Senior Director of Business Development (Defense, Aerospace)

Location: On-site in Tokyo, Japan; frequent travel across Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and internationally is required.

Company

hirify.global develops an autonomy ecosystem including X-BAT, V-BAT, ViDAR, and Hivemind for defense and national security applications.

What you will do

• Own and execute regional go-to-market strategy for Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
• Manage annual order targets, multi-year pipeline development, and order growth.
• Lead capture and sales efforts from early engagement through contract award and follow-on growth.
• Build relationships with senior military, government, defense industry, local primes, and strategic partners.
• Lead proposals, program development, complex product demonstrations, and industrial participation or offset strategies.
• Provide market intelligence and collaborate with product, engineering, legal, export compliance, and operations teams.

Requirements

• 10+ years of business development experience in defense, aerospace, or national security across Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, or the broader region.
• Deep understanding of regional procurement processes, offset requirements, export sensitivities, local defense primes, and indigenization requirements.
• Demonstrated success closing complex defense or government programs across hardware and software, ideally involving aircraft, UAS, autonomy, or AI.
• Technical experience with autonomy, UAVs, ISR, and advanced sensing technologies.
• Strong negotiation, relationship-building, stakeholder management, written, verbal, and presentation skills, with the ability to lead cross-functional teams.
• Based today in Tokyo, Japan; able to work across multiple time zones and travel frequently.

Nice to have

• Fluency in English and Japanese.
• Existing U.S. or allied security clearance.
• Prior military service or operational leadership experience in Japan.
• Experience with foreign military sales through DSCA, SAF/IA, foreign air forces, UAV operations, mission autonomy, or AI-enabled C2 systems.

Culture & Benefits

• International EOR employment arrangement.
• Significant autonomy and ownership over regional strategy and major pursuits.
• Collaboration with international business development colleagues and product, engineering, and operations teams.
• Opportunity to build a regional team and long-term defense partnerships.