Head of Partnerships

Head of Partnerships

Growth / Business Development · Remote (U.S.) or Washington, DC or San Francisco preferred · Full time ·

About Us

Swan delivers the future of defense and industry through scalable autonomous products. Swan is backed by leading defense VCs, including a16z's American Dynamism fund.

About the Team

The Business Development (BD) team at Swan is responsible for identifying, shaping, capturing, and growing opportunities across our government customer base. BD team members serve as the bridge between the customers and the company. They are responsible for translating mission needs and user feedback internally, while acting as Swan's ambassador externally to clients, partners, and the broader defense and national security community. The team partners closely with strategy, corporate development, engineering, operations, and capture functions to ensure Swan's products consistently meet mission demands.

About the Role

Swan is looking for a Head of Partnerships to own the company-to-company and country-to-country relationships that let our autonomous systems reach more missions, faster than we could reach them alone.

This is a deals role, not a relationship-management role. You will build real, multi-year agreements with tangible obligations on both sides; joint development, co-production, integration, distribution, and shared economics.

Memoranda of understanding and press releases are not the output; signed agreements that change what Swan can field, and where, are the output.

The role has two halves. The first is strategic partnerships and corporate development: structuring deals with technology companies, primes, manufacturers, and suppliers that expand what our products can do and how fast we can build them. The second is international and allied market access: standing up the in-country partners, licensing pathways, and co-production relationships that put Swan's systems in the hands of allied operators; work that is already live given our deployments in Ukraine.

This role is distinct from, and partners closely with, Swan's Head of Growth. Growth owns U.S. Government capture, pipeline, and proposals; winning programs. Partnerships owns the agreements with other organizations and other governments that make those programs possible and extend them abroad. You will report to and work directly with Swan's executive team, and you will be the first dedicated partnerships hire, with the latitude and the obligation to build the function from scratch.

What You'll Do

Own Swan's partnership strategy. Define which partnerships actually matter; and, just as importantly, which ones don't. Build the thesis for where Swan should partner rather than build or buy, align it to the product roadmap and corporate strategy, and maintain a prioritized portfolio rather than an opportunistic pile of inbound interest.

Structure and close real deals. Take partnerships from first conversation through signed agreement: joint development and R&D cost-share, technology licensing and integration, distribution and reseller arrangements, co-production, teaming, and supply agreements. Own the negotiation personally. This is a hunter's role; you will be measured on executed agreements and the business they unlock, not on meetings held. Open allied and international markets. Identify, vet, and stand up in-country partners, distributors, and industrial collaborators across allied nations. Build the market-entry approach for priority countries, navigate local industrial participation and offset expectations, and work the FMS and Direct Commercial Sales pathways alongside Swan's government customers.

Own export control and releasability strategy. Partner with legal, compliance, and program teams to build the ITAR/EAR posture that international partnerships require; technical assistance agreements, export licenses, releasability determinations, and the classification and foreign-disclosure questions that gate any allied deal. Know what can be shared, with whom, and what it takes to change that answer.

Model the economics. Build the financial models that justify a partnership internally and anchor the negotiation externally: revenue share, transfer pricing, cost-share structures, volume commitments, and unit economics at scale. You should be able to build these yourself, quickly, and defend the assumptions to Swan's executive team and to a counterparty.

Paper the deals properly. Work closely with Swan's deal counsel to assemble agreements that actually accomplish the objective. Understand why each term is drafted the way it is, hold a high bar on detail, and know when to push back on a structure that is technically clean but commercially wrong.

Operationalize and hand off. A signed agreement is the beginning. Run the kickoff between Swan's working team and the partner, build the governance cadence and reporting that keeps the relationship on track, define what success looks like in measurable terms, and stay close enough to catch problems while they are still small.

Go deep on the technology. Come up to speed fast on new technical problems and negotiate the trades that get to a workable deal; integration architecture, interfaces and interoperability, datalink and communications dependencies, certification and airworthiness requirements, and manufacturing constraints. You will not be the engineer, but you must be credible with engineers on both sides of the table.

Feed the roadmap. Translate what partners and allied customers need back into Swan's engineering organization. Partnership conversations surface capability gaps and integration requirements earlier than any other channel; make sure that intelligence reaches product and engineering while it is still actionable.

Represent Swan externally. Serve as a senior ambassador for Swan with partner executives, allied government stakeholders, and the broader defense industrial community at headquarters, at industry events, and in allied capitals.

Build the function. Establish the process, pipeline discipline, CRM hygiene, and deal-review cadence for partnerships at Swan, and hire and mentor the team as the portfolio grows.

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years in strategic partnerships, corporate development, business development, international defense sales, investment banking, management consulting, or a comparable high-velocity, deal-driven role; including direct ownership of complex agreements from origination through execution.

• Demonstrated track record structuring and closing multi-party commercial agreements with real obligations on both sides (joint development, licensing, distribution, teaming, co-production, or supply).

• Strong commercial and analytical judgment, including the ability to build and defend financial models independently in Excel.

• Working knowledge of U.S. export control regimes (ITAR/EAR) and their practical effect on international technology partnerships.• Familiarity with international defense sales pathways, including FMS and Direct Commercial Sales, and with allied government procurement.

• Excellent written and verbal communication, with experience negotiating with and briefing senior executives and government officials.

• Ability to set strategy and execute hands-on, operating with high ownership in an ambiguous, fast-moving, early-stage environment.

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field (business, engineering, international relations, political science, or equivalent experience).

• Must be a U.S. Person (this role requires access to export-controlled data), and eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. Secret security clearance.

• Willingness to travel 30–50%, including international travel to allied partner and customer locations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience standing up a partnerships, corporate development, or international business function at an early-stage company.

• Domain experience relevant to Swan's product line; autonomy, robotics, UAS, sensors, aerospace, or other hardware-centric defense products.

• Direct experience in Ukraine, NATO/European, or Indo-Pacific defense markets.

• Experience with co-production, offset, and local industrial participation requirements in allied countries.

• Experience negotiating technical assistance agreements, export licenses, and foreign disclosure or releasability determinations.

• Familiarity with non-traditional U.S. acquisition pathways (OTAs, CSOs, SBIR/STTR, DIU, AFWERX) and how partnerships interact with them.

• Prior U.S. military, government, or allied-nation government experience.

• Prior experience partnering with or selling through primes, systems integrators, or channel partners.

• MBA, JD, or technical degree.

• Active U.S. Secret clearance (or higher).

• Professional working proficiency in a language relevant to Swan's priority allied markets.

What We Offer

Swan is a fast-paced, innovative, and collaborative startup environment. We offer a top-notch benefits package, including:

• Top-tier health, dental, vision, short-/long-term disability, and life insurance, with full employee coverage and partial coverage for dependents

• Flexible/reasonable vacation and sick leave

• 401(k) plans, FSA, HSA, and commuter benefits

Location: Remote (U.S.); Washington, DC or San Francisco strongly preferred.

A note on travel: This role requires regular domestic and international travel, including to allied partner and customer locations. Travel is expected to average 30–50%, with heavier periods around active negotiations, demonstrations, and partner site visits.

Swan is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, creed, religion, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, uniform service, veteran status, disability status, or any other protected characteristic per federal, state, or local law. Swan considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. We are also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures, and we work to create a welcoming and supportive environment for all applicants throughout the interview process.