Manager, Business Development - Civil Aviation

Job Description:

Job Title: Manager, Business Development, Civil Aviation

Collaborate with Innovative 3Mers Around the World

Choosing where to start and grow your career has a major impact on your professional and personal life, so it’s equally important you know that the company that you choose to work at, and its leaders, will support and guide you. With a wide variety of people, global locations, technologies and products, 3M is a place where you can collaborate with other curious, creative 3Mers.

This position provides an opportunity to transition from other private, public, government or military experience to a 3M career.

The Impact You’ll Make in this Role
The 3M Manager, Business Development, Civil Aviation role is responsible for translating customer needs, industry megatrends, market applications, and voice-of-customer insights into actionable growth, innovation, portfolio, and commercialization priorities for aerospace airframe and structural applications.

This role focuses on identifying and framing high-value opportunities, advancing customer-backed growth initiatives, supporting business case development, and connecting market pull with 3M capabilities across application engineering, platform teams, Corporate Labs, product teams, marketing, sales, and portfolio management.

The position requires strong customer orientation, strategic opportunity framing, technical-commercial understanding, and cross-functional influence. The successful candidate will help define vertical-specific market needs, identify new applications and cross-selling opportunities, support commercialization pathways, and enable alignment across teams to drive growth in aerospace and defense airframes and structures applications, including structural bonding, assembly, surface protection, sealing, films, composites, and adjacent technologies.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and maintain a clear understanding of aerospace and defense airframes and structures market needs, customer challenges, industry trends, priority applications, and growth spaces.
• Gather, synthesize, and represent customer pull and voice-of-customer insights to inform portfolio decisions, innovation priorities, new product introduction activity, and commercialization plans.
• Identify and frame new applications, cross-selling opportunities, technology gaps, and customer-backed growth opportunities across aerospace OEMs, tier suppliers, MROs, defense customers, and strategic accounts.
• Support development and vetting of business cases for vertical-relevant products, technologies, strategic customer opportunities, and external collaborations.
• Partner with application engineering to create product application heat maps for lead customers, priority accounts, and vertical growth areas.
• Connect customer needs and market opportunities with internal capabilities across Corporate Labs, platform teams, product teams, application engineering, marketing, sales, portfolio teams, and partner divisions.
• Support go-to-market strategy, launch readiness, customer demonstrations, trade shows, and customer-facing portfolio representation for vertical-relevant technologies and products.
• Facilitate knowledge sharing with sales, marketing, commercial, and technical teams on market trends, customer needs, value propositions, product updates, and competitive positioning.
• Represent aerospace and defense airframes and structures priorities in portfolio reviews, venture evaluation activity, innovation workshops, cross-functional planning forums, and collaboration initiatives.
• Execute and measure collaboration priorities and agreement metrics where applicable.
• Evaluate opportunities based on customer value, market attractiveness, technical feasibility, strategic fit, and commercial potential.
• Support progression of customer-backed opportunities through innovation, new product introduction, stage-gate, go-to-market, and commercialization readiness milestones.
• Represent the business in customer meetings, trade events, demos, industry forums, and collaboration discussions related to aerospace airframes, structures, and defense applications.

Your Skills and Expertise 

To set you up for success in this role from day one, 3M requires (at a minimum) the following qualifications: 

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business, Marketing, Materials Science, Electronics, Aerospace Engineering, or a science field(completed and verified prior to start).
• Seven (7) years of experience in business development, segment or product marketing, product management, technical sales, strategic marketing, or commercial strategy in a private, public, government or military environment.

Additional qualifications that could help you succeed even further in this role include:

