Location: Ottawa - Palladium, Canada

In fast changing markets, customers worldwide rely on Thales. Thales is a business where brilliant people from all over the world come together to share ideas and inspire each other. In aerospace, transportation, defence, security and space, our architects design creative solutions that make our tomorrow's possible.

This role is Hybrid Ottawa Director, Business Development Position Summary Thales Canada is seeking an experienced business development and sales leader to drive growth in the naval, maritime and digital domains. The Director will be responsible for shaping and executing sales strategies that position Thales as a partner of choice to domestic customers, including but not limited to, the Canadian Army, Canadian Joint Operations Command, the Canadian Joint Forces Command, the Canadian Special Operations Forces Operations and the Department of National Defence at large. This role combines strong executive presence, deep customer engagement and strategic sales execution to advance Thales’ land and joint defense portfolio into its next phase of growth.

The ideal candidate demonstrates the following qualities:

Entrepreneurial mindset with the ability to unify technical expertise and commercial instincts.

Collaborative leadership style that promotes innovation, accountability, and results.

Deep respect for stakeholder relationships and a passion for advancing Canada’s defence capabilities.

Ability to work effectively within a global matrix organization and influence cross-functional priorities.

The BD Director works in close collaboration with the extended capture team, industrial partners and the supporting business line(s) to maximize the success of the Thales offer.



This Business Development Director role is also responsible to develop non-domain Business Line (BL) opportunities to grow the defence account. This requires a level customer and Business Line engagement that includes the development and execution of comprehensive business cases expected at the Director level, and presented at the Business Line and Group Business Unit (GBU) leadership.

Regulatory Compliance Requirement This position requires direct or indirect access to hardware, software or technical information controlled under the Canadian Export Control List and/or the US the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). All applicants must be eligible or able to obtain authorization for such access.

Key Responsibilities

Lead business development and sales strategy for the growth of the land, joint and related digital transformation programs.

Establish and maintain relationships with Canadian Armed Forces stakeholders and customers, prime contractors, and key industry partners in a customer-centric approach.

Responsible for capture planning from opportunity identification through to hand off to the Capture Leader, including teaming, solution shaping, and value proposition development.

Oversee the development of competitive intelligence, market assessments, and long-range sales forecasts to support strategic decision-making,



working with the relevant internal stakeholders to support this activity.

Collaborate with engineering, product, and capture teams to align solution roadmaps with customer priorities and emerging technologies.

Champion C5ISRT, command and control, and data-enabled capabilities across Thales Canada’s land and joint capability portfolio.

Work collaboratively with the BD and sales team and mentor and inspire a team approach to achieve revenue, order intake, and profitability objectives.

Represent Thales Canada at industry forums, customer and government engagement events to engage customers and strengthen brand visibility.

Process

Working within Thales processes, develop strategic alliances and partnerships as needed to achieve business goals. Analyse and influence customer requirements, standards and specifications to effectively position Thales products and solutions. During Request for Information (RFI) processes, act as the Capture Leader, develop capture strategy, orient and organize the multi-BL bid team, assess make-team-buy and lead the proposal effort. During RFP bidding processes, support Capture Leaders in the bid and proposal activities with specific focus on price to win, competitive analysis and industrial arrangements as required. Working within Product Policy and the Manage Bid processes, provides input for process improvement, analyse and influence customer requirements.

Resources

Manage assigned resources to meet business goals. These include Thales Canada Defence & Security (TCDS) resources and consultants supporting the early identification and capture of opportunities. Effectively manage assigned capture/bid budgets as allocated until assignment of capture leader.

Development

📌 Director, Business Development (Quebec)
🏢 Thales
📍 Quebec