Founding Business Lead

Title of Role: Founding Business Lead (Enterprise AI)

Location: San Francisco, CA

Company Stage of Funding: Early-stage venture-backed startup (Seed / Series A)

Office Type: Onsite – 5 days per week in San Francisco

Salary: $180,000 – $220,000 base salary meaningful equity

Company Description

Our client is a fast-growing, venture-backed AI startup building next-generation enterprise software for large, complex organizations. Their platform applies AI to mission-critical business operations, helping some of the world’s largest companies unlock significant financial and operational value.

The company is early in its journey, well-capitalized, and already working with enterprise customers. They are now building out their foundational business team and are looking for a high-impact, early hire to help scale the company from the ground up.

This is an opportunity to join at an inflection point and work directly with the founding team to shape the company’s go-to-market strategy, customer experience, and long-term trajectory.

What You Will Do

As a Founding Business Lead, you will act as a true generalist and an extension of the founders, owning critical initiatives across go-to-market, customer delivery, and internal execution. Responsibilities include:

• Partnering closely with the CEO on enterprise go-to-market efforts, including preparing for executive-level conversations and supporting complex, multi-stakeholder deals

• Working directly with customers during onboarding and deployment to understand requirements, translate needs into clear product inputs, and ensure fast time-to-value

• Owning and executing high-priority special projects such as financial modeling, market research, analytics deep dives, and customer onboarding workflows

• Driving cross-functional execution by turning ambiguity into structured plans and unblocking teams across business and engineering

• Supporting AI product delivery and deployment efforts, collaborating with engineers to scope features and integrate customer learnings into the platform

• Helping build foundational business processes and operating cadence as the company scales from 0 → 1

Ideal Candidate Background

We are looking for someone with strong business fundamentals, high ownership, and the ability to thrive in an early-stage environment. The ideal background includes:

• 2–6 years of professional experience in management consulting, investment banking, business operations, chief of staff, or strategy roles at high-growth B2B or enterprise technology companies

• Experience working with enterprise customers and complex business problems

• Strong analytical skills with the ability to synthesize information and communicate clearly with executives and technical teams

• Comfort operating in ambiguity with a bias toward action and execution

• Willingness to work onsite in San Francisco five days per week

Preferred

• Experience in enterprise software, applied AI, or data-driven products

• Exposure to technical concepts and the ability to reason about systems at a high level (hands-on coding not required)

• Background at top-tier consulting firms, high-growth startups, or similarly rigorous environments

• Experience working closely with founders or executive leadership

Compensation, Benefits, and Other Details

• Base Salary: $180,000 – $220,000

• Equity: Competitive early-stage equity (approximately 0.75%–1%, subject to role and level)

• Employment Type: Full-time

• Work Authorization: Candidates must already be authorized to work in the U.S. (visa transfers may be considered; no new sponsorship)

• Growth Opportunity: Significant ownership, visibility, and career acceleration as an early business hire

• Environment: High-velocity startup with direct access to leadership and real influence over company direction