VP Commercial

Permanent employee, Full-time · Remote (UTC +/- 2 hrs)

About the role

Apheris is on the cusp of revolutionizing the way sensitive data is used for advanced analytics and AI in pharma and healthcare. Apheris safely connects data for federated computing and AI, building the world's largest healthcare and life sciences data network. As we prepare for our next phase of growth, we are looking for a hands-on commercial leader to shape and execute our GTM strategy. You will be part of our executive team, reporting directly to our CEO Robin and working closely with our VP Product Ellie, CTO & Co-Founder Michael and our VP Engineering Eero. You will build and lead a world-class commercial and marketing function, build a repeatable and scalable sales motion, and forge strategic partnerships with companies like NVIDIA, Intel and cloud providers.

This role requires a strategic, visionary, and hands-on commercial leader: you must have a deep understanding of the pharma and healthcare data market – ideally having sold 7-8-figure software licenses to enterprise customers. You must have experience of building and leading a commercial function in an early-stage environment, driving a culture of excellence and velocity. You will need to be strategic yet hands-on, thriving in high-growth environments and deeply technical organizations. Our immediate go-to-market focus is on drug discovery use cases; therefore, we need you to understand how to align incentives for relevant parties and which datasets and models matter in this space. If you want to be part of building a company of consequence, making a significant impact at the intersection of AI, security and data connectivity, this role is for you.

What you will do

Drive GTM strategy: Formulate and execute go-to-market strategies tailored to pharma and healthcare, leading to ubiquitous deployment of the Apheris Compute Gateway and sustainable revenue growth. Contribute to building a data network, bringing parties from different sectors together, with an initial focus on drug discovery.
Build and lead GTM team (Business Development, Account Management, Marketing & Partnerships): Build up a seasoned GTM team and provide leadership and support by setting priorities in alignment with strategic goals. Refine ICP, value messaging, use cases, and marketing activities. Support development of sales collateral.
Accelerate sales cycle: Actively engage in pre- and post-sales activities to accelerate the sales cycle, directly contributing to revenue growth and customer acquisition, including owning our most strategic accounts.
Forge strategic partnerships: Cultivate and manage partnerships with life sciences analytics companies and Big Tech firms to expand market reach and enhance the product offering.
Build out the Apheris brand: Establish Apheris as a respected thought leader in building data network in life sciences.
Contribute to product strategy: Leverage insights from customers and partners to influence product strategy, acting as a customer advocate.
Executive oversight: Work as part of the executive team (one of five people), setting overall company priorities and driving operational excellence.

What we expect from you

By month 3: Define GTM focus (subverticals, use cases, stakeholders). Lead the existing GTM team and oversee the execution, being involved in some of our most strategic accounts.
By month 6: Demonstrate first results based on GTM strategy (new opportunities, repeatable use cases). Drive team toward increased “matchmaking” among potential customers and sales cycle acceleration. Make first key hires.
By month 12: Achieve ambitious commercial targets (+150-200% ARR growth) and show strong traction for the next 12 months. Attain substantial deployment of Apheris Compute Gateway and deliver quantifiable value to customers, expanding relationships with most strategic pharma customers. Make key hires for all critical functions (Business Development, Account Management, Marketing, Partnerships).

You should apply if

You have an in-depth understanding of pharmaceutical companies’ data needs (e.g., for use in drug discovery, clinical research, RWE) and can speak their language. An understanding of the drug discovery space is especially critical for us right now.
You have excellent connections within the pharma and healthcare data industry, including R&D teams, technology teams that serve these functions, and key decisionmakers.
You have successfully negotiated and closed multi-million-dollar software and/or data product deals with pharmaceutical executives.
You comprehend the R&D priorities of pharmaceutical companies, both for individual drug candidates and in-market drugs, understand the associated data needs, and can identify the best-fitting AI models to support R&D and commercialization processes.
You have experience building and leading the commercial function of an early-stage business, navigating early product-market fit, and iterating on GTM strategies; you thrive in ambiguous environments and can make informed decisions with limited data.
You have a track record of forming large-scale partnerships, preferably with technology companies.

Bonus points if

You are experienced in building data networks and have executed associated GTM approaches, especially in drug discovery.
You possess a solid understanding of AI/ML workloads and use cases.
You have an understanding of academic institutions that build ML models and their collaboration models with industry players.
You have previously established a start-up brand as a thought leader in a highly technical, innovative space.

If you don't feel your experience 100% matches the requirements but you think you'd be a great fit for this role and Apheris, we encourage you to apply. We value the right people and look at personality, potential and motivation to learn and grow. We can discuss and adapt the role in a way that is meant for you!

What we offer you

Industry-competitive compensation
Early-stage equity
Remote-first working – work where you work best, whether from home or a co-working space near you
Great suite of benefits including a wellbeing budget, mental health benefits, a work-from-home budget, a co-working stipend and a learning and development budget
Regular team lunches and social events
Generous holiday allowance (location-dependent)
Quarterly All Hands meet-up at our Berlin HQ
A fun and diverse team of mission-driven individuals with a drive to see AI and ML used for good
Plenty of room to grow personally and professionally and shape your own role

Here’s a bit more about our culture and ambitions at Apheris!

About Apheris

Finding solutions to the planet’s most urgent problems requires organizations to collaborate. But the data and insights needed to solve these challenges are locked away in businesses, unable to be centralized or directly shared for collaboration with customers and partners. Apheris is pioneering a new way for organizations to securely collaborate on even the most sensitive data across organizational and geographical boundaries. By unlocking value from sensitive data, Apheris is accelerating discovery and innovation, driving operational efficiency, and reducing risk and carbon impact for our customers and their partners.

Apheris is a platform that empowers businesses to run advanced analytics and machine learning models across organizational and geographical borders in a way that’s secure, private, and governed. By powering their data infrastructure with federated ML and analytics, businesses can build and operationalize data applications in ways previously not possible. At Apheris, we’re unified by our mission and the positive impact we can have. We’re excited by the potential we can bring with our federated approach and are looking for someone who can help us define, build and scale this impact. What are you waiting for? Come and join us.

Logistics

Our interview process is structured as follows:

Initial Screening: If your application matches our requirements, we invite you to an initial video call to get to know us and the role. The interviewer will be interested in your relevant experiences and skills, as well as answer any questions on the company and the role itself that you may have.
Deep Dives: In these interviews, you will mostly speak with senior leaders at Apheris to assess your skills and knowledge required for the role by asking you about meaningful experiences or your solutions for specific scenarios in line with the role we are staffing.
Final Interviews: Finally, we invite you for up to three hours of targeted sessions with our leadership team and your potential future colleagues, talking about the market, our technology, and our culture. As part of this final stage, you will also present a case study that you prepared beforehand. If possible, this stage will take place in-person.

#LI-Remote

Apply for this job

Your application!

We appreciate your interest in Apheris. Please fill in the following short form. Should you have any difficulties in uploading your files, please contact us by mail at career@apheris.com.