Vice President of Defense Programs
Location : Washington, DC (Hybrid)
Type : Fulltime | Executive Leadership
Clearance : TS / SCI preferred
Were supporting a fast growing dual-use defense company working across maritime, aviation, and expeditionary operations. This role owns the full journey from mission gap funded program fielded capability scaled production.
You'll lead defense growth end-to-end : shaping requirements, navigating PPBE, winning programs, and standing up initial operational capability with real operators in the field. This is a builders role for someone who thrives in high trust, high impact environments.
What You'll Own
- Defense growth from first contact through operational deployment
- Translation of mission needs into funded, executable programs
- Executive relationships across Services, COCOMs, PEOs, primes, and policy stakeholders
- Capture strategy, proposals, negotiations, and revenue accountability
- Alignment of product direction with real maritime and aviation missions
Ideal Background
10-20+ years across operations, acquisition, capture / BD, or program leadershipProven success taking 0 to 1 efforts into funded, operational programsDeep fluency in DoD resourcing, acquisition, and PPBETrusted relationships across Services and program officesAbility to translate technical systems into mission relevant outcomesHigh autonomy, builder leader with strong execution biasPreferred Experience
INDOPACOM exposureMaritime, expeditionary, distributed logistics missionsNavy / USMC / Air Force operational contextScaling programs from first award into multiyear production or servicesTravel : ~25%
Environment : Growth stage, high ownership, mission driven