Chief Business Officer

💼 CBO/Head of Corp Dev -- AI Research

📍 San Francisco HQ

🌍 Remote US (SF/NYC Preferred)

💰 $500k Base + Bonus + Significant Early-Stage Equity

About the Company

This lab is conducting research in AI safety, model interpretability and general AI, with a particular interest in complex, high-stakes decision domains like finance, enterprise software, and infrastructure. They have large contracts with top labs across the world and are moving towards further funding and potential exit/IPO.

The team blends deep learning researchers, engineers, and operators who have scaled products and transactions in the real world. Backed by top VCs and AI industry investors, this lab operates at the intersection of foundational research and applied impact.

The Role

This is an executive role for someone who started in investment banking or adjacent finance (e.g., PE, growth equity, corporate development) and has since moved into the AI ecosystem as an operator, founder, or investor. You will use that hybrid background to shape how the lab's general AI research connects to real economic problems, products, and companies.

You will work closely with the co-founders and all external stakeholders to help answer crucial questions: what should we build next, where does it matter most, what direction should we take? That includes influencing research priorities, structuring collaborations with portfolio companies, and helping translate new capabilities into tools that decision-makers actually use. Someone with experience handling a Tech IPO is preferred.

What You'll Do

• Bridge research and real markets: Identify high-leverage problems in domains you know well (e.g., transaction workflows, underwriting, forecasting, risk, knowledge management), and work with researchers to frame them as tractable general AI problems.
• Shape research agenda with a dealmaker's lens: Help prioritize projects based on impact, feasibility, and strategic value, borrowing from how you once evaluated deals: size of opportunity, defensibility, and path to value.
• Design and validate use cases: Partner with founders, product teams, and internal researchers to design end-to-end workflows where general AI systems can augment or replace parts of the "deal stack" --- from sourcing and screening to analysis and execution.
• Own strategic partnerships: Identify and structure collaborations with institutions (funds, corporates, data providers) that can both benefit from and stress-test the lab's capabilities.
• Translate complexity: Turn complex research into narratives that resonate with boards, CIOs, and founders --- and bring back their constraints and requirements to the lab in a way researchers can act on.
• Help build the lab: Contribute to recruiting, culture, and operating cadence; mentor team members who are strong technically but newer to markets, transactions, and commercial strategy.

What You Bring

• Investment banking or transaction experience: Background in M&A, capital markets, or principal investing, with direct exposure to full deal lifecycles: sourcing, modeling, diligence, and execution.
• Meaningful transition into AI: Experience in an AI-native role --- as a founder, operator, product leader, investor, or "AI strategy" lead --- where you've shipped or deployed real AI systems, not just written decks about them.
• Fluency in both worlds: Comfort speaking in terms of model architectures, training data, and evaluation metrics with researchers, and in terms of unit economics, risk, and governance with commercial stakeholders.
• Structured thinking and modeling skills: Strong analytical toolkit from your banking/finance days (valuation, scenario analysis, structuring) and the ability to repurpose it to reason about AI products, research bets, and ecosystem strategy.
• Sharp judgment on the AI landscape: Clear view of what's real vs. hype in AI, where general capabilities are likely to unlock new markets or reshape existing ones, and how that intersects with capital flows.
• High agency, low ego: Track record of operating in ambiguity, building relationships that turn into meaningful outcomes, and doing the unglamorous work that makes those outcomes inevitable.

How to Apply

If you are interested please apply above or reach out directly with your resume to: [email protected]. Please note that due to large number of applicants there may be a delay in feedback.