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Commercial Excellence Lead
Wayve
Sunnyvale, CA, USA
Posted on Aug 21, 2025
At Wayve we're committed to creating a diverse, fair and respectful culture that is inclusive of everyone based on their unique skills and perspectives, and regardless of sex, race, religion or belief, ethnic or national origin, disability, age, citizenship, marital, domestic or civil partnership status, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, pregnancy or related condition (including breastfeeding) or any other basis as protected by applicable law.
About us
Founded in 2017, Wayve is the leading developer of Embodied AI technology. Our advanced AI software and foundation models enable vehicles to perceive, understand, and navigate any complex environment, enhancing the usability and safety of automated driving systems.
Our vision is to create autonomy that propels the world forward. Our intelligent, mapless, and hardware-agnostic AI products are designed for automakers, accelerating the transition from assisted to automated driving.
In our fast-paced environment big problems ignite us—we embrace uncertainty, leaning into complex challenges to unlock groundbreaking solutions. We aim high and stay humble in our pursuit of excellence, constantly learning and evolving as we pave the way for a smarter, safer future.
At Wayve, your contributions matter. We value diversity, embrace new perspectives, and foster an inclusive work environment; we back each other to deliver impact.
Make Wayve the experience that defines your career!
The Role
Wayve is seeking a high-impact strategic operator to lead critical initiatives at the intersection of commercial execution, fleet operations, and corporate development. This role is designed for a commercially-minded leader who excels at uncovering and closing gaps in the commercial ecosystem, organizational alignment, and strategic decision-making. Acting as a cross-functional integrator, you’ll drive high-leverage initiatives that accelerate go-to-market readiness, improve internal-commercial coordination, and enable scalable growth through structured execution. Whether facilitating key external partnerships, developing corporate strategy frameworks, or supporting diagnosing where tooling or process limits our on-road impact, your work will shape how Wayve enters and expands in global markets. The ideal candidate is analytically sharp, highly adaptable, and experienced in navigating both early-stage ambiguity and enterprise-level complexity. You thrive in environments where commercial vision must be matched with rigorous operational and business follow-through.
Key Responsibilities:
Commercial Partnerships & Corporate Development (40%)
- Evaluate and negotiate corporate development opportunities—including first-of-kind partnerships, ecosystem strategy, geographic expansion plans, and external collaborations.
- Support and develop strategic narratives for commercial leadership and external stakeholders
- Develop strategic planning artifacts that drive clarity on commercial goals, partner strategy, and execution roadmaps.
- Recommend and drive improvements to existing commercial partnerships through renegotiation, operational alignment, or joint roadmap planning.
- Where necessary, source and evaluate new partners to fill capability gaps—leading early engagement, technical fit assessments, and commercial alignment efforts.
- Serve as a strategic connector between internal teams and external providers to ensure Wayve’s partner ecosystem evolves in line with business priorities.
Commercial and Operations Excellence and Solutions Development (60%)
- Partner with and support the Fleet Operations Enablement and Fleet Systems and Insights teams to develop and translate fleet metrics and tooling into on-road execution.
- Operations<>Commercial<>Eng "problem" structuring: clearly surfacing the commercial impact of tech requests for the Operations team. (example: Global Mapping Providers)
- Assess current and potential commercial partners and solution providers to identify unmet needs, underutilized capabilities, and strategic gaps that hinder commercial delivery or scalability.
- Develop structured gap analyses that map Wayve’s current and forecasted requirements against partner capabilities, highlighting friction points, opportunity areas, and risks.
- Own delivery and execution of high-priority, time-sensitive initiatives, acting as a cross-functional program lead across technical, partnerships, and commercial domains.
- Design and manage strategic initiatives that cut across product development, commercial rollout, and operations readiness—ensuring organizational alignment and timely delivery.
- Step into gaps during moments of urgency to drive decision-making, resolve ambiguity, and ensure program continuity.
About You
To thrive as the Commercial Excellence Lead at Wayve, you bring a unique mix of strategic insight, commercial acumen, and cross-functional leadership. You are a systems thinker who can operate seamlessly across commercial, technical, and operational domains, with a bias for action and a structured approach to complex problem-solving.
Essential Qualifications & Experience
- Demonstrated success leading high-impact, cross-functional initiatives—ideally at the intersection of corporate strategy, operations, and technology.
- Strong commercial judgment with experience in partnership development, business planning, or corporate development.
- Proven ability to drive execution and alignment across Engineering, Product, and Operations teams in fast-paced or R&D-heavy environments.
- Expertise in building and delivering structured frameworks to address ambiguous challenges, particularly in scaling operational or commercial processes.
- Outstanding communication skills with the ability to influence senior stakeholders and external partners.
- Comfortable operating with urgency and precision in globally distributed teams.
Preferred Qualifications
- MBA or equivalent advanced degree in business, strategy, or related discipline.
- Undergraduate degree in Engineering or a technical field is a strong plus.
- Background in sectors such as autonomous systems, automotive, mobility, aerospace, or enterprise technology is highly desirable.
- Familiarity with operational tooling, release readiness, or validation processes in complex system environments.
- Experience with data-driven tools such as Jira, Confluence, or internal metrics platforms.
We understand that everyone has a unique set of skills and experiences and that not everyone will meet all of the requirements listed above. If you’re passionate about self-driving cars and think you have what it takes to make a positive impact on the world, we encourage you to apply.
For more information visit Careers at Wayve.
To learn more about what drives us, visit Values at Wayve
DISCLAIMER: We will not ask about marriage or pregnancy, care responsibilities or disabilities in any of our job adverts or interviews. However, we do look to capture information about care responsibilities, and disabilities among other diversity information as part of an optional DEI Monitoring form to help us identify areas of improvement in our hiring process and ensure that the process is inclusive and non-discriminatory.