Business & Corporate Development Manager - Robotics

Google DeepMind is at the forefront of artificial intelligence research and development. Our diverse team pushes AI boundaries for positive impact, collaborating ethically and safely on real-world challenges.

The Business and Corporate Development (B&CD) team is vital to achieving DeepMind's mission. We cultivate strategic partnerships to further research priorities and maximise impact.  This highly collaborative role leverages a deep understanding of Google DeepMind's strategies to identify partners and execute groundbreaking projects.

This role will have a particular focus on supporting Robotics related business development opportunities, working closely with GDM Robotics team (Leads, Product Manager, Researchers, Project Managers and others). Our work often involves developing and shaping research collaborations and partnering opportunities to support GDM Robotics efforts (and beyond).

Artificial Intelligence could be one of humanity’s most useful inventions. At Google DeepMind, we’re a team of scientists, engineers, machine learning experts and more, working together to advance the state of the art in artificial intelligence. We use our technologies for widespread public benefit and scientific discovery, and collaborate with others on critical challenges, ensuring safety and ethics are the highest priority.

Our Robotics team’s mission  is to build “Embodied AI” - the intelligence powering general purpose robots that are capable of turning natural language instructions into useful physical actions - to improve the lives of billions of people in the physical world.

The Business and Corporate Development team enables Google DeepMind's mission by identifying, supporting, shaping, negotiating and managing strategic opportunities to partner externally. We work in direct collaboration with our world-leading AI researchers and GDM’s leadership to develop an understanding of GDM’s research and business strategy and connecting these to business development needs. Together with GDM’s cross functional teams and Partnerships teams across Google we enable and accelerate GDM’s mission by identifying, shaping, negotiating and managing strategic opportunities to partner externally. 

Google DeepMind’s research crucially depends on a wide range of internally-generated and externally-sourced data, as well as access to external domain experts, hardware and tools/facilities via partnerships and collaborations, to ensure our research can benefit from and it is guided by the scientific community. 

This role will partner with Robotics leads, Product managers and GDM cross-functional teams to explore options to maximise value, minimise risks and translate robotics key terms into optimal partnerships.

Key responsibilities:

• Develop a deep understanding of Google DeepMind’s research, product and business strategy and connect them to B&CD needs
• Serving as lynchpin between internal teams and external partners. Partnering with team leads and internal stakeholders to proactively identify new opportunities, explore options to accelerate impact, assess risks and ethics and initiate or further engagement.
• Leading on inward-looking assessment to identify potential gaps/assets that could be filled/exploited by opportunities external to GDM and working with other GDM and xGoogle teams to identify external opportunities, key partners and emerging trends.
• Negotiate agreements with external partners to carry out joint research, licence technology and datasets, acquire assets etc.
• Lead cross-functional teams on key transverse strategic initiatives, managing coordination with teams such as Research, Product, Legal, Operations, Finance, Strategy and Operations, Policy & Program Management.
• Tracking and analysing GDMs partnerships, establishing internal connections and maximising impact - PoC for key external partners/GDM areas
• Working with colleagues across Google to pursue partnership opportunities

In order to set you up for success as a B&CD Manager at Google DeepMind we look for the following skills and experience:

• Professional experience in business development, strategic negotiations and partnership management in a high growth deep science  environment.
• Proven track-record of negotiating research partnerships in a Research setting (Academic or Corporate) and commercialising datasets and/or related technologies 
• Excellent relationship-building, communication, and interpersonal skills, confident in engaging researchers and engineers.
• Proven negotiation skills, problem-solving and analytical skills, with excellent business judgement, thought leadership and innovation.
• Strong analytical and reasoning skills to structure deals and handle technical, contractual and financial issues.
• Experience working with machine learning and/or robotics
• The ability to effectively influence and communicate cross-functionally with all levels of management including senior executives.
• PhD in a relevant subject  or equivalent work experience
• Excited by our mission and AI / Machine Learning

In addition, the following would be an advantage: 

• Experience using a CRM (Salesforce)

The US base salary range for this full-time position is between $162,000 - $257,000 + bonus + equity + benefits. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your targeted location during the hiring process.

At Google DeepMind, we value diversity of experience, knowledge, backgrounds and perspectives and harness these qualities to create extraordinary impact. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of sex, race, religion or belief, ethnic or national origin, disability, age, citizenship, marital, domestic or civil partnership status, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, or related condition (including breastfeeding) or any other basis as protected by applicable law. If you have a disability or additional need that requires accommodation, please do not hesitate to let us know.