Responsibilities

• Achieve Federal and Commercial Business Development Targets: Own and achieve the company targets for multi-gigawatt contracted capacity through signed, binding, long-term agreements.
• Strategic Market Development: Set and execute the North American and global business development strategy to close deals for SMR technologies. Identify and pursue emerging market opportunities, such as "behind-the-meter" solutions for data centers and industrial hubs.
• Relationship & Pipeline Ownership: Cultivate and own senior leadership relationships with federal agencies and within nuclear utilities, IPPs, and large energy consumers. Oversee the full commercial pipeline from initial engagement through contract award.
• Commercial Structuring & Closing: Lead the origination, negotiation, and closing of complex commercial agreements, including Capacity Reservation Agreements (CRAs), Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs), and Joint Development Agreements (JDAs) with pre-commercial structures and milestone-based payment schedules.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Provide leadership for government affairs, communications, marketing and commercial strategy. Serve as the senior integrator across engineering, licensing, finance, and legal to ensure all commercial offerings are technically viable, regulatory-compliant, and bankable. Build and lead a high-performing external-facing team.
• Market Representation: Represent Zap Energy at the highest levels — major industry forums, regulatory proceedings, and global energy conferences — to accelerate the revenue pipeline and shape the narrative around SMR deployment.
• External Perspective: Set strategic direction for proposal, marketing, and policy teams to develop high-quality collateral, technical bids, and competitive pursuit strategies aligned with company growth objectives.

Requirements

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Nuclear, Mechanical, or Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field; an MBA or advanced degree is strongly preferred.
• Industry Experience: 15+ years of progressive experience in business development or strategic commercial leadership within the nuclear or power generation sectors, including prior experience managing and scaling commercial teams.
• Technical Knowledge: Understanding of SMR and advanced reactor technologies (e.g., PWR, BWR, Gen IV), fuel cycles, and modular construction methods.
• Regulatory Fluency: Familiarity with NRC licensing pathways (10 CFR Part 50, 52, and the emerging Part 53 framework) and their impact on project timelines and commercial risk.
• Commercial Track Record: Demonstrated executive-level success originating and closing large-scale, high-value contracts with long sales cycles in regulated or deregulated energy markets.
• Communication Skills: Exceptional ability to distill complex technical and regulatory topics into clear recommendations for boards, executive stakeholders, and investors.

Preferred

• MBA or advanced degree strongly preferred