Job Title: Commercial Operations & Strategy Lead

Department: Commercial Strategy

Reports To: Head of Commercial Strategy

Employment Type: Full-Time

Location: Houston, TX – Strongly Preferred

Travel: Regular travel to Houston, Korea, and partner/customer sites

Who We Are

Persona AI is building humanoid robots for the most demanding environments in heavy industry — shipyards, steel mills, fabrication facilities, and offshore platforms — performing welding, grinding, maintenance, inspection, and material-handling work that is dangerous, physically demanding, and increasingly difficult to staff.

We are backed by leading strategic and financial investors and engaged with global industrial leaders across Korea, Japan, the United States, and Singapore. Korea is the center of gravity for our early commercial strategy, anchored by relationships with the world’s leading shipbuilders and steelmakers. Our work spans both the robot platform itself and the systems, partners, and playbooks required to deploy it at scale.

Why Join Persona AI?

• We offer competitive compensation, a performance-based bonus, 99% employer covered medical benefits, early-stage equity, competitive PTO, and a company-wide paid winter break between December 24th and January 2nd.

• You’ll shape technology that’s redefining the possibilities of robotics and human interaction.

• Work alongside passionate teammates who value creativity, and continuous learning.

• Enjoy full access to advanced tools, systems, and the freedom to build scalable PO programs.

About the Role

We are looking for a Commercial Operations & Strategy Lead to be the right hand to our Head of Commercial Strategy and a force multiplier across Persona’s entire go-to-market motion. This is a high-ownership, high-trust role for an operator who thrives in ambiguity, builds structure where none exists, and moves complex, multi-party commercial relationships toward closed contracts.

This role is deliberately designed to grow. It begins as an execution-and-operations partner — driving the details that turn conversations into signed agreements and building the operating backbone of our commercial function. As Persona scales, this role will also support coordination of the broader commercial team. We are looking for someone who is energized by earning that scope through impact rather than receiving it by title on day one.

The immediate priority is concrete: help us convert our anchor Korean relationships — including HD Hyundai and POSCO — into binding commercial contracts, while standing up the pipeline, process, and partner-management infrastructure that makes the next ten engagements repeatable. Native Korean fluency and the cultural fluency to operate inside Korean industrial organizations are core to this mission.

What You Will Be Doing

Commercial Execution & Deal Advancement

• Drive contracts to close by owning the execution layer beneath active commercial negotiations, which includes tracking open items, coordinating legal review, managing document flow, and ensuring both counterparties and internal stakeholders move toward signature within agreed timelines.

• Build the source of truth by establishing clear account maps for key relationships, identifying decision-makers, understanding timelines and budget authority, and clarifying the status of each opportunity, replacing fragmented, single-threaded visibility with a reliable, shared perspective.

• Multi-thread key relationships by broad

Korea & Partner Ecosystem

• Anchor the Korea engagements, serving as a trusted operator across HD Hyundai, POSCO, and other Korean relationships by managing cadence, preparation, follow-through, and conducting substantive business d