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We enable rapid analysis and management of the world’s largest datasets.
The Role
Owns sales growth across UK and EMEA national security, defense, and intelligence markets. Responsibilities include developing strategic accounts, managing complex enterprise sales cycles, partnering with government system integrators and defense primes, positioning secure hyperscale analytics solutions, forecasting pipeline, and ensuring compliance with UK and EU security frameworks. The role requires building relationships with senior government and defense stakeholders and maintaining customer success from pilot through deployment.
Summary Generated by Built In
About Ocient:
Ocient is building OcientAIQ™ – a complete ecosystem for delivering trusted agentic AI solutions at petabyte scale, for the organizations that can't afford to get AI wrong. Our customers protect networks, secure nations, and power the global economy. The problems we solve are genuinely hard, and the work matters.
Founded in 2016 by the team that built Cleversafe (acquired by IBM in 2015), Ocient is headquartered in Chicago with a remote-first global team. We are a carbon-neutral company backed by leading investors including Greycroft, OCA Ventures, In-Q-Tel, and Buoyant Ventures.
Job Title: Executive Director, Ocient National Security Solutions (EMEA)
Location: Remote, United Kingdom (must hold current UK Developed Vetting (DV) clearance)
*We are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role. Applicants must already have the right to work in the UK*
Hiring Manager: VP of Sales, ONSS
Estimated Salary Range:
Base Salary: £150,000
Expected On-target Earnings: £300,000
* The salary offered for this position will be based on a candidate’s experience and skill demonstrated during interviews and other evaluations
About Ocient
Ocient is building OcientAIQ™ – a complete ecosystem for delivering trusted agentic AI solutions at petabyte scale, for the organizations that can't afford to get AI wrong. Our customers protect networks, secure nations, and power the global economy. The problems we solve are genuinely hard, and the work matters.
Founded in 2016 by the team that built Cleversafe (acquired by IBM in 2015), Ocient is headquartered in Chicago with a remote-first global team. We are a carbon-neutral company backed by leading investors including Greycroft, OCA Ventures, In-Q-Tel, and Buoyant Ventures.
Position Overview:
The Executive Director, ONSS will focus on driving business growth within the UK and EMEA public sector, particularly across national security, defense, and intelligence communities. The ideal candidate will already possess Developed Vetting (DV) security clearance from the UK Government and bring a proven track record in selling large-scale data analytics, hyperscale computing, and secure cloud or on-prem solutions to government agencies and system integrators.
You will own the full sales cycle — from prospecting and relationship development to closing strategic deals and ensuring long-term customer success — with a particular focus on customers requiring mission-critical data capabilities under strict security and compliance requirements.
Responsibilities:
- Identify, engage, and develop relationships with national security, defense, and intelligence agencies across the UK and EMEA region.
- Leverage existing DV-cleared relationships to identify opportunities within secure and classified environments.
- Develop and execute strategic account plans to achieve and exceed annual sales quotas and growth objectives.
- Partner with UK and EMEA government system integrators, defense primes, and secure service providers to develop joint go-to-market initiatives.
- Position Ocient’s hyperscale data analytics and storage solutions for mission-critical, secure environments.
- Collaborate closely with internal teams — including Sales Engineering, Solutions Architecture, Product Management, and Customer Success — to ensure customer success from pilot through deployment.
- Maintain accurate forecasting and pipeline management in CRM, leveraging MEDDPICC or similar qualification frameworks.
- Ensure all engagements and data handling comply with relevant UK and EU security, data protection, and government compliance frameworks.
- Act as Ocient’s trusted representative in national security communities, building credibility and thought leadership in hyperscale analytics and AI-driven data management.
Ideal Qualifications:
- Current UK Developed Vetting (DV) Security Clearance (active and transferable).
- 10+ years of enterprise or government sales experience in national security, defense, or intelligence sectors or worked in the National Security spaces of the Customer(s).
- Proven ability to sell hyperscale analytics, data warehousing, or secure cloud solutions to government and defense customers.
- Demonstrated success managing long and complex sales cycles (6–12 months) with multiple stakeholders.
- Track record of meeting or exceeding annual.
- Experience in start-up or scale-up environments, with an entrepreneurial and hands-on approach.
- Deep understanding of UK Government procurement processes and frameworks (e.g., G-Cloud, Digital Marketplace, MoD frameworks).
- Excellent communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills across both technical and executive audiences.
- Strong strategic thinking and relationship-building capabilities with key influencers and decision-makers.
An Exceptional Candidate Will Have:
- Proven success selling to UK NCA, Ministry of Defence, Home Office, GCHQ, or other national security customers.
- Background in computer science, data engineering, AI or related field preferred.
- Experience with AdTech, FinTech, Telco, and Web-scale sectors a plus, particularly when intersecting with government or defense applications.
- Demonstrated ability to act as a trusted advisor to CTOs, CISOs, Chief Data Officers, and Program Managers in secure environments.
- Strong familiarity with hyperscale analytics, distributed data architectures, and performance-optimized data systems.
Interview Requirements: All interviews are conducted via video and require candidates to have their camera on for the duration of the session. The use of video filters, face-altering effects, or virtual backgrounds is not permitted for security and verification purposes.
We are not open to using an agency or staffing company at this time. We do not accept unsolicited agency or staffing resumes and we are not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.
Ocient is an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, creed, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy status), sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, citizenship status, age, physical or mental disability, veteran status, marital status, parental status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, please contact [email protected] for more information.
All official Ocient job postings and recruiting communications will come directly from our team via our Careers page, LinkedIn, or from an ocient.com email address. If you receive communication about a role from any other source, please treat it with caution and direct questions to [email protected].
Skills Required
- Current UK Developed Vetting (DV) security clearance, active and transferable
- 10+ years of enterprise or government sales experience in national security, defense, or intelligence sectors, or experience in customer national security organizations
- Proven ability to sell hyperscale analytics, data warehousing, or secure cloud solutions to government and defense customers
- Demonstrated success managing complex 6–12 month sales cycles with multiple stakeholders
- Track record of meeting or exceeding annual sales quotas
- Experience in startup or scale-up environments with an entrepreneurial, hands-on approach
- Deep understanding of UK Government procurement processes and frameworks, including G-Cloud, Digital Marketplace, or MoD frameworks
- Excellent communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills across technical and executive audiences
- Strong strategic thinking and relationship-building capabilities with key influencers and decision-makers
- Proven success selling to UK NCA, Ministry of Defence, Home Office, GCHQ, or other national security customers
- Background in computer science, data engineering, AI, or a related field
- Experience with AdTech, FinTech, Telco, or web-scale sectors intersecting with government or defense applications
- Experience advising CTOs, CISOs, Chief Data Officers, and Program Managers in secure environments
- Familiarity with hyperscale analytics, distributed data architectures, and performance-optimized data systems
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The Company
What We Do
Ocient is a Chicago-based, venture-funded startup building a SQL compliant, exabyte-scale database platform that achieves better performance than Hadoop and NoSQL systems. It is a distributed system optimized for NVMe drives, RDMA networks and high core count processors and is written in C++. We are led by a management team with seven successful st
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