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The Role
Leads ARM’s commercial growth strategy for robotics and AI adoption among U.S. manufacturers. Responsibilities include identifying priority markets, developing scalable offers, building sales pipelines, cultivating executive customer and partner relationships, leading complex proposals and negotiations, and commercializing Automation Assessments and follow-on services. The role also coordinates technical, workforce, marketing, consortium, and delivery resources while establishing repeatable revenue models and measuring growth, customer, and strategic outcomes.
Summary Generated by Built In
Position SummaryThe Commercial Chief Growth Officer is responsible for defining, validating, and executing ARM’s commercial growth strategy. This leader will build a repeatable commercial business-development engine focused on helping U.S. manufacturers adopt robotics and AI through Automation Assessments, solution-development engagements, consortium-enabled delivery models, and related workforce offerings.
This role is not limited to selling existing services. Its central mandate is to clarify ARM’s commercial game plan: identify the markets and customer problems where ARM can win, define compelling and scalable commercial offers, establish the right routes to market, develop strategic partnerships, and convert early traction into a durable revenue pipeline.
The Commercial CGO will initially prioritize disciplined market discovery and offer development, then scale customer acquisition and account growth. The role will maintain a focused approach: concentrate the majority of commercial BD and marketing resources on a small number of validated priority verticals while preserving limited capacity for high-value opportunistic pursuits.Primary ResponsibilitiesCommercial Strategy and Market Focus
This role is not limited to selling existing services. Its central mandate is to clarify ARM’s commercial game plan: identify the markets and customer problems where ARM can win, define compelling and scalable commercial offers, establish the right routes to market, develop strategic partnerships, and convert early traction into a durable revenue pipeline.
The Commercial CGO will initially prioritize disciplined market discovery and offer development, then scale customer acquisition and account growth. The role will maintain a focused approach: concentrate the majority of commercial BD and marketing resources on a small number of validated priority verticals while preserving limited capacity for high-value opportunistic pursuits.Primary ResponsibilitiesCommercial Strategy and Market Focus
- Lead development of ARM’s commercial growth strategy, including target-market selection, customer segmentation, value propositions, routes to market, pricing hypotheses, and revenue targets.
- Conduct and synthesize market research to recommend the highest-potential commercial verticals beyond defense and aerospace, using evidence such as automation need, manufacturing concentration, purchasing capacity, technology-adoption barriers, addressable customer base, and fit with ARM capabilities.
- Translate market findings into a practical commercial operating plan with prioritized accounts, partner strategy, marketing requirements, sales stages, conversion assumptions, and resource needs.
- Establish clear criteria for which opportunities ARM should pursue directly, deliver through consortium members, manage on behalf of customers, refer to partners, or decline.
- Build and maintain a commercial pipeline that is balanced across near-term revenue, strategic lighthouse customers, repeatable offerings, and longer-term growth opportunities.
- Own the evolution and commercialization of Automation Assessments as ARM’s commercial entry offer.
- Define a clear customer journey from initial engagement through assessment, recommendations, solution sourcing or design, implementation support, workforce enablement, and follow-on services.
- Partner with technical and program leaders to package offerings that solve tangible manufacturer problems, such as automation opportunity identification, business-case development, robotics/AI roadmap creation, solution sourcing, pilot/prototype management, workforce-readiness planning, and implementation support.
- Develop commercial packaging, scope templates, pricing approaches, statements of work, and delivery handoffs that make offerings understandable, purchasable, and repeatable.
- Test and refine service concepts with early customers; use win/loss feedback, delivery results, and customer outcomes to improve positioning and offer design.
- Identify opportunities to create recurring or scalable revenue models, including subscriptions, licensing, strategic partnerships, sponsorships, or productized services, where aligned with ARM’s mission and capabilities.
- Build senior relationships with executives and operational leaders at target commercial manufacturers and industrial companies.
- Lead account planning for priority prospects and customers, including stakeholder mapping, customer challenges, relationship-development plans, pursuit strategy, and expansion opportunities.
- Drive consultative sales conversations that connect robotics and AI adoption to customer outcomes such as productivity, quality, labor availability, resilience, throughput, safety, and competitiveness.
- Develop and lead proposals, commercial scopes, presentations, and negotiations in coordination with technical, programmatic, contracts, and finance teams.
- Serve as executive sponsor or commercial lead for strategic accounts as appropriate, ensuring strong transition from business development to delivery and ongoing customer growth.
- Develop methods for leveraging the ARM Consortium as a differentiated commercial asset while preserving customer trust, fair opportunity, and clear commercial roles.
- Build strategic partnerships with organizations that can extend reach, generate referrals, improve delivery capacity, or strengthen ARM’s credibility in priority verticals.
- Partner with Membership to recruit and engage organizations that improve ARM’s ability to serve target commercial markets.
