Business Development Executive

Astr Defence Private Limited is an Indian defence technology company developing indigenous weapon systems, Counter-UAS solutions, smart fire-control systems, and advanced ammunition technologies for the Armed Forces and homeland-security users.

Role

The Business Development Executive – Defence will be a key customer-facing representative, working directly with the Founder/CEO and technical teams. This is a hands-on field business development role involving regular interaction with the Armed Forces, CAPFs, government agencies, defence organisations, DPSUs, private defence companies, and other stakeholders. The individual will be comfortable independently representing Astr Defence in customer meetings, defence exhibitions, conferences, product demonstrations, and field trials across India. Extensive travel is an integral part of the role.

Key Responsibilities

• Identify, develop, and pursue business opportunities across the Indian Army, Indian Air Force, Indian Navy, CAPFs, homeland-security organisations, and other government users.
• Build and maintain relationships with operational users, decision-makers, procurement stakeholders, and other relevant defence ecosystem participants.
• Proactively secure customer meetings, capability presentations, product demonstrations, and field evaluations.
• Understand operational requirements and capability gaps and translate them into actionable inputs for Astr Defence's product and engineering teams.
• Present Astr Defence's capabilities effectively to military officers, government stakeholders, technical evaluation teams, and industry partners.
• Develop the market for emerging capabilities in Counter-UAS, hard-kill Counter-UAS, soldier-portable weapon systems, smart fire-control systems, and related defence technologies.
• Help users understand the operational role and employment concepts of new product categories where established procurement benchmarks may not yet exist.
• Track customer requirements, RFIs, RFPs, EOIs, procurement programmes, trials, and other relevant defence opportunities.
• Develop account plans and systematically progress opportunities from initial engagement through demonstrations, evaluations, procurement pathways, and commercial discussions.
• Coordinate product demonstrations and field trials with customers and Astr Defence's engineering teams.
• Capture detailed user feedback from demonstrations, meetings, and trials and ensure structured follow-up with internal teams.
• Represent Astr Defence at defence exhibitions, seminars, conferences, industry forums, and government events.
• Develop relationships with DPSUs, defence primes, OEMs, and other potential strategic or technology partners.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• Applicants must have prior professional experience in Business Development in the Indian Defence sector.
• Relevant experience working with Indian defence customers, defence companies, defence startups, OEMs, DPSUs, or related organisations.
• Demonstrable understanding of the Indian defence ecosystem and defence procurement environment.
• Strong communication, presentation, and persuasion skills.
• Ability to confidently address senior military, government, and industry stakeholders.
• Sufficient technical aptitude to understand and present defence products and systems after appropriate product training.
• Strong ownership mentality and willingness to personally drive meetings, demonstrations, follow-ups, and opportunity development.
• Willingness to travel extensively across India.

Qualifications

• Prior experience in Counter-UAS, UAVs, weapon systems, ammunition, fire-control systems, electro-optics, air-defence systems, RCWS, or related defence technologies.
• Existing professional relationships across the Armed Forces, CAPFs, defence industry, or government defence ecosystem.
• Technical/engineering educational background.
• Experience working in a defence startup or smaller defence company where the individual personally owned business development rather than operating within a large sales organisation.
• Experience coordinating or conducting product demonstrations, field evaluations, or user trials.
• Experience with defence tenders, RFIs/RFPs, GeM, and other government procurement processes.