Head of Commercialization

over 3 years ago
Full time role
Remote · San Francisco, CA, US... more

Living Carbon is a pre-launch public benefit corporation with a mission to fight climate change by enhancing CO2 capture and storage in trees. We believe that gigaton scale CO2 drawdown will only happen if solutions are both environmentally beneficial and profitable to landowners. Our goal is to responsibly rebalance carbon flux using humanity's unique metacognitive and technical abilities, with a focus on forest biotechnology. We’re backed by some of the most prominent investors in Silicon Valley including, Y Combinator, Felicis Ventures, Sam Altman, and Lower Carbon Capital. 

If you believe that climate change is the defining global emergency of the century and want to join an ambitious project that’s working on a biological solution, we’d love to hear from you.

Your role:

We’re looking for someone who’s excited to be part of a mission-driven early stage company. Until recently we’ve been operating as a R&D lab. Now we have our sights set on bringing our photosynthesis-enhanced seedlings to market! We are looking for a go-to-market leader who has brought new products to market before, ideally in old antiquated markets or in biotech/ag. As our Head of Commercialization, your role will be an executive track role and will require a combo of both business development strategy and execution on go to market strategy. You’ll be responsible for the end to end commercialization progress of our photosynthesis-enhanced seedlings and work alongside our CEO and head of forestry. You’ll also work closely with our head of timber to build a pipeline of possible customers, prioritize those customers, borrow/build a sales team with the goal of planting the biggest afforestation carbon project in the United States. A successful candidate is a proven executor who has experience with go to market at early stage startups and is comfortable diving into new fields. You will also have the opportunity to contribute to the company’s strategic goals and think creatively about how to move quickly and solve problems. 

Responsibilities:

  • Refine and execute our commercialization seedling planting strategy
  • Develop and implement landowner referral programs, corporate partnerships and investigate other strategic initiatives to help plant +1M of our Living Carbon seedlings
  • Help manage and hire for our supply/logistics team
  • Help manage and build out a pipeline of landowners to plant our seedlings
  • Implement a lead qualification and CRM tracking system
  • Work alongside our CEO on all things GTM, business development and revenue goals
  • Own/develop relationships with key stakeholders and partners
  • Travel and visit landowners in the field about once a month

Requirements:

  • +5 years experience at an early stage startup ideally leading business development, go to market, growth or operations teams or equivalent combo of management consulting/startup experience
  • Proven executor who can be passed any project and trusted to get the job done
  • Creative thinker who thrives with a large degree of autonomy, and trust doesn’t require much hand-holding to jump into projects
  • Previously gone “zero to one” in developing another company’s go-to-market strategy, as a leader or high responsibility team member
  • Have built or managed early business development/implementation/sales or operations teams at startups
  • Very detailed orientated and highly confident relationship manager
  • Fast learner with some basic knowledge of the climate crisis, possible solutions and a strong desire to learn more about forest biotechnology
  • A combination of executor/strategist -- you aren’t put off by doing the nitty gritty or executing on tasks if you can see the bigger picture and it helps us get closer to our goal. You understand the need for early stage startups to be all hands on deck to make progress toward our goals.
  • Desired experience with GTM or business development for a hardware, biotech or ag related business
  • Passion for doing hard things and making the seemingly impossible, possible! 
  • Clear communicator who moves quickly and follows through with action items
  • Strong pace of execution, humility and willingness to do what it takes to complete a project even if it means doing something outside your typical scope of work
  • Appreciation for plants, ecosystem thinking and the need for ambitious solutions to help rebalance our planets and slow climate change