• MBA or advanced degree in business, engineering, aerospace, materials science, or a related discipline.
• Experience in aerospace, defense, electronics, semiconductor, power electronics, advanced materials, or related technical markets
• Experience with aerospace airframes and structures applications, including adhesives, tapes, films, composites, sealants, surface preparation, surface protection, structural bonding, or related technologies.
• Demonstrated ability to translate customer needs, voice-of-customer insights, market trends, and unmet needs into business opportunities and innovation priorities.
• Experience working in cross-functional, matrixed environments with sales, marketing, technical, laboratory, product, platform, and portfolio teams.
• Strong analytical, communication, presentation, and executive-ready synthesis skills.
• Experience supporting business case development, opportunity screening, commercialization planning, or strategic growth initiatives.
• Working knowledge of 3M technologies, platforms, product portfolios, and internal technical capabilities relevant to aerospace and defense applications.
• Familiarity with application engineering processes, customer-specific solution mapping, and product application heat map development.
• Understanding of new product introduction, stage-gate, go-to-market strategy, business case development, and commercialization readiness processes.
• Knowledge of aerospace qualification, certification, specification, procurement, and commercialization environments.
• Experience supporting strategic customer opportunities, external collaborations, innovation workshops, portfolio reviews, or venture evaluation activity.

Key Skills

• Business development and opportunity framing
• Customer orientation and voice-of-customer synthesis
• Strategic market development
• Cross-functional collaboration and influence
• Business case development
• Portfolio and platform strategy awareness
• Go-to-market and commercialization planning
• NPI and stage-gate process understanding
• Customer application mapping
• Value proposition development
• Competitive and market trend interpretation
• Executive communication and storytelling

Work location:

• This role follows an on-site working model, requiring the employee to work at least four days a week at the 3M Center in Maplewood, MN.

Travel: May include up to 25% domestic/international

Relocation: May be authorized

Must be legally authorized to work in country of employment without sponsorship for employment visa status (e.g., H1B status).

Responsibilities of this position may include direct and/or indirect physical or logical access to information, systems, technologies subjected to the regulations/compliance with U.S. Export Control Laws.

U.S. Export Control laws and U.S. Government Department of Defense contracts and sub-contracts impose certain restrictions on companies and their ability to share export-controlled and other technology and services with certain "non-U.S. persons" (persons who are not U.S. citizens or nationals, lawful permanent residents of the U.S., refugees, "Temporary Residents" (granted Amnesty or Special Agricultural Worker provisions), or persons granted asylum.

To comply with these laws, 3M must help assess candidates' U.S. person status.

The questions asked in this application are intended to assess this and will be used for evaluation purposes only. Failure to provide the necessary information in this regard will result in our inability to consider you further for this particular position.

Supporting Your Well-being

3M offers many programs to help you live your best life – both physically and financially. To ensure competitive pay and benefits, 3M regularly benchmarks with other companies that are comparable in size and scope.

Chat with Max

For assistance with searching through our current job openings or for more information about all things 3M, visit Max, our virtual recruiting assistant on 3M.com/careers.

Applicable to US Applicants Only:The expected compensation range for this position is $188,251 - $230,084, which includes base pay plus variable incentive pay, if eligible. This range represents a good faith estimate for this position. The specific compensation offered to a candidate may vary based on factors including, but not limited to, the candidate’s relevant knowledge, training, skills, work location, and/or experience. In addition, this position may be eligible for a range of benefits (e.g., Medical, Dental & Vision, Health Savings Accounts, Health Care & Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts, Disability Benefits, Life Insurance, Voluntary Benefits, Paid Absences and Retirement Benefits, etc.). Additional information is available at: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/careers-us/working-at-3m/benefits/.Good Faith Posting Date Range 10/26/2026 To 11/25/2026 Or until filledAll US-based 3M full time employees will need to sign an employee agreement as a condition of employment with 3M. This agreement lays out key terms on using 3M Confidential Information and Trade Secrets. It also has provisions discussing conflicts of interest and how inventions are assigned. Employees that are Job Grade 7 or equivalent and above may also have obligations to not compete against 3M or solicit its employees or customers, both during their employment, and for a period after they leave 3M.Learn more about 3M’s creative solutions to the world’s problems at www.3M.com or on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn @3M.Responsibilities of this position include that corporate policies, procedures and security standards are complied with while performing assigned duties.Safety is a core value at 3M. All employees are expected to contribute to a strong Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) culture by following safety policies, identifying hazards, and engaging in continuous improvement.Pay & Benefits Overview: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/careers-us/working-at-3m/benefits/3M does not discriminate in hiring or employment on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

Please note: your application may not be considered if you do not provide your education and work history, either by: 1) uploading a resume, or 2) entering the information into the application fields directly.

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