DESIGNATION: Associate Vice President - Business Development & Sales

Build and own HYDGEN's commercial engine for on-site, on-demand industrial green hydrogen systems across India and select international markets.

LOCATION: Bengaluru / Mangaluru

TRAVEL: 40 - 50% India + select overseas

About HYDGEN:

HYDGEN (Hydrogen Innovation Pte. Ltd., Singapore) is a deep-tech company building modular, on-site, on-demand green hydrogen systems for industrial users. Incubated as a spin-off from the National University of Singapore with early support from the Singapore National Research Foundation, HYDGEN designs and manufactures proprietary Anion Exchange Membrane (AEM) and Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) electrolyzer stacks and fully integrated hydrogen generation skids.

The company's thesis is simple: most of hydrogen's delivered cost sits in midstream logistics, not in production. By generating ultra-high-purity hydrogen at the point of use, HYDGEN removes cylinder and tanker dependence, improves supply reliability, and brings green hydrogen closer to cost parity with grey hydrogen for small and mid-sized industrial loads.

Engineering and manufacturing are anchored in Mangaluru, Karnataka. Indian operating entities include Hydrogen Nexus Private Limited and Hydrogen Innovation Private Limited.

Leadership context:

The role will sit on the commercial leadership table and be the owner of pipeline, bookings, pricing discipline and customer conversion from inquiry to commissioned system.

Role purpose:

HYDGEN is moving from technology proof and commercial dispatches to a repeatable industrial sales motion. This role will build that motion.

It is a hands-on commercial leadership role: find and close industrial buyers who will pay for on-site hydrogen systems; convert pilots and first skids into multi-unit repeat orders; build a qualified partner channel (EPCs, gas companies, OEMs, consultants); and install a sales operating system the company can scale as 5 to 250 kW stacks and higher-capacity lines come online.

The role owns revenue responsibility for India as the primary theatre, with a mandate to open and support international accounts in coordination with group leadership.

Key Accountabilities:

1. Revenue ownership and sales execution:

- Own the annual bookings, order intake, and gross-margin target for HYDGEN systems (stacks, skids and multi-skid plants) in assigned markets.

- Build and personally work a qualified pipeline across priority verticals users currently buying cylinder or merchant hydrogen.

- Run the full cycle: account mapping - technical discovery with Application Engineering - techno-commercial proposal - commercial negotiation - order - handover to project/operations for delivery and commissioning.

- Convert the Surat / diamond-sector and early industrial deployments into reference accounts, case studies and expansion orders.

- Set and enforce deal qualification, stage definitions, forecast hygiene and win/loss reviews.

2. Market, offer and pricing:

- Translate HYDGEN's cost, purity, footprint and logistics-avoidance value into customer-specific business cases.

- Work with Group Leadership and Manufacturing on product-market fit: which stack (AEM vs PEM), capacity, purity, pressure and skid configuration to lead with by vertical.

- Own commercial pricing guidelines, discount authority matrix, payment terms, warranty language and standard T&Cs in consultation with Finance and Legal.

- Feed the product roadmap with field intelligence: competitor offers (alkaline, PEM, imported AEM), customer duty cycles, aftersales expectations and localization requirements under India's National Green Hydrogen Mission and Make in India.

3. Channel, partnerships and ecosystem:

- Design and run a partner model: EPCs, industrial gas distributors, renewable-energy developers, OEM/system integrators, and sector consultants who can originate and co-deliver projects.

- Manage and expand existing and new strategic relationships (mobility, research, accelerator and industrial partners) into contracted pipeline.

- Represent HYDGEN with industrial associations, state industrial bodies in Karnataka/Gujarat and relevant mission platforms - where it produces qualified demand.

- Support group expansion conversations in MENA, Japan and Europe with local partners, without diluting India execution.

4. Team and operating system:

- Build a lean commercial team: hunters, key-account managers, and application / pre-sales engineers tightly coupled to Mangaluru engineering.

- Install CRM, proposal library, standard datasheets, ROI models, site-survey checklists and a weekly pipeline rhythm with leadership.

- Define KRAs for the Sales & BD function aligned to company OKRs.

- Coordinate cleanly with Operations, Manufacturing, Quality and Aftersales so committed delivery dates and hydrogen-quality specs are sales-honest.

5. Customer success and repeat revenue:

- Stay accountable after booking: commissioning support, performance claims, complaint-to-resolution, and expansion selling into the installed base.

- Create a service / AMC / consumables / capacity-upgrade motion as the installed base grows.

- Protect HYDGEN's reputation in early industrial deployments - the next twenty orders will be won or lost on the first ten sites.

Candidate profile:

Must have:

- 10 - 15 years of B2B sales / BD experience, with at least 5 years leading a revenue team in industrial equipment, process plant, energy systems, industrial gases, electrolyzers, fuel cells, water treatment, compressed gases, or comparable capex + opex solutions.

- Proven record of closing multi-crore industrial capital equipment or energy-infrastructure deals in India, including C-level and plant-head selling.

- Comfort selling a technically dense product: can sit with a process engineer, read a P&ID-level conversation, and still close on commercial terms.

- Experience building a sales engine from early traction to repeatable process.

- Strong grasp of industrial procurement, EPC contracting, public-sector / PSU selling where relevant, and private-promoter decision cycles (especially Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana).

- Willingness to travel extensively to Mangaluru manufacturing, customer plants and partner offices.

Strongly preferred:

- Direct exposure to hydrogen, industrial gases, electrolyzers, fuel cells, specialty chemicals, semiconductors, lab-grown diamonds, or pharma process utilities.

- Experience selling modular / containerized / skid-mounted systems rather than only bulk commodity contracts.

- International BD exposure (SEA, GCC, Japan or EU) and ability to work with a Singapore parent and overseas investors.

- Working knowledge of India's National Green Hydrogen Mission, electrolyzer PLI / incentive landscape, and carbon / RE attributes as a commercial lever - without treating policy as a substitute for a customer P&L case.

- Built or scaled a partner/channel program for technical products.

Leadership and working style:

- Hustler - willing to build ground up. Will write proposals, run discovery calls and close the first wave of deals while hiring the team.

- High integrity on forecast and customer commitments - HYDGEN is a deep-tech manufacturer; overselling capacity or purity will damage the company.

- Collaborative with engineering and factory leadership; respects manufacturing constraints and lead times.

- Comfortable and collaborative in a founder led technology startup and a still-forming commercial function.

Education:

Bachelor's degree in Engineering (Mechanical, Chemical, Electrical, Energy or related) strongly preferred + MBA or equivalent commercial qualification is useful but secondary to a demonstrated industrial sales track record.

Compensation:

Competitive fixed CTC, performance-linked variable tied to bookings and margin quality, and ESOP eligibility.