Business Development Lead

Position: Business Development Lead

Location: South San Francisco, CA

Type: Full-time

Desired start date: ASAP

The Opportunity:

Ohalo™ is seeking a Business Development Lead to define, deliver, and scale high-performing agriculture products globally. This role bridges international go-to-market, product development, and commercial partnerships to ensure that Ohalo’s portfolio meets market needs and delivers value to growers, supply chains, and end customers worldwide. You will own regional expansion strategies, and partnership development, and product launch readiness in collaboration with breeding, commercial, and regulatory teams.

This individual will be a strategic operator who thrives on wearing multiple hats, seamlessly flexing between market strategy, customer engagement, partner relationships, and internal cross-functional leadership.

The ideal candidate is as comfortable dissecting regulatory landscapes as they are in shaping product strategy, segmenting markets, designing go-to-market approaches, forecasting sales, and engaging directly with growers and customers. This role demands someone who is not only analytical and structured but also entrepreneurial, resourceful, and hands-on in execution.  This is a high-impact role for someone who wants to build, scale, and own outcomes across multiple dimensions of the business. You’ll thrive if you are strategic but not afraid to roll up your sleeves, excel at cross-functional collaboration, and bring curiosity and grit to every challenge.

 

Areas of Key Responsibilities:

Market Segmentation & Insights

• Analyze global potato markets to identify customer segments, acreage potential, competitor offerings, and adoption drivers/barriers.
• Build a structured understanding of grower economics, processor demands, and downstream value chain incentives.
• Maintain a global product roadmap that aligns breeding timelines, commercial priorities, and market entry strategies.
• Create business cases for new product introductions, quantifying market opportunity and ROI potential.

Business Development & Partner Engagement

• Source, negotiate, and close strategic, revenue-generating partnerships.
• Support engagement with strategic partners to build strong commercial alliances for product introduction and scaling.
• Serve as a key commercial face of Ohalo in global markets, representing our product vision to external stakeholders and potential customers.

Sales Forecasting & Launch Planning

• Build regional and global forecasts for volume, pricing, and adoption rate, integrating field trial data and partner pipeline intelligence.
• Coordinate cross-functional launch readiness: production planning, marketing, stewardship protocols, and training materials.
• Drive alignment across teams to ensure supply availability and partner enablement at launch.

Qualifications:

• 5+ years of experience in business development, commercial strategy, or sales roles in the agricultural industry.
• Proven success forging new strategic partnerships across multiple geographies.
• Strong understanding of potato or row crop production systems, grower decision-making, and value chain economics.
• Experience pitching, negotiating, and closing partnership agreements with various stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to translate complex agronomic or technical attributes into clear commercial value propositions.
• Skilled in cross-functional project leadership, with a track record of working closely with R&D, operations, marketing, and regulatory teams.
• Comfortable with frequent travel across regions to engage directly with growers and partners.

The anticipated base pay range for this role is $120,000 - $190,000 per year for our South San Francisco location, which represents multiple levels for this function.  The pay offered to a selected candidate will be determined based on factors such as (but not limited to) the scope and responsibilities of the position, the qualifications of the selected candidate, budget availability, internal equity, geographic location and external market pay for comparable jobs.

About Ohalo: 

Ohalo™ aims to accelerate evolution to unlock nature's potential. Founded in 2019, Ohalo develops novel breeding systems and improved plant varieties that help farmers grow more food with fewer natural resources, increasing the yield, resiliency, and genetic diversity of crops to sustainably feed our population. Ohalo's breakthrough technology, Boosted Breeding™, will usher in a new era of improved productivity to radically transform global agriculture. For more information, visit www.ohalo.com.

Notes: If you previously applied for a job at Ohalo Genetics, we encourage you to restate your interest in the position by submitting your application.

No visa sponsorship is available for this position at this time. 

No recruiter submission, please.