Corporate Development Lead

• As our Corporate Development Lead, you will serve as the strategic growth engine for Aikido. You will lead our M&A, investment, and strategic partnership efforts end to end, offloading founder bandwidth, accelerating our roadmap, and shaping Aikido’s market expansion
• Source and build a pipeline of M&A, partnership, and investment targets aligned to Aikido’s strategy
• Lead first-contact outreach and early-stage conversations with target founders/CEOs
• Qualify opportunities and build the initial business case (fit, rationale, indicative valuation)
• Coordinate diligence and deal workstreams across founders, General Counsel, CFO, and Chief of Staff
• Maintain deal trackers, pipeline reporting, and the M&A program-office rhythm
• Support post-close integration planning alongside deal owners
• Short decision lines. Big ownership. Shape the projects that matter and ship fast
• Grow as fast as we do. Take on more, own more, and carve out your own path

Benefits

• Remote-friendly
• Flexible working hours- Highly structured project manager capable of keeping complex, multi-stakeholder workstreams moving fast
• Deep industry knowledge (AppSec, dev tools, or the cybersecurity space) is a huge plus
• Proven maturity and commercial gravitas to comfortably lead peer-to-peer discussions with external CEOs and founders
• Experience in Corporate Development, M&A, Venture Capital, or Strategic Partnerships
• Strong financial/analytical foundation to qualify deals, evaluate valuations, and assess strategic fit quickly
• Ideally based at/near Ghent HQ to work closely alongside our founders
• Fluent in English with strong communication and a proactive “get stuff done” attitude