USA, ideally close to a major industrial or commercial hub, with significant national travel expected
Sales Director, USA
This is a high-impact role for an ambitious and entrepreneurial sales leader to own Cenotian's commercial front line in the USA - on a high-stakes, IPO-bound journey to build the world's leading asset-backed financing platform for robotics and industrial automation.
With strong institutional backing and a mandate to scale rapidly, we are building out a world-class commercial organization. The Sales Director, USA is the person who turns that opportunity into qualified pipeline, closed transactions and contracted future demand across the country.
Context
Cenotian is the market maker for robotics, restoring industrial sovereignty in the West. We provide capital and capabilities to back physical automation projects across the US and Europe. Today, the engineers who build and install robots, machines and systems on site are under immense financial pressure and unable to scale. We remove that bottleneck, giving them the customized financing and services they need to accelerate automation in Western production. Cenotian is now in hyper-growth: launching new bets, entering new markets, and building the organizational backbone to sustain it. The US is one of the world's largest markets for robotics and industrial automation, but deployment remains constrained by the same structural problem: system integrators and OEMs carry project and working-capital pressure while operators resist capex and stranded risk. Cenotian's asset-backed financing infrastructure removes that bottleneck without taking on warehousing, spares, maintenance or asset operations. Our market is technical and relationship-driven. Cenotian wins through face-to-face credibility, disciplined qualification, clear financial solutions and reliable execution. The strongest accounts begin with one live transaction and develop into repeat volume, multi-site relationships and demand-under-contract agreements.
Position overview
The Sales Director, USA owns Cenotian's commercial execution across the United States. This is a hands-on, quota-carrying role that combines direct deal origination and closing, system-integrator and operator relationships, OEM coordination and disciplined pipeline management. The Sales Director is accountable for building and converting the US pipeline, hitting revenue and contract-volume targets, and feeding real market intelligence back into the global commercial organization. This is a builder's seat: you will personally close deals while standing up the country's sales motion, playbooks and, over time, team. This is first and foremost a revenue role - personal deal closing and primary customer-facing contact are expected, day in and day out.
- Reports to:
- Head of Commercial / CCO
- Location:
- USA, ideally close to a major industrial or commercial hub, with significant national travel expected
Key responsibilities
- 01
US revenue and pipeline ownership
- Own qualified pipeline, contract volume and closed transactions across the USA against clear targets set with the Head of Commercial.
- Build a precise target-account universe across system integrators, solution OEMs and selected industrial operators.
- Prioritize companies using evidence: signed demand, project type, customer quality, margins, working-capital pressure, engineering maturity and delivery capacity.
- Personally originate and close deals on an ongoing basis - you carry a number.
- Build a repeatable, nationally scalable go-to-market motion grounded in customer economics and automation adoption.
- 02
Sales, origination and deal execution
- Meet system-integrator owners, OEM leaders, operator executives, CFOs, engineering leaders and plant teams face to face.
- Understand recent projects, payment milestones, gross margins, backlog, customer concentration and the precise growth constraint.
- Disqualify weak opportunities early and protect the organization from false pipeline.
- Originate financing opportunities tied to signed automation orders or clearly specified equipment purchases.
- Move deals with discipline from first contact through technical qualification, underwriting, proposal, contracting and closing.
- Apply Cenotian's pricing logic and contracting playbooks within approved guardrails to minimize friction and shorten cycle time.
- 03
Customer and deal experience
- Own the US customer experience from first interaction through contract execution and the first operating cycle.
- Ensure proposals and structures reflect real-world buying behavior, deployment realities and operator economics.
- Keep momentum through multi-party processes involving integrators, operators, OEMs, Finance, Technical Qualification and capital providers.
- Act as the US commercial voice into product and structuring, surfacing what customers actually need.
- Remain the senior commercial owner for escalations, renegotiations and complex account dynamics.
- 04
OEM, integrator and operator relationships
- Build and steward senior relationships with robotics and automation OEMs, system integrators, solution OEMs and large operators across the USA.
- Land and grow regional financing partnerships in alignment with global OEM agreements owned by the Head of Commercial.
- Develop industrial-cluster density through direct outreach, referrals, OEM relationships, banks, associations, trade bodies and industry events.
