benefits

• Defence does not need more AI demonstrations that remain disconnected from operations. • It needs technology that can work across real missions, real systems, real security constraints and real acquisition processes. • Build a strategically important business from the ground up. • Work at the intersection of frontier AI, Defence and national capability. • Sell a genuinely differentiated product into mission-critical environments. • Influence product direction and go-to-market strategy. • Work closely with a small, technically deep and ambitious team. • Receive meaningful early equity with genuine upside. • ___________________________________________________________________________ • COMPENSATION, BENEFITS & WAYS OF WORKING • We’re an in-office team, five days a week, by design. We believe the work we’re doing benefits from being together, collaborating closely, and building shared context. • What you can expect: • Competitive salary, benchmarked to the market • Equity / share options, so you share in the upside you help create • 30 days’ holiday + bank holidays • Work hard in the office, collaborate closely, and switch off properly • Dog-friendly office — bring your dog to work • Weekly team breakfast & lunch • Monthly socials • High-quality equipment to do your best work • We care about focus, sustainability, and doing great work — not performative overwork. We value people who show up, contribute thoughtfully, collaborate well with their colleagues, and then go home. • This role won’t suit everyone. But if you’re looking for a fast-moving environment, close collaboration, and a team that takes both the work and work-life balance seriously, it’s a great place to be. • AGENCY & DATA PROTECTION NOTICE • To comply with UK GDPR and our internal data-protection and equal-opportunity obligations, we only accept candidate applications and agency submissions via our Applicant Tracking System (ATS). This ensures appropriate privacy notices, lawful processing, auditability, and consistent retention controls. • Any CVs or candidate details received outside the ATS (including via email, Slack, or direct message) will be treated as unsolicited, will not be considered as part of the recruitment process, and will not give rise to any fee or payment obligation.