Commercial Director, Business Development

Are you looking for a role that will challenge you? Can you see yourself translating complex customer needs into viable, real world technical solutions? Does the idea of shaping commercial strategies across decommissioning, waste management, advanced reactors, and nuclear technologies excite you? If you answered yes, this may be the job for you - our Chalk River location is looking for a Commercial Director, Business Development to support CNL’s priority commercial sectors and drive meaningful outcomes. Apply today!

What will you be doing!

Client & Stakeholder Engagement

Proactively manage complex, multi-level relationships with assigned customers, partners, and prospects across Decommissioning & Waste Management (DWM), Advanced Reactors, CANDU, and Fleet Support sectors, ensuring alignment of commercial and technical priorities.

Lead early-stage engagement discussions to interpret customer business drivers, operational challenges, regulatory constraints, and technical needs, ensuring appropriate positioning of CNL capabilities.

Mapping and continuously updating stakeholder networks within client organizations, including technical, operational, procurement, regulatory, and executive functions, to ensure full visibility across decision influencers.

Supporting government-facing business development initiatives by providing commercial context, participating in joint briefings, and ensuring alignment between CNL’s commercial and technical capabilities and federal program needs.

Championing customer issues internally, facilitating timely resolution by engaging appropriate Subject Matter Experts (SME), project delivery teams, and directorate leadership.

Technical Translation, Solution Architecture & Opportunity Shaping

Translating high-level customer requests, problem statements, or exploratory inquiries into structured commercial and technical requirements for Science & Technology (S&T) directorates, including constraints, assumptions, dependencies, and success criteria.

Developing, refining, and validating commercial and technical solution concepts, ensuring alignment with CNL capabilities, resource availability, regulatory requirements, and commercial objectives.

Preparing and presenting commercial and technical solution outlines to customers, incorporating feedback and adjusting proposed approaches in collaboration with SMEs.

Providing commercial guidance during capture phases, including solution qualification, risk identification, mitigation strategy development, costing boundaries, and alignment of scope with pricing strategy.

Supporting development of commercial and technical inputs for Rough Order of Magnitudes (ROMs), Basis of Estimates (BOEs), assumptions/exclusions, compliance matrices, and risk registers.

Coordinating and chairing internal commercial and technical scoping workshops for complex opportunities, ensuring clear, actionable outputs for SMEs.

Account Planning, Market Strategy & Opportunity Development

Leading contributions to sector-specific annual account plans, ensuring accurate reflection of capability roadmaps, investment priorities, and market positioning.

Participating in opportunity scanning and qualification activities, including commercial and technical evaluation of customer needs, competitive landscape assessments, and determination of CNL fit.

Supporting development of sector strategies by providing cross-market insights, identifying gaps in CNL capability portfolios, and recommending investment or partnership areas.

Identifying new service or product opportunities by monitoring market trends, regulatory developments, and customer program evolutions across priority sectors.

Maintaining accurate commercial content in CRM and pipeline systems, ensuring opportunity details reflect validated technical requirements and resource implications.

Cross-Market Coordination, Integration & Internal Alignment

Collaborating with sector Commercial Directors to ensure consistency in customer messaging, commercial and technical strategy, solution positioning, and delivery expectations.

Facilitating alignment between BD, Commercial Operations, S&T, Project Delivery, and supporting directorates during pre-award activities.

Leading or participating in virtual account teams for multidisciplinary opportunities, ensuring appropriate SME participation and managing technical integration across directorates.

Drawing on Health and Government Science expertise when opportunities require specialized capabilities or when sector-crossing integration is beneficial.

Supporting internal governance through participation in capture reviews, proposal reviews, and major opportunity gate meetings.

Proposal Development, Capture Support & Technical Assurance

Leading the development of commercial sections of proposals, ensuring accuracy, clarity, and compliance with customer requirements.

Providing commercial recommendations for bid/no-bid decisions, including feasibility, resource needs, technical risk, and alignment with CNL capabilities.

Ensuring consistency across proposal narratives, pricing models, schedules, and risk considerations.

