Director, AI Partnerships EMEA

About this role:

• Build and manage a pipeline of AI Marketplace partnerships across France and EMEA.
• Identify and qualify AI companies, integrators, and defense primes for platform integration.
• Lead commercial negotiations from first meeting through signed partnership agreement.
• Represent Loft in the French sovereign AI and defense ecosystem (DGA, CNES, BPI, and adjacent institutions).
• Develop cross‑constellation partnership opportunities (SAR, thermal, RF providers for sensor fusion use cases, with the likes of ICEYE).
• Translate technical platform capabilities into clear, compelling partner value propositions.
• Surface partner inputs back to the product and engineering roadmap.
• Work with product and engineering to shape the partner onboarding experience.
• Track competitive landscape and feed insights back into go-to-market positioning.

Must Haves:

• 5-10 years in business development, partnerships, or sales in technology, defense, or aerospace.
• Existing network in French defense, space, or AI ecosystems.
• Track record of closing complex, multi-stakeholder partnerships.
• Ability to understand and articulate technical products to non-technical buyers (and the reverse).
• Fluent in French and English.
• Comfortable operating with high autonomy in a fast-growing company.

Nice to Haves:

• Direct experience with sovereign or classified programs (French or European).
• Background in satellite services, Earth observation, or geospatial analytics.
• Experience working with system integrators (Thales, Airbus, Leonardo).

Benefits:

• Equity, we want you to have an active role in our success
• Up to 35 days of Paid Time Off (vacations & RTT) and flexible working hours, we want you to be at your best
• Health and life insurance, we care about your health
• Lunch Vouchers, because let’s be honest, we love food!
• Cross-office travel opportunities between San Francisco, Colorado, and Toulouse to learn from our differences
• Company and team off‑sites and many other events to work & celebrate together
• Relocation assistance to Toulouse when applicable

Research shows that while men apply to jobs where they meet an average of 60% of the criteria, women and other underrepresented people tend to only apply when they meet 100% of the qualifications. At Loft, we value respectful debate and people who aren’t afraid to challenge assumptions. We strongly encourage you to apply, even if you don’t check all the boxes.