- Partner with CSO to create market-specific messaging, thought leadership, customer stories, events, and campaigns that generate qualified demand.
- Coordinate with CTO to incorporate engineering and program management solutions into commercial customer engagements.
- Coordinate with CWO to incorporate workforce-readiness and talent solutions into commercial customer engagements when relevant.
- Coordinate with the Defense CGO to find and pursue dual-use opportunities.
- Provide leadership team with regular, evidence-based recommendations on commercial priorities, investments, risks, and required organizational decisions.
- Commercial revenue growth and progress toward ARM’s long-term commercial revenue and revenue-mix objectives.
- Qualified pipeline value, pipeline coverage, opportunity-stage progression, forecast accuracy, and conversion/win rate.
- Number, quality, and strategic relevance of new commercial customers and expanded customer relationships.
- Adoption, revenue, margin contribution, customer satisfaction, and demonstrated manufacturing impact from Automation Assessments and follow-on engagements.
- Completion and implementation of a validated commercial market strategy, including recommended priority verticals, target-account list, go-to-market plan, and commercial offer architecture.
- Number and quality of repeatable offers, strategic partnerships, and consortium-enabled opportunities established.
- Evidence that commercial engagements lead to robotics/AI adoption, implementation, or other measurable customer outcomes.
- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
- 25+ years of progressive experience in commercial business development, strategic sales, market development, consulting, or growth leadership in industrial technology, manufacturing, automation, robotics, AI, systems integration, or a closely related field.
- Demonstrated success creating or scaling a commercial offering, market segment, or go-to-market motion—not solely managing an established sales territory.
- Strong understanding of manufacturer buying processes and the operational, technical, financial, and workforce factors that influence automation and digital-transformation decisions.
- Demonstrated ability to build executive relationships, discover customer needs, shape solutions, negotiate complex services engagements, and close revenue.
- Experience working across technical, operations, delivery, marketing, finance, and legal/contracts teams.
- Strong analytical, written, verbal, presentation, and stakeholder-management skills.
- Willingness and ability to travel for customer, partner, consortium, and industry engagements.
- Experience selling consulting, engineering, integration, transformation, or managed-service engagements to industrial customers.
- Experience in one or more priority industrial verticals, such as defense and aerospace, agriculture, construction, transportation, metals, food and beverage, consumer goods, or other discrete/process manufacturing sectors.
- Experience building partner ecosystems, channel relationships, or consortium-based delivery models.
- Experience with CRM discipline, opportunity qualification, account planning, forecast management, and metrics-driven sales leadership.
- Familiarity with workforce-development needs associated with automation deployment.
- Experience in a mission-driven, nonprofit, membership, public-private partnership, or innovation-institute environment.
Skills Required
- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience
- 25+ years of progressive experience in commercial business development, strategic sales, market development, consulting, or growth leadership in industrial technology, manufacturing, automation, robotics, AI, systems integration, or a related field
- Experience creating or scaling a commercial offering, market segment, or go-to-market motion
- Strong understanding of manufacturer buying processes and factors influencing automation and digital-transformation decisions
- Experience building executive relationships, discovering customer needs, shaping solutions, negotiating complex services engagements, and closing revenue
- Experience working across technical, operations, delivery, marketing, finance, and legal or contracts teams
- Strong analytical, written, verbal, presentation, and stakeholder-management skills
- Willingness and ability to travel for customer, partner, consortium, and industry engagements
- Experience selling consulting, engineering, integration, transformation, or managed-service engagements to industrial customers
- Experience in one or more industrial verticals, such as defense and aerospace, agriculture, construction, transportation, metals, food and beverage, consumer goods, or manufacturing
- Experience building partner ecosystems, channel relationships, or consortium-based delivery models
- Experience with CRM discipline, opportunity qualification, account planning, forecast management, and metrics-driven sales leadership
- Familiarity with workforce-development needs associated with automation deployment
- Experience in a mission-driven, nonprofit, membership, public-private partnership, or innovation-institute environment
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The Company
What We Do
The ARM (Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing) Institute accelerates the development and adoption of innovative robotics technologies that are the foundation of every advanced manufacturing activity today and in the future. We leverage a unique, robust and diverse ecosystem of partners across industry, academia and government to: - make robotics, autonomy and artificial intelligence more accessible to U.S. manufacturers large and small - train and empower the manufacturing workforce - strengthen our economy and global competitiveness - elevate our national security and resilience The ARM Institute operates as part of the Manufacturing USA network, and is funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. By creating a collaborative ecosystem of like-minded organizations, the ARM Institute is speeding the movement of industrial robots into commercial use, while preparing a labor force to operate and manage these technologies. ARM is an integral part of Pittsburgh’s strategy to define the future of the global manufacturing economy and will be the lead tenant at Hazelwood Green, a unique hub that will revolutionize U.S. manufacturing. For more information, visit www.arminstitute.org.
