Principal Officer, Global Lead, Business Development & Licensing for Global Access at Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation

What You'll Do

Opportunity Sourcing & Market Scanning (Origination)
Finding, shaping, and prioritizing opportunities—especially external innovation

• Proactively identify, source, and evaluate externally developed innovations and business models—including those outside traditional agricultural R&D pathways—and assess their potential for adaptation and scaling in LMIC contexts.
• Develop and maintain a forward-looking pipeline of transformative opportunities originating outside the Foundation, complementing internally funded R&D portfolios.
• Facilitate high-quality opportunity assessments and diligence reviews.
• Evaluate commercial and scaling prospects in collaboration with program teams, including integrated supply-and-demand pathways for adoption.
• Act as a thought partner to Agriculture Development teams by introducing externally sourced, market-ready or near-market innovations that can accelerate impact within shorter time horizons.

Deal Structuring, Negotiation & Partnership Design (Core BD&L for Global Access Work)
Designing and negotiating agreements, incentives, and market-shaping mechanisms

• Structure and co-lead complex agreement transactions with PSTs that advance agriculture development innovations, including seeds, crop protection, livestock systems, and other agricultural technologies.
• Negotiate sophisticated agreements with multinational and regional partners, including agribusinesses, input providers, livestock system actors, research organizations, and LMIC-based partners.
• Structure and negotiate demand-side mechanisms, including offtake agreements, premium pricing arrangements, and processor-backed models that generate market pull for improved technologies.
• Design and negotiate results-based and market-shaping incentive structures (e.g., adoption-linked payments, farmer reach incentives, and risk-sharing mechanisms) that enable private-sector investment in challenging LMIC markets.
• Structure partnerships that incentivize private-sector actors to adapt and localize existing innovations for LMIC markets, rather than relying solely on new technology development pathways.
• Develop clear, assumption-based partnership recommendations for program and executive leadership.
• Support private-sector engagement strategies aligned with program goals, including global access, licensing, affordability, sustainability, and long-term adoption.

Transaction Execution, Delivery & Internal Leadership (Execution & Influence)
Driving deals to completion, managing stakeholders, and ensuring impact

• Lead partnerships focused on enabling distribution and adoption of agricultural technologies (e.g., seeds, inputs, and livestock-related solutions) through private-sector channels in Africa.
• Serve as a transaction lead and point of coordination across portfolios, conducting partner diligence, supporting negotiations, and building internal alignment.
• Establish strong, collaborative relationships with internal partners (e.g., Legal, Finance, Foundation Strategy Office, Product Launch/Scale teams, and Alliance Management).
• Ensure all deal structures and partnership mechanisms are aligned with internal policies and legal/regulatory constraints.
• Manage multiple concurrent transactions across geographies and partners.
• Drive clear, timely decision-making across all stages of agreement development and execution.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of BD&L for Global Access capabilities and best practices.

Your Experience

• 12+ years of business development, licensing, or commercial partnership experience, with demonstrated success in complex deal-making environments; agriculture or livestock sector experience preferred but not required.
• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred.
• Ability to translate complex partnerships into measurable impact for smallholder farmers, including productivity, income, and food and nutrition sovereignty outcomes. This includes a strong orientation toward aligning commercial incentives with development outcomes in LMIC markets.
• Demonstrated experience structuring or negotiating multi-party agreements and incentive structures that drive measurable adoption in emerging markets.
• Experience across multiple functional areas (e.g., business development, commercialization, market access, finance, legal, or IP).
• Experience supporting commercialization and distribution of agricultural technologies (e.g., seeds, inputs, livestock-related products) in LMIC markets, particularly Africa, strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated track record of leading and negotiating successful transactions.
• Experience negotiating with multinational corporations and LMIC-based partners.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional diligence and agreement teams.
• Prior experience supporting agriculture development, food and nutrition sovereignty, or sustainability initiatives is highly desirable.

Skills and Qualifications

• Strong negotiation skills, including managing complex deal structures and stakeholder interests.
• Solid understanding of legal and intellectual property considerations related to licensing and partnerships.
• Experience designing or evaluating results-based financing, incentive mechanisms, or risk-sharing structures.
• Excellent interpersonal and collaboration skills in highly matrixed environments.
• Ability to quickly understand agricultural and technology innovations.
• Strong understanding of agricultural value chains across both crops and livestock systems, including demand generation and private-sector adoption dynamics in Africa.
• Ability to align incentives across diverse stakeholders (e.g., seed and livestock companies, processors, distributors, financial institutions, NGOs, and governments) within complex partnership structures.
• Strong curiosity and market awareness, with the ability to identify emerging, non-traditional innovations with potential for transformative impact.
• Strong analytical capabilities; financial and business modeling experience preferred.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Sound judgment and ability to balance tradeoffs.
• Inclusive, collaborative team player.
• Passion for the Foundation’s mission.
• Willingness to travel up to 40% domestically and internationally, as required.