Job Title: Corporate Development Director (Origination & Relationship Leadership)
Company: Solen Software Group
Location: Toronto, Canada (hybrid)
Employment Type: Full-time
About Solen Software Group
Solen Software Group is an evergreen holding company that acquires and operates proven vertical-market software businesses with meaningful long-term growth potential. Solen compounds value over decades, not quarters, and partners with founders to build enduring category leaders across HR tech, fleet telematics, asset management, e-health, document management, and other mission-critical software verticals.
About the Role
The Corporate Development Manager (CDM) is a senior origination and people-leadership role responsible for building durable acquisition pipelines across Solen's priority verticals.
You will own market coverage, outbound strategy, founder engagement, and relationship development for a defined set of verticals and high-priority accounts. The CDM will lead and develop a Toronto-based team of 5+ Corporate Development Associates, while also serving as a hands-on individual contributor—personally building deep, long-term relationships with Solen's most strategic founder and advisor accounts.
Success in this role comes from combining high-tempo outreach and disciplined operating rhythms with authentic founder credibility—compounding trust over time and consistently producing high-quality, well-qualified opportunities.
Core Responsibilities
1) Origination Strategy & Market Coverage
- Own origination strategy for assigned verticals and priority account lists, aligned with Solen's acquisition theses.
- Define ICPs, personas, account universes, and coverage models (founder-owned, sponsor-owned, carve-outs).
- Design and run multi-touch outreach programs (email, phone, LinkedIn, events, conferences, in-person) tailored to founder audiences.
- Build long-term nurture programs (content, check-ins, founder events) that compound trust and readiness over time.
- Translate market learning into sharper targeting, messaging, and segmentation.
2) Team Leadership & People Management (Toronto Hub)
- Directly manage, coach, and performance-manage 5+ Corporate Development Associates, with responsibility to scale the team over time.
- Set clear expectations on activity quality, messaging standards, discovery fundamentals, and qualification discipline.
- Run weekly 1:1s, pipeline reviews, call coaching, and skill-building sessions; deliver direct, high-candor feedback.
- Partner with the Head of Corporate Development and People team on hiring profiles, onboarding, and career progression paths.
- Build a culture grounded in accountability, learning, and continuous improvement.
3) Individual Contributor – Priority Relationships
- Personally own and develop relationships with Solen's highest-priority founder and advisor accounts.
- Act as a senior Solen representative in founder conversations, building credibility, trust, and long-term alignment.
- Lead complex discovery conversations focused on founder goals, succession, growth constraints, and partnership fit.
- Maintain momentum and engagement over long relationship arcs, positioning Solen as the preferred partner.
- Develop “why Solen” narratives tailored to priority accounts based on their context, objectives, and constraints.
4) Pipeline Management, Metrics & Operating Rigor
- Own pipeline health and reporting for your team: coverage, outreach, connects, first meetings, qualified opportunities, and progression.
- Enforce CRM rigor and data quality as a non-negotiable operating standard (hygiene, stage definitions, required fields).
- Run structured weekly and monthly reviews focused on conversion, quality, and learning—not just volume.
- Surface insights on objections, market signals, and winning talk tracks; institutionalize learnings through playbooks.
5) Cross-Functional Partnership
- Align with internal stakeholders on vertical priorities, messaging, qualification standards, and handoff criteria.
- Coordinate timely, structured handoffs of qualified opportunities once mutual fit and readiness thresholds are met.
- Provide market feedback loops to refine theses, positioning, and outreach programs.
Ideal Candidate Profile
- 5+ years in corporate development, PE origination, B2B SaaS enterprise sales/new-logo, or sourcing roles.
- Proven experience managing and developing junior-to-mid-level teams in an outbound, metrics-driven environment.
- Strong individual contributor instincts with demonstrated ability to build senior-level founder relationships.
- Systems-oriented operator who values process, scorecards, operating cadence, and continuous improvement.
- High integrity, low ego, strong executive presence; comfortable in ambiguity and energized by building.
- Experience in vertical-market software, PE-backed platforms, or consolidators strongly preferred.
Benefits
- Opportunity to build and lead a scaled origination function within an evergreen software compounder.
- High ownership role with meaningful influence on Solen's long-term growth trajectory.
- Competitive compensation and benefits package.
Solen-isms (How We Operate)
- Ownership Mindset: We own the mission. We don't wait to be told. We lead, fix, and build as if it were ours. When problems arise, we run toward them, not away.
- Benchmark to Best: We seek out excellence. We measure ourselves against the best and adapt quickly, always looking for the edge that moves us forward.
- Openly Self-Critical: Leaders go first: they surface their misses early, ask for direct feedback, and turn “game film” into better decisions and better systems.
- Disagree & Commit: Leaders disagree openly and constructively, regardless of title or tenure, because truth is how we avoid bureaucracy and benchmark to best.
- Figureitoutiveness: Embracing challenges, fostering growth, and taking initiative, leaders thrive on hard work and high failure tolerance.
- Mutual Elevation: Committed to growth, elevating teams, developing future leaders, and removing barriers to mastery and joy.
- Learn-it-alls: Learn-it-alls, not know-it-alls, embracing failure as part of growth and progress.
- Pioneering: Pioneering driven by opportunity, using first principles thinking and unbound by tradition or rules.
- Will to Win: Leaders relentlessly pursue potential, reject mediocrity, and get what they tolerate.
- Dialectical: We learn through conversation. We ask, listen, question, and evolve — valuing disagreement as a tool for alignment and deeper understanding.
- Frugality: Achieving more with less, focusing on quality, long-term value, and company-wide responsibility.
- Candor: We communicate with integrity, transparency, and respect in all conversations.
- Kaizen: Kaizen is continuous improvement as a way of life. Leaders make hundreds of small upgrades that compound, turning lessons into standards and standards into durable systems.
Recruitment Disclaimer
Solen Software Group will never request payment, banking information, or other sensitive personal or financial details during any stage of the recruitment process. All official communication will come from a verified @solensoftwaregroup.com email address. Any outreach outside these standards should be disregarded and reported through our official channels.
We thank all applicants for their interest in joining Solen Software Group. Only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.
