Data Acquisition Lead

As the Data Acquisition Lead, you will own AfterQuery's data acquisition commercial strategy: how we find and reach the companies that own valuable real-world data, how we price it, and how we negotiate and close those purchases. You'll own sourcing strategy, pricing and negotiation for our largest and most complex data deals. You'll work across Ops, Research, Legal and Engineering to determine what data assets to target and how to effectively obtain those assets.

Key Responsibilities

• Data Acquisition Strategy: develop and continually refine AfterQuery's data-acquisition strategy, identifying where proprietary enterprise and other data can meaningfully improve frontier model training and prioritizing target industries and partners accordingly, working in conjunction with the RL team and leadership.
• Sourcing Strategy: design a scalable system to reach the institutions and owners most likely to sell high ROI data, with support from Marketing.
• Build and Lead a Team: recruit and manage a high-performing team of associates to help source data acquisition opportunities; coach and manage the associates and build a team culture of urgency, ownership, and continuous improvement
• Deal Negotiation & Ownership: Personally lead negotiation of AfterQuery's highest-value, most complex enterprise data-purchase agreements, from term sheet through signature.
• Pricing: set offer prices, deal structures and walk-away points in a market with little public pricing data, where no two datasets are alike
• Vendor & Partner Management: Build and maintain a portfolio of enterprise data relationships, negotiating pricing, licensing terms, and renewal/expansion agreements.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Partner with Engineering, Ops, Legal, and Research to ensure acquired data meets technical and compliance requirements and translates into usable training assets.
• Compliance & Governance: Ensure all data purchases meet legal, IP/copyright, privacy and data-governance standards.
• Reporting & Forecasting: Own the data-acquisition budget, pipeline, and forecasting, reporting progress and ROI to executive leadership.
• Operational Support: Contribute to company-wide initiatives across building, analysis, coordination, and execution as AfterQuery scales.