GVP, Corporate Business Development

Company Description

It all started in sunny San Diego, California in 2004 when a visionary engineer, Fred Luddy, saw the potential to transform how we work. Fast forward to today — ServiceNow stands as a global market leader, bringing innovative AI-enhanced technology to over 8,100 customers, including 85% of the Fortune 500®. Our intelligent cloud-based platform seamlessly connects people, systems, and processes to empower organizations to find smarter, faster, and better ways to work. But this is just the beginning of our journey. Join us as we pursue our purpose to make the world work better for everyone.

The GVP, Head of Corporate Business Development, is accountable for the company’s end-to-end inorganic growth agenda, including M&A and strategic investments/ventures. This leader translates corporate strategy and product priorities into a disciplined portfolio of build/buy decisions and executes transactions that strengthen competitive position, accelerate platform capability, and expand ecosystem reach. Operating at board and executive level, the role combines hands-on deal leadership with governance rigor, ensuring post-close value realization against defined investment theses.

The role chairs the Board-level M&A Working Group, providing regular portfolio, pipeline, and transaction updates; ensuring decision readiness; and aligning management and the Board on priorities, risks, and value-capture expectations

Job Description

Key Responsibilities

Inorganic Growth Strategy & Portfolio Governance

• Own a multi-year inorganic growth roadmap aligned to corporate strategy and product vision, including clear prioritization across capability gaps and adjacencies.
• Lead the Build vs. Buy decision framework and decision cadence; drive executive alignment on portfolio trade-offs, sequencing, