Vice President @ Sanctuary AI

Your New Role and Team

Sanctuary, a world leader in building dexterity-driven Physical AI for general purpose robots, is seeking an innovative and strategic Vice President of Business Development (VP, BD) to join our Commercial team and lead the development of key enterprise accounts. The VP, BD will play a crucial role in driving growth by identifying new business opportunities, cultivating strategic partnerships, and executing a sales process tailored to each client’s evolving needs.

As the VP, BD, you will be instrumental in shaping our go-to-market approach by leveraging market insights, spotting industry trends, and uncovering emerging opportunities. Your contributions will help Sanctuary build a repeatable, scalable sales model, ensuring we stay ahead in a fast-moving and competitive space.

Success Criteria

Own the entire sales process end-to-end: lead generation, stakeholder mapping, relationship building, pilot negotiation, phased deployment, and deal closure
Drive full-cycle enterprise sales engagements with Fortune 500/1000-level clients, from initial outreach to pilot rollout and full-scale deployment
Build and execute strategic account plans using structured stage-gate frameworks and contingent commitment models
Develop trust and credibility with client stakeholders by demonstrating a deep understanding of their business operations and challenges
Actively pursue new accounts in high-potential industrial sectors such as automotive, electronics, and logistics, while continuously exploring untapped verticals where Sanctuary’s technology can unlock value
Tailor and adapt sales strategies to support both CapEx models (hardware and support contracts) and OpEx models (robot-as-a-service or recurring revenue)
Act as the voice of the customer, ensuring client needs inform the product roadmap and commercial strategy
Build long-term, trust-based relationships focused on value creation, not transactional selling

Your Experience

Qualifications

10+ years of experience in enterprise business development, solution sales, or complex consultative selling
Proven track record of selling into Fortune 500 or similarly scaled enterprise organizations, with long sales cycles and multiple stakeholders
Demonstrated ability to close high-value, multi-year commercial agreements
Familiarity with structured enterprise sales methodologies such as SPIN, MEDDIC, or Challenger
Experience managing technical sales processes, working closely with engineers or solution architects to support client evaluation and deal execution

Nice to Have

Familiarity with operational workflows in logistics, electronics, automotive, or other labor-intensive industries
Background in automation, robotics, industrial tech, or AI/ML
Experience operating across both hardware sales and recurring-revenue (ARR) models

Traits

Hunter mindset: You thrive on sourcing and closing new opportunities
Deep listener: You don’t just pitch — you decode customer operations and challenges
Business empath: You understand the customer’s world — and help them imagine a better one
Persistent and patient: You push the deal forward without being pushy
Scrappy and hands-on: You’re ready to jump on a flight or rework a pitch deck yourself if that’s what it takes
Strategically adaptable: You’re comfortable selling into an evolving product and business model landscape
Team-centered: You lead by influence and work cross-functionally with ease and respect

Working at Sanctuary AI

Sanctuary AI is an equal opportunity employer; employment with Sanctuary AI is governed based on skills, competence, and qualifications and will not be influenced in any way by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status. In 2023, Sanctuary AI moved into a state-of-the-art office facility and has been recognized by LinkedIn as a Top Startup company.

Compensation and Benefits

Sanctuary offers a market-leading compensation package that includes competitive salaries, equity stakes, and a full suite of benefits for permanent employees, encompassing health coverage, paid time off, cutting-edge work facilities, and worksite flexibility by role. Our commitment to fairness ensures that our total compensation consistently surpasses market standards.

About Sanctuary AI

Founded in 2018, Sanctuary builds humanoid robots and a novel control system for them that integrates symbolic logic and reasoning with data-driven robot foundation models. We use our robots to collect vision, audio, touch, and proprioception data from the perspective of the robot while they perform real-world work tasks. We use that data to train multimodal robot foundation models. Because our systems are vertically integrated, we can design, deploy, and refine at scale. Our mission is to create the world's first human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots.

Recruiting and Employment Agency Notice:

Recruitment and hiring is conducted internally by Sanctuary AI. We are not seeking or soliciting any new agency partnerships or agreements at this time. Any employment agency or professional recruiter (“Agency”) that provides an unsolicited resume(s) or otherwise presents a prospective job candidate through the Sanctuary AI career site or directly to any Sanctuary AI employee, irrevocably grants to Sanctuary AI the unrestricted right to engage, hire, or contract with that candidate at Sanctuary AI's sole discretion without any compensation to the Agency. We appreciate your interest in working together, and should the need arise our Talent Acquisition team will contact any external firms directly.

Vice President

Business Development

Sanctuary AI

Success Criteria

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

What critics are saying

What makes Sanctuary AI unique

Benefits

Growth & Insights and Company News

6 month growth

1 year growth

2 year growth