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Sales,
& Business Development

Commercial talent for B2B technical and enterprise markets.

Senior commercial, business-development and sales-leadership talent for firms selling technical products to technical buyers — enterprise SaaS, defence and government, fintech, semiconductors, cyber, and specialist hardware. The kind of commercial people who can hold a technical conversation and a board conversation in the same hour.

What we do here

Commercial hiring at the senior end of B2B technical markets — the people who carry quotas measured in millions and sell products that take weeks of pre-sales conversation to close. This is not high-volume SDR / BDR recruitment; we work on the strategic commercial appointments where one wrong hire costs the firm a year of revenue.

What “great” looks like at intake

Three things we will pressure-test on the first call:

  • The technical complexity of the sale. Selling a wireless silicon IP licence is a different role from selling SaaS. We need to understand what the candidate needs to be able to hold a conversation about.
  • The compensation structure. Base, OTE, accelerator, equity, retention — the structure determines who is even available, not just what they cost. Strong commercial candidates will not engage on an ambiguous offer.
  • The territory or account map. Is this a greenfield BDM role, an enterprise account-management role, or a sales-leadership build? Each is a different candidate pool.

Recent engagements in this sector

A senior BDM mandate for a Sydney-based technology firm scaling APAC. Earlier in the founder’s career: multiple Heads-of-Sales placements into B2B SaaS and defence-adjacent product firms.

Capabilities we cover

  • Enterprise and strategic-account sales
  • APAC and international business development
  • Sales leadership — Heads of Sales, VP Sales, CRO
  • Channel partnerships, distributors and resellers
  • Government and defence sales (cleared and uncleared)
  • Pre-sales and solution architecture

Typical roles & bands

  • Senior Account Executive / BDM
    $140k–$200k base + OTE
  • Sales Director / Head of Sales
    $200k–$280k base + OTE
  • VP Sales / CRO
    $280k–$400k total
  • Channel / Partnerships Manager
    $130k–$180k base + variable
  • Senior Pre-Sales / Solutions Engineer
    $160k–$220k base
A note on these bands
  • Source. The founder's placement records across 15 years of recruitment practice, continuing into AEY, plus ongoing market benchmarking.
  • Composition. Base salary unless otherwise specified. Total-comp roles include equity / bonus / day-rate where stated.
  • Variance. Actual offers move with stage, location, technical specialism, clearance status and the candidate's alternative options. The bands above are 25th–75th percentile, not floor and ceiling.
  • Currency. All amounts in AUD.
Interactive salary benchmark →

Market notes

The Australian B2B sales market is genuinely tight at the senior end — the engineers, founders and operators who eventually move into commercial leadership are often the most sought-after candidates we run searches for. Compensation has moved materially in the last two years, particularly at firms selling to enterprise government and large-scale defence customers. Variable / OTE structures vary enormously; we benchmark each engagement against current AEY placement data rather than relying on industry averages.

Talent we know
~140 senior commercial operators across Australia

Concentrated in Sydney and Melbourne; smaller pools in Canberra (defence/government) and Brisbane. We track sales leaders by quota carried, territory complexity and the technical depth of the products they have sold.

Anonymised, never shared. Maintained as a live working map, not a database.

Hiring in this market?

Let's talk about sales & business development.

A 30-minute call is enough for us to know whether we can add value - and whether you should be talking to us, or to someone else.

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