Commercial Development Director (Charleston)

About the Company

We are exclusively working with an industrial electrification project developer. This organization develops, finances, owns, and operates industrial thermal and power assets, including mechanical vapor recompression (MVR) heat pumps, thermal energy storage (TES), and electrode boilers, delivered to industrial customers under long-term Heat Purchase Agreements. Their model allows clients to retain capital and focus on core operations, while the company handles development, construction, and operating activities to provide steam and process heat at a lower delivered cost with a materially lower carbon intensity.

The team is headquartered in Charleston, SC, backed by venture partnerships. Their pipeline spans the food and beverage, chemicals, paper/packaging, ethanol, and mining sectors, with initial project development already underway.

The Role

The Director of Commercial Development owns the commercial and economic outcomes of projects, from development through financial close. You will negotiate and close the full contract stack that makes a project financeable, and you will be accountable for the economics that those contracts produce.

This is a paired role. The Project Director owns technical scope, engineering, schedule, and construction execution. You own everything commercial: the agreements, the counterparties, the pricing, the risk allocation, and the path to close. Together, you are responsible for guiding a project from development agreement to notice to proceed to commercial operation.

You are not originating new customers, the business development team handles that. You take projects that have been won and drive them to a signed, financeable, closed transaction that hits its return targets.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the project contract stack. Lead negotiation and execution of all major project agreements, including EPC and construction contracts, equipment supply agreements, Heat Purchase Agreements, power purchase agreements, interconnection and utility agreements, site leases, O&M agreements, and consultant and advisory engagements.
• Drive projects to financial close. Own the critical path to close — build and manage the closing checklist, coordinate lenders, tax equity and project equity counterparties, manage third-party diligence (independent engineer, insurance, market consultant, legal), resolve conditions precedent, and close on schedule.
• Own project economics. Work with Finance to define and defend the assumptions in project models — pricing, escalation, availability, heat rate and energy cost, capex and contingency, credit stack (§48E ITC, §45Z, LCFS/CFR) — and make the commercial tradeoffs that protect returns.
• Manage Project Budget & Schedule. Work with the development and finance teams and the Project Director to develop a project budget and schedule and manage the project to the budget and schedule.
• Structure and allocate risk. Identify commercial, regulatory, and counterparty risk across the contract stack and negotiate terms that allocate it appropriately — performance guarantees, liquidated damages, availability and pass-through mechanics, change order regimes, termination and step-in rights, and credit support.
• Manage power procurement and hedging. Lead PPA negotiation and structured power procurement, run hedge solicitations across counterparties, and evaluate retail versus wholesale supply structures.
• Be the commercial face to counterparties. Serve as the primary commercial point of contact for industrial customers, utilities, EPCs, OEMs, lenders, and investors. Build durable relationships and represent the organization credibly in senior negotiations.
• Manage outside counsel and advisors. Direct external legal counsel and technical and commercial advisors efficiently — scoping work, controlling cost, and keeping negotiations moving.
• Coordinate development workstreams. Sequence permitting, interconnection, land, incentives, and regulatory workstreams alongside the Project Director so that commercial and technical milestones stay in lockstep.
• Support corporate finance. Contribute project-level materials, diligence responses, and commercial narrative to corporate equity and debt raises.
• Build the playbook. Turn what you learn on each project into standard forms, term sheet templates, negotiation positions, and a repeatable close process as the organization scales.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years in energy or industrial infrastructure project development, project finance, or commercial transaction leadership, with increasing ownership of outcomes.
• Demonstrated track record leading projects to successful financial close, you have personally driven several transactions across the line, and you can walk through exactly what you owned.
• Hands-on experience negotiating EPC and construction contracts, offtake agreements, and power purchase agreements. You know where the value and the risk actually sit in these documents.
• Strong command of project finance structures, lender requirements, and diligence processes — debt, tax equity, and project equity.
• Fluency in project economics and financial models. You do not need to build the model, but you must be able to interrogate it, understand the sensitivities, and know which commercial terms move returns.
• Experience managing outside counsel and technical advisors on complex, multi-party transactions.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication. You can be firm in a negotiation and still leave the counterparty wanting to do the next deal with you.
• Resourceful, self-directed, and comfortable operating without infrastructure.
• Willingness to travel regularly to project sites and counterparty meetings.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience at an IPP, independent developer, or infrastructure owner-operator — an owner's mindset rather than a pure advisory or lender background.
• Experience with industrial customers as offtakers, chemicals, food and beverage, pulp and paper, ethanol, or mining.
• Working knowledge of U.S. and Canadian energy markets and utility structures (SPP, MISO, ERCOT, PJM, IESO) and of interconnection and large-load processes.
• Familiarity with the clean energy tax credit and carbon credit stack §48E ITC, §45Z, LCFS, and Canada's Clean Fuel Regulations.
• Experience with first-of-a-kind or early commercial projects, where precedent is thin and structures have to be invented.
• Familiarity with industrial thermal energy, steam systems, cogeneration, or electrification technologies (MVR heat pumps, TES, electrode boilers).
• Comfort/willingness using AI tools to accelerate contract review, diligence, and analytical work.
• JD, MBA, or engineering degree, useful, not required.

What They Offer

• Direct ownership of the commercial outcome of real projects, with visible impact on the company's trajectory and daily exposure to the C-suite and board.
• Base salary depending on experience, plus project milestone bonus incentives tied to NTP and COD, and meaningful equity participation.
• A venture-backed platform in a sector with strong tailwinds, industrial heat is one of the largest and least-addressed decarbonization opportunities in the economy.
• The chance to build the commercial function, not inherit it, your forms, your process, your playbook.
• Comprehensive benefits and a collaborative, low-bureaucracy team based in Charleston, SC.