- Represent Cenotian at customer sites and relevant US robotics, manufacturing and automation forums.
- Position Cenotian as critical deployment infrastructure - not merely a financing provider.
- 05
Repeat business and contracted demand
- Convert successful first transactions into repeat deals, multi-site frameworks and demand-under-contract agreements.
- Build account plans around customer pipeline, financing needs, product fit and partner potential.
- Make Cenotian part of the customer's normal quoting and project-planning process.
- Surface opportunities for Technical Qualification Services, compliance, procurement and other attached capabilities where they create real value.
- Institutionalize account intelligence and handoffs so relationships outlast any single transaction.
- 06
Commercial intelligence and operating discipline
- Feed continuous US market intelligence to the Head of Commercial, Finance, Underwriting and Special Missions.
- Surface early signals on pricing pressure, technology shifts, adoption bottlenecks, competitor behavior and regional dynamics.
- Maintain rigorous CRM and MIS hygiene so pipeline, forecast and deal status are always a reliable source of truth.
- Improve outreach, qualification, proposals, playbooks and handoffs after every transaction.
- Help shape product and portfolio direction through frontline insight rather than reactive risk management.
You'll know it's working when
The US pipeline is concentrated in qualified, financeable opportunities rather than nominal volume.
Transactions close within Cenotian's return, risk and strategic criteria.
Customers return after the first financing cycle and introduce additional projects and sites.
The strongest accounts move toward repeat frameworks and demand under contract.
Forecast accuracy and CRM discipline are trusted by the executive team.
The second transaction and the second market cluster move faster because the playbook exists.
Candidate profile
Experience
- 8+ years in sales, business development, key accounts or commercial leadership within robotics and industrial automation, alternatively in advanced manufacturing, industrial technology, aerospace, automotive or equipment and asset finance.
- A proven, quota-carrying track record of personally originating and closing complex B2B deals in the USA.
- Revenue and margin-generating performance that can be demonstrated with numbers and specific closed transactions.
- Existing credibility with system integrators, robotics OEMs, machine builders or industrial operators.
- Demonstrated ability to sell complex, multi-party solutions to sophisticated counterparties.
- Hard entrepreneurial scar tissue: building a territory, launching a market, leading growth, restructuring a business or operating in another environment where the playbook did not exist.
Personality
- Extremely ambitious, entrepreneurial and ownership-driven.
- Hunter mentality with the discipline to build a repeatable motion rather than chase one-off wins.
- Comfortable operating with autonomy in a fast-moving, category-defining environment.
- Clear and direct communicator who thrives in a candid, unfiltered culture.
- Natural collaborator across Commercial, Finance, Underwriting, Technical Qualification and Product.
- Trusted externally as a peer by system-integrator owners, OEM leaders and operator executives.
- High stamina, sound judgment and comfort with significant national travel.
Skills and competencies
- Strong commercial instincts paired with enough financial fluency to sell structured, asset-backed solutions.
- Ability to operate credibly with CEOs, CFOs, heads of engineering, plant leaders and operations executives.
- Skilled negotiator capable of structuring long-term, multi-party relationships.
- Disciplined pipeline, forecasting, account planning, CRM and MIS habits.
- Ability to stay close to the engineering and deployment reality while keeping the commercial process moving.
Organizational context
The Sales Director, USA will work most closely with:
- Head of Commercial / CCO - manager and global owner of commercial execution, OEM partnerships, demand creation, product experience and pricing guardrails.
- Head of Finance, VP Finance and Underwriting - shape transaction structures, define evidence requirements, assess risk and approve deals.
- Technical Qualification and Platform & Infrastructure - assess system integrators and live automation projects, then connect customers to relevant deployment capabilities.
- Head of Corporate / General Counsel - owns contracting, enforceability, data rights and negotiation playbooks.
- Principal - GTM Ops - builds launch playbooks, channels, campaigns, tooling and customer-acquisition systems that support the US motion.
- Head of Communications - supports positioning, industry presence, launches and market-facing narrative in the USA.
- The Sales Director owns the US customer relationship and commercial progression. Functional decision rights remain with the relevant executive owners.
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