Position SummaryThe Commercial Chief Growth Officer is responsible for defining, validating, and executing ARM's commercial growth strategy. This leader will build a repeatable commercial business-development engine focused on helping U.S. manufacturers adopt robotics and AI through Automation Assessments, solution-development engagements, consortium-enabled delivery models, and related workforce offerings.
This role is not limited to selling existing services. Its central mandate is to clarify ARM's commercial game plan: identify the markets and customer problems where ARM can win, define compelling and
scalable commercial offers, establish the right routes to market, develop strategic partnerships, and convert early traction into a durable revenue pipeline.
The Commercial CGO will initially prioritize disciplined market discovery and offer development, then scale customer acquisition and account growth. The role will maintain a focused approach: concentrate the majority of commercial BD and marketing resources on a small number of validated priority verticals while preserving limited capacity for high-value opportunistic pursuits.
Primary ResponsibilitiesCommercial Strategy and Market Focus- Lead development of ARM's commercial growth strategy, including target-market selection, customer segmentation, value propositions, routes to market, pricing hypotheses, and revenue targets.
- Conduct and synthesize market research to recommend the highest-potential commercial verticals beyond defense and aerospace, using evidence such as automation need, manufacturing concentration, purchasing capacity, technology-adoption barriers, addressable customer base, and fit with ARM capabilities.
- Translate market findings into a practical commercial operating plan with prioritized accounts, partner strategy, marketing requirements, sales stages, conversion assumptions, and resource needs.
- Establish clear criteria for which opportunities ARM should pursue directly, deliver through consortium members, manage on behalf of customers, refer to partners, or decline.
- Build and maintain a commercial pipeline that is balanced across near-term revenue, strategic lighthouse customers, repeatable offerings, and longer-term growth opportunities.
Commercial Offer and Business-Model Development- Own the evolution and commercialization of Automation Assessments as ARM's commercial entry offer.
- Define a clear customer journey from initial engagement through assessment, recommendations, solution sourcing or design, implementation support, workforce enablement, and follow-on services.
- Partner with technical and program leaders to package offerings that solve tangible manufacturer problems, such as automation opportunity identification, business-case development, robotics/AI roadmap creation, solution sourcing, pilot/prototype management, workforce-readiness planning, and implementation support.
- Develop commercial packaging, scope templates, pricing approaches, statements of work, and delivery handoffs that make offerings understandable, purchasable, and repeatable.
- Test and refine service concepts with early customers; use win/loss feedback, delivery results, and customer outcomes to improve positioning and offer design.
- Identify opportunities to create recurring or scalable revenue models, including subscriptions, licensing, strategic partnerships, sponsorships, or productized services, where aligned with ARM's mission and capabilities.
Customer Acquisition and Account Development- Build senior relationships with executives and operational leaders at target commercial manufacturers and industrial companies.
- Lead account planning for priority prospects and customers, including stakeholder mapping, customer challenges, relationship-development plans, pursuit strategy, and expansion opportunities.
- Drive consultative sales conversations that connect robotics and AI adoption to customer outcomes such as productivity, quality, labor availability, resilience, throughput, safety, and competitiveness.
- Develop and lead proposals, commercial scopes, presentations, and negotiations in coordination with technical, programmatic, contracts, and finance teams.
- Serve as executive sponsor or commercial lead for strategic accounts as appropriate, ensuring strong transition from business development to delivery and ongoing customer growth.
Consortium, Partner, and Internal Leadership- Develop methods for leveraging the ARM Consortium as a differentiated commercial asset while preserving customer trust, fair opportunity, and clear commercial roles.
- Build strategic partnerships with organizations that can extend reach, generate referrals, improve delivery capacity, or strengthen ARM's credibility in priority verticals.
- Partner with Membership to recruit and engage organizations that improve ARM's ability to serve target commercial markets.
- Partner with CSO to create market-specific messaging, thought leadership, customer stories, events, and campaigns that generate qualified demand.
- Coordinate with CTO to incorporate engineering and program management solutions into commercial customer engagements.
- Coordinate with CWO to incorporate workforce-readiness and talent solutions into commercial customer engagements when relevant.
- Coordinate with the Defense CGO to find and pursue dual-use opportunities.
- Provide leadership team with regular, evidence-based recommendations on commercial priorities, investments, risks, and required organizational decisions.
Success MeasuresSuccess will be measured through a combination of revenue, pipeline, customer, and strategic-development outcomes, including:
- Commercial revenue growth and progress toward ARM's long-term commercial revenue and revenue-mix objectives.
- Qualified pipeline value, pipeline coverage, opportunity-stage progression, forecast accuracy, and conversion/win rate.
- Number, quality, and strategic relevance of new commercial customers and expanded customer relationships.
- Adoption, revenue, margin contribution, customer satisfaction, and demonstrated manufacturing impact from Automation Assessments and follow-on engagements.
- Completion and implementation of a validated commercial market strategy, including recommended priority verticals, target-account list, go-to-market plan, and commercial offer architecture.
- Number and quality of repeatable offers, strategic partnerships, and consortium-enabled opportunities established.
- Evidence that commercial engagements lead to robotics/AI adoption, implementation, or other measurable customer outcomes.
Required Qualifications- Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
- 25+ years of progressive experience in commercial business development, strategic sales, market development, consulting, or growth leadership in industrial technology, manufacturing, automation, robotics, AI, systems integration, or a closely related field.
- Demonstrated success creating or scaling a commercial offering, market segment, or go-to-market motion-not solely managing an established sales territory.
- Strong understanding of manufacturer buying processes and the operational, technical, financial, and workforce factors that influence automation and digital-transformation decisions.
- Demonstrated ability to build executive relationships, discover customer needs, shape solutions, negotiate complex services engagements, and close revenue.
- Experience working across technical, operations, delivery, marketing, finance, and legal/contracts teams.
- Strong analytical, written, verbal, presentation, and stakeholder-management skills.
- Willingness and ability to travel for customer, partner, consortium, and industry engagements.
Preferred Qualifications- Experience selling consulting, engineering, integration, transformation, or managed-service engagements to industrial customers.
- Experience in one or more priority industrial verticals, such as defense and aerospace, agriculture, construction, transportation, metals, food and beverage, consumer goods, or other discrete/process manufacturing sectors.
- Experience building partner ecosystems, channel relationships, or consortium-based delivery models.
- Experience with CRM discipline, opportunity qualification, account planning, forecast management, and metrics-driven sales leadership.
- Familiarity with workforce-development needs associated with automation deployment.
- Experience in a mission-driven, nonprofit, membership, public-private partnership, or innovation-institute environment.