Supporting negotiation preparation by developing commercial talking points, clarifying solution boundaries, and assisting commercial leads in responding to client inquiries.

Participating in customer orals, technical and commercial clarifications, and negotiation sessions as required.

Ensuring knowledge transfer and scope handover to delivery teams post-award.

Other duties as assigned by your manager.

What we are looking for:

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Science, Business Administration or a related field preferred.

An advanced degree (M.Eng., M.Sc., MBA) is considered an asset.

Experience

Minimum 10+ years of relevant experience in the nuclear, clean energy, engineering, or related technical sectors.

Experience working in business development, technology commercialization, portfolio management, technical solutioning, client engagement, program development, or technical oversight roles.

Experience working with multi-disciplinary technical and commercial teams.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

Strong ability to translate customer needs into actionable technical requirements for internal SMEs.

Excellent communication and relationship-building skills with clients, partners, and internal stakeholders.

Ability to manage competing priorities and support multiple sectors simultaneously.

Strong analytical, strategic thinking, and problem-solving abilities.

Ability to influence without direct authority across commercial and technical teams.

Familiarity with nuclear sector operations, R&D environments, engineering service delivery, and federal science-driven programs.

Understanding of technical challenges and opportunities within DWM, Advanced Reactors, CANDU technology, and Fleet Support sectors.

Awareness of government procurement processes and federal science program landscapes.

Security Clearance Eligibility Required

Reliability Status with Site Access Security Clearance (SASC), which has a minimum requirement of 3-5 years of verifiable history in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and/or the United Kingdom. CNL implements security screening in accordance with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat's “Standard on Security Screening” and the “Policy on Government Security.”

Working Conditions:

Working schedule: Five (5) days per week, seven and a half (7.5) hours per day for a thirty-seven and a half (37.5) hour work week.

Why CNL?

Does the idea of working with a dynamic team across Canada to advance nuclear science and technology for a clean and secure world excite you? At CNL, we’re reinventing ourselves to be industry leaders—pioneering solutions to the problems that matter most.

From building the next generation of clean nuclear and hydrogen energy technologies, to developing targeted cancer treatments, to continuing our global leadership in environmental remediation—we are driven by impact, innovation, and purpose.

What We Offer: A Total Rewards Package

We believe in taking care of our people. Here’s what you can expect as part of our team:

Paid time off: vacation, sick, personal, and floater days

Benefits effective Day One – no waiting period

Tuition support to help you keep learning and growing

A defined-benefit pension plan or a defined-contribution pension plan, depending on your employee group, to support your long term financial security

Do Our Priorities Resonate with You?

Delivering clean energy for today and tomorrow

Restoring and protecting the environment

Contributing to the health of Canadians

If so, you’ll feel right at home at CNL!

Location: Hybrid

Located in the heart of the Ottawa Valley, our Chalk River site offers a beautiful natural setting with forests, lakes, and wildlife right at your doorstep. Surrounding communities such as Deep River, Petawawa, and Pembroke provide access to excellent recreation and a great quality of life.

Please note: This is a hybrid position, with a combination of remote work and onsite presence at our Chalk River Laboratory, Ontario.

Our Commitment to Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

At CNL, we are committed to fostering an environment that promotes equity, diversity, and inclusion. We celebrate and welcome employees, stakeholders, and partners of all backgrounds and identities. Click here to read all about it!

We are proud to uphold a workplace culture grounded in our Core Values:

Respect

Teamwork

Accountability

Safety

Integrity

Excellence

These values drive our employment practices and ensure meaningful career development opportunities and accommodations for all employees.

CNL is an equal opportunity employer. If you require accommodation during any phase of the hiring process, please let us know via . All requests will be handled with confidentiality.

CNL operates on sites located on the traditional lands, waterways and ceded and unceded territories of Indigenous peoples. CNL recognizes and affirms all First Nations, Métis communities and Inuit in this land we now know as Canada. We acknowledge, respect and seek to better understand Indigenous history, rights and title on the lands where we work and develop projects. We honour and respect the importance of the relationship between Indigenous peoples and their lands, waters and territories.

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