Director, Business Development - NeoClouds

Description VAST Data is looking for a Director of Business Development – NeoClouds to help build and scale one of the fastest-growing areas of our business. This is a senior individual contributor role focused on developing strategic relationships with NeoCloud and GPU Cloud providers globally. You will identify high-value partners, create new routes to market, structure strategic commercial relationships, and turn emerging AI infrastructure providers into meaningful revenue and ecosystem partners for VAST. This is a builder role , not an account-management position. We are looking for someone who can operate in an emerging market, create opportunities where none exist today, and work across sales, product, engineering, alliances, and executive leadership to turn complex partnerships into scalable business. What You'll Do Build the NeoCloud ecosystem: Identify, prioritize, and develop relationships with NeoClouds, GPU Cloud providers, AI infrastructure platforms, and emerging cloud service providers. Create new business: Develop opportunities from the ground up—from initial engagement and executive alignment through commercial strategy, partnership structure, and revenue generation. Develop strategic partnerships: Define how VAST and NeoCloud partners go to market together, including sell-to, sell-with, and joint solution opportunities. Drive revenue: Build and manage a meaningful pipeline of NeoCloud opportunities and translate strategic relationships into measurable business. Shape the go-to-market model: Help establish repeatable engagement models, rules of engagement, commercial frameworks, and sales plays that can scale across the global NeoCloud ecosystem. Build executive relationships: Develop trusted relationships with founders, CEOs, CROs, infrastructure leaders, and other senior decision-makers across the NeoCloud market. Connect technology to business: Understand partners' infrastructure, AI, data, and platform strategies and identify where VAST can become a foundational component of their offerings. Orchestrate internally: Work across VAST Sales, Sales Engineering, Product, Engineering, Marketing, Finance, Legal, and executive leadership to move opportunities forward. Bring the market into VAST: Provide intelligence on emerging NeoCloud business models, competitive dynamics, customer requirements, and technology trends to help shape VAST's strategy. What We're Looking For Significant experience in business development, strategic partnerships, cloud infrastructure, AI infrastructure, or platform ecosystems . Strong understanding of the emerging NeoCloud/GPU Cloud market and the infrastructure required to deliver AI services at scale. Demonstrated ability to create business from zero —identifying opportunities, opening relationships, developing a strategy, and turning it into revenue. Experience developing complex partnerships involving some combination of infrastructure, compute, storage, networking, cloud, data platforms, and AI . Strong commercial instincts and experience navigating complex deal structures and strategic partnerships. Existing relationships across NeoClouds, GPU infrastructure providers, AI companies, cloud providers, or the broader AI infrastructure ecosystem are highly valued. Comfortable engaging both technical and business audiences , from infrastructure architects to founders and C-level executives. Highly resourceful and comfortable operating without an established playbook. Ability to influence and coordinate cross-functional teams without direct authority. Strong executive presence, communication skills, and ability to simplify complex technical and commercial concepts. The Profile That Will Thrive at VAST We're looking for someone with a founder mentality —someone who wants to create the experience rather than join an established one. The right person will see an emerging and rapidly changing NeoCloud market and immediately start thinking about who matters, where VAST fits, how we win, and how to turn those relationships into significant revenue . They will be intellectually curious, technically credible, commercially aggressive, creative in how they build partnerships, and comfortable being measured by the business they create—not simply the relationships they maintain.