International Business Development Manager

Job description

About Us At Antares, our long-term mission is to make clean energy abundant from Earth to the Asteroid Belt. We’re fueled by the belief that advanced nuclear energy can strengthen our military, solve the climate crisis, elevate global living standards, and expand humanity's presence in outer space. To achieve our mission, we’re building mass-producible, inherently safe, deployable microreactors that can be used terrestrially, underwater, and in space. The Antares team hails from SpaceX, the White House, the Pentagon, the Department of Energy, MIT, Rigetti Computing, General Atomics, Relativity Space, Ursa Major, and National Laboratories like Idaho, Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, and Savannah River. Antares has raised over $600M in venture capital from top-tier investors and has hundreds of million-dollars on contract with the military services, NASA, and the Department of Energy. About the Role The Business Development Manager will support the Chief Nuclear Officer and other Antares leadership in expanding the company's international business. The role's mandate will cover the full international business-development lifecycle: identifying and helping secure customers, developing market-entry strategies, building government partnerships, and advancing commercial agreements - including regulatory, financing, and related execution requirements. The manager will engage national governments, defense and energy ministries, regulators, utilities, financing, and private companies across global markets while helping leadership navigate opportunities from initial evaluation through negotiation and deal closure. Roles & Responsibilities: - Build and manage an international opportunity pipeline, evaluate and update prospective priority markets, and recommend where Antares should invest time and resources. - Develop market-entry strategies that account for customer needs, government priorities, regulatory pathways, financing requirements, local partnerships, and competitive dynamics. - Build and maintain relationships with national governments, defense and energy ministries, utilities, prime contractors, private companies, and other prospective partners and customers. - Coordinate proposals, customer presentations, partnership structures, commercial agreements, financing approaches, regulatory strategies, and internal approvals across the full business-development process. - Support the Chief Nuclear Officer and other leaders through customer engagement, negotiations, and deal closure. - Represent Antares at customer meetings, government engagements, and industry events; brief leadership on key takeaways and recommend follow-up actions. - Monitor relevant market, policy, procurement, regulatory, and financing developments and translate them into actionable business-development recommendations. - Collaborate across engineering, finance, regulatory, policy, and program teams to align international opportunities with Antares' technical capabilities and strategic objectives. Basic Qualifications: - Bachelor's degree. - 5+ years of relevant experience involving international governments, international customers, and/or business development, preferably within the energy or defense sectors. - Demonstrated ability to build relationships across government and commercial stakeholders and advance complex, multi-party opportunities. Preferred Skills and Experience: - MBA or master's degree in international affairs or national security studies. - Ability to communicate complex concepts in science, technology, energy, defense, regulation, and finance in clear language for varied audiences. - Experience with government agreements, regulatory strategy, project financing, commercial negotiations, and international market-entry planning. - Experience supporting senior executives through complex negotiations, government engagements, and commercial deal processes. - Strong writing, attention to detail, and the ability to produce concise, decision-ready recommendations. - Foreign-language proficiency is a plus. Additional Requirements: - Valid passport and ability to travel up to 25%, including international travel. - Ability to work long hours and weekends as necessary to support critical milestones - Ability to work from Antares' Washington, DC office. Culture At Antares, we like to specifically tie each role to our founding document’s set of values–here are the top five cultural values we think you should believe at your core to be successful: - Think in Systems - Energy and Defense are complex ecosystems with numerous stakeholders with competing priorities, conflicting policies, perverse incentives, and emergent and path-dependent properties. First principles thinking alone is insufficient. Think probabilistically and then take action. “If you want to be certain, then you are apt to be obsolete.” Over-optimizing the components often degrades the system - Obsess over the End User - The customer and end user are often not the same. We will never build globally competitive commercial products if we lose sight of our end users and their entire interaction with the product life cycle - Be Unconstrained by Convention - Our only limits are the laws of physics. Many, even experts, will say what we are working on is impossible. They said the same about SpaceX reusing rockets. Generationally impactful companies, by definition, must accomplish the seemingly impossible. If it were easy, it would have already been done. Never shy away from a solution because it has never been tried before, and never choose to do something because that's “how it's always been done” - Go Where the Work Is - Never miss a chance to meet a customer, user, or stakeholder face to face, even if that means hopping on a plane. If you can’t make it, find a teammate who can channel your intentions and go in your place. Deep work can be done from anywhere, but we believe teams are built in person, and aim to maximize our time together - Operate in the Grey - Embrace nuance in pursuit of truth. Question every fundamental assumption Equal Opportunity Antares is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are based solely on merit, competence, and qualifications, without regard to 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. ITAR REQUIREMENTS To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/?id=ddtc_kb_article_page&sys_id=24d528fddbfc930044f9ff621f961987.