Head of Commercial Business
About this role
Head of Commercial Business
Reports to: CEO
Location: San Francisco — on-site required
About Matter and the opportunity
Matter Intelligence is building the future of vision AI: pairing a world-first sensor that sees molecular chemistry, temperature, and 3D shape with a Large World Model - the most powerful intelligence engine for the physical world. Our team has delivered technologies to Mars for NASA/JPL, co-founded infrastructure for OpenAI, designed sensors for U.S. Defense, and invented core algorithms for spectral and 3D imaging.
Matter is vertically integrated across proprietary sensor, data, and models, but the product is operational intelligence and decision tools, not imagery for its own sake. The same core architecture spans airborne, orbital, and other machine-vision platforms. Airborne customer deployments begin in 2026, with orbital collection planned to follow.
We are looking for a founder-caliber commercial leader to a help build the GTM engine for commercial business. This is not a conventional VP Sales job: you will help decide where Matter should focus, turn customer problems into repeatable products, create the path from pilot to production, and personally drive consequential opportunities in partnership with the CEO.
What you will own
Set company and commercial strategy with the CEO, including priority buyer problems, market wedges, sequencing, and explicit no-go areas
Turn customer pain into repeatable operational-intelligence products across APIs, workflows, UI, models, and decision outputs
Own the path from pilot, design partnership, or LOI to paid production, including scope, success criteria, pricing, contracting, deployment, and adoption
Personally advance and close strategic enterprise opportunities, using the CEO, board, advisors, and domain experts deliberately
Create Matter’s category narrative and deliver compelling demos even while the product is emerging
Establish account planning, pipeline, forecasting, customer-learning, product-decision, and revenue operating rhythms
Lead existing account executives and deployment strategists, partner deeply with technical teams, and build the commercial organization Matter needs
What success looks like
First 6 months
Matter has a focused commercial thesis grounded in urgent buyer pain, reachable budgets, and unique technical advantage
Priority pilots and LOIs have explicit paths to paid production, with clear account ownership and internal dependencies
Customer learning is producing sharper, repeatable products and credible demos across APIs, workflows, UI, and decision outputs
The commercial team operates with clear standards and reliable cadence, and the CEO has a genuine peer who improves the quality and speed of company decisions
Next 12–18 months
Matter has board-credible evidence of repeatable demand through paid deployments, production conversions, or strategic contracts
Packaging, pricing, delivery, and customer-success patterns increase speed and margin without turning Matter into a bespoke services company
An exceptional initial commercial team is in place around the strongest market wedges
The commercial evidence base strengthens the company’s next financing and supports expansion from airborne to orbital-scale products
What we are looking for
Founder, founding-team, or equivalent 0→1 experience building something genuinely difficult
Exceptional product and operating judgment, including turning customer problems and early deployments into repeatable products
Personal ownership of material, complex revenue—not only team oversight, partnerships, or inherited pipeline
The ability to explain an unfamiliar technical paradigm simply, create belief, and demo before the product is mature
Technical curiosity and the credibility to earn the trust of scientists and engineers
Executive maturity to be a candid, low-ego partner to the CEO and the ability to attract and develop exceptional talent
Focus, durability, integrity, and accountable ownership through ambiguity
Matter Intelligence is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds who can raise the ambition and performance of the team.
Company at a glance
Matter Intelligence is building frontier hardware sensors and AI systems that capture information about the physical world never captured before to train foundation models used by companies and countries. Its approach combines world-first sensors that capture multiple modalities—including chemistry, temperature, and 3D shape—with a Large World Model to advance geospatial AI and data about the physical world. The founding team comes largely from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, bringing deep expertise in planetary missions and advanced sensor systems, and the company employs approximately 35 full-time members, with its 20-person hardware team working on-site in El Segundo, California. In its first 13 months, Matter has closed close to $300 million in signed LOIs and has paid pilots with commercial public companies, four U.S. Government contracts, and sovereign nation partnerships in progress. Supported by a culture of self-management and high rigor, team members own significant areas of responsibility and deliver results autonomously.
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