“The best generalists aren’t the ones who know everything — they’re the ones who can walk into a room with no map and leave with a plan.”
A founding seat, not a support seat
Most “business generalist” roles at startups are a polite way of saying you’ll be cleaning up someone else’s spreadsheets. This isn’t that.
We’re hiring a Founding Business Lead for a seed-stage enterprise AI company in San Francisco, backed by one of the best-known funds in enterprise software plus the co-founder of a major developer platform. The team is eight people. They’ve raised $5M. And they’re already generating hard, CFO-visible savings for Fortune 500 customers across industrials, manufacturing and construction.
The product sits in enterprise spend. It continuously checks what was contractually agreed against what is actually being paid, surfaces the gap, and turns it into recovered money. In early deployments that has meant seven-figure leakage found inside two months — which is why one pilot has already been greenlit for an organisation-wide rollout, and why the mid-funnel pipeline includes household-name retail, food and entertainment brands expected to close in Q1.
You’d be the CEO’s right hand across GTM, deployment and strategy. The founders are explicit that this role becomes Chief of Staff in roughly six to eight months.
What you’ll actually do
Partner with the CEO on go-to-market. Prep executive calls, shape the enterprise narrative, and help run seven-figure, multi-stakeholder deals from first conversation through to signature.
Own deployments alongside customers. Gather requirements, translate them into product specs, coordinate with the engineering team, and make sure customers see value fast — not in quarter three.
Take the special projects nobody else can. Complex sales execution, research and analytics deep dives, onboarding design — whatever genuinely moves the number.
Drive internal execution. Turn ambiguity into project plans, unblock people, and own cross-functional initiatives end to end.
Sit close to the product. Work with engineers to scope features and feed what you learn in the field back into the platform.
You will not need domain expertise in procurement or supply chain. You will need to pick it up quickly.
The scorecard
This is the scorecard the hiring team is actually assessing against. I’ve included it in full so you can judge your own fit before you spend time on an application.
Dealbreaker
Work experience — MBB consulting, or top-tier startup BizOps / Chief of Staff experience.
Baseline
- Seniority — 2–4 years in MBB consulting, investment banking, or business operations at a high-growth B2B startup.
- Education — Top 20 university.
- Hard skills — Able to conceptualise engineering systems at a high level. You don’t need to build them; you need to hold the architecture in your head well enough to talk to engineers and to customers.
- Soft skills — Executive presence, serious work ethic, and a grounded personality. The founders care about this one more than most.
- Location & work rights — Based in San Francisco and willing to be in the office five days a week. Existing US work authorisation required; the company can transfer an existing visa (OPT, H-1B) but cannot sponsor a new H-1B.
Nice to have
- Experience in the enterprise applied AI space.
- A coding bootcamp, technical side projects, or a general technical lean.
What they’re screening out
- Backgrounds built mainly on private equity diligence, financial modelling or deal structuring.
- Purely sales-focused profiles without broader business acumen.
- Big Four consulting backgrounds.
A useful calibration point: the profile the team keeps pointing to is a former Bain Senior Associate Consultant with around two years there, now doing Strategy & Ops at a large tech company, with a strong academic record.
Why this one is worth a conversation
- The traction is real and recent. Pilots have already uncovered $500K–$1M in leakage within two months, and that has converted into an enterprise-wide expansion.
- The founders have done it before. Both come from a $2.2B procurement company — one as Chief of Staff to the CEO, the other as an early engineer who led AI products.
- The raise was oversubscribed fast. The $5M seed closed in a week, from investors who don’t need convincing about enterprise software.
- The path is written down. Founding Business Lead today, Chief of Staff in six to eight months. That’s the stated intent, not something you’d have to lobby for.
Compensation and process
- Base: $180,000 – $220,000
- Equity: 0.75% – 1%
- Location: San Francisco, five days on-site
- Work rights: Existing US visa or citizenship; transfers considered, no new sponsorship
The process is four steps and moves quickly: a 30-minute screen with the CEO, a soft technical conversation with the technical co-founder, and a final case-study presentation designed to test execution and how you present under pressure. The team wants to hire within a month and will move faster for someone outstanding.
How to apply
Send your resume to keiran@bigwavedigital.com.au with a line or two on what draws you to a founding business role in enterprise applied AI, your salary expectation, and confirmation that you’re in San Francisco (or ready to be) and can work on-site five days a week.
If you’re close but not an exact match on the scorecard, send it anyway and tell me where you think the gap is. I’d rather have that conversation than guess.
