VICE PRESIDENT OF GROWTH & MARKET DEVELOPMENT

Pente AI · Chennai, India

We are seeking a Vice President of Growth & Market Development to lead the next chapter of our company's expansion — not by optimizing what already exists, but by building what doesn't yet exist.

This is not a traditional product marketing or demand-gen leadership role. This is a market creation mandate. You will identify untapped verticals, architect new business models within the software ecosystem, and forge strategic partnerships that open entirely new revenue streams. You will operate at the intersection of strategy, commercial dealmaking, and executive leadership — reporting directly to the CMO and playing a central role in shaping where the company goes next, not just how fast it gets there.

The ideal candidate is a hybrid operator: part strategist, part dealmaker, part growth marketer, and part general manager. You've built categories before. You know how to spot a market before it's obvious, structure a partnership that changes a company's trajectory, and translate that opportunity into a repeatable go-to-market motion.

Key Responsibilities

New Business Avenue Creation

•    Identify and validate untapped market verticals and adjacent business opportunities within the broader software/SaaS landscape.

•    Conduct market sizing, competitive landscape analysis, and opportunity prioritization to build a data-backed expansion roadmap.

•    Develop business cases and executive-ready proposals for new revenue lines, presenting directly to the C-suite and board.

•    Pilot and validate new market entries through structured experimentation before scaling investment.

Go-To-Market (GTM) Strategy

•    Design and own end-to-end GTM strategies for new verticals, product lines, and market segments.

•    Define positioning, pricing frameworks, and channel strategy tailored to each new market's buying behavior.

•    Partner with Sales, Product, and Customer Success leadership to ensure GTM plans translate into executable, measurable motions.

•    Build the internal playbooks, enablement materials, and success metrics needed to scale each new market beyond initial launch.

Strategic Partnerships

•    Source, structure, and close strategic partnerships (channel, technology, co-sell, and revenue-share) that accelerate market entry and diversify revenue.

•    Lead partnership deal structuring and negotiation, including commercial terms, integration scope, and joint go-to-market commitments.

•    Build and manage a partner ecosystem strategy, prioritizing partners by strategic fit, revenue potential, and speed to market.

•    Serve as the executive-level relationship owner for top-tier partners and alliances.

Demand Generation

•    Oversee demand generation strategy for new markets and verticals, ensuring pipeline creation aligns with growth targets.

•    Partner with Marketing to build vertical-specific campaigns, messaging, and content that resonate with new buyer personas.

•    Establish attribution and funnel metrics specific to new market initiatives, distinct from core business demand gen.

•    Optimize channel mix and budget allocation across new market experiments to maximize CAC efficiency.

Product/Market Alignment

•    Act as the voice of new markets within product planning, ensuring roadmap decisions reflect emerging vertical needs.

•    Partner with Product leadership to identify feature gaps, integration needs, or packaging changes required to win new segments.

•    Translate market feedback into structured input for product strategy, balancing new-market opportunity against core roadmap priorities.

•    Ensure a tight feedback loop between commercial learnings in the field and product development cycles.

Requirements & Qualifications

•    10+ years of progressive experience in software/SaaS growth strategy, market development, partnerships, or marketing leadership, including experience at a senior/executive level.

•    Demonstrated track record of creating new revenue streams or business lines from scratch — not just optimizing existing ones.

•    Proven experience in partnership deal structuring and negotiation, with a portfolio of closed strategic partnerships that delivered measurable commercial impact.

•    Strong commercial acumen: comfort with business case development, unit economics, pricing strategy, and P&L-oriented thinking.

•    Experience operating in fast-scaling startup environments, with comfort in ambiguity and a bias toward action over process.

•    A track record of building and leading high-performing teams, with the executive presence to influence peers, boards, and external partners.

•    Exceptional communication and storytelling skills — able to translate market opportunity into a compelling narrative for both internal and external stakeholders.

•    MBA or equivalent advanced degree preferred but not mandatory given demonstrated results.

Key Metrics for Success (KPIs)

Category

Example Metrics

New Revenue Creation

% of company revenue derived from new verticals/business lines within 12–24 months

Market Penetration

Number of new verticals entered; customer adoption rate within each new vertical

Partnership Value

Total partner-sourced/partner-influenced revenue; number of strategic partnerships closed and time-to-value per partnership

Customer Economics

Improvement in Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) and LTV:CAC ratio across new market segments

Pipeline Impact

Pipeline generated from new market GTM motions; conversion rate by vertical

Strategic Impact

Executive/board-validated new business cases advanced from concept to scaled motion

What We Offer

•    Competitive base salary commensurate with executive-level experience, plus performance-based incentives tied to new revenue creation.

•    Meaningful equity — the opportunity to be a true owner in the company's next growth chapter.

•    Strategic autonomy — direct access to the CEO/executive team and significant latitude to shape the company's market expansion strategy.

•    Executive benefits package, including comprehensive health coverage, flexible PTO, and retirement plan matching.

•    A seat at the table for major strategic decisions, with visibility into board-level conversations on company direction.

• The rare opportunity to build a new function from the ground up inside a fast-scaling, high-growth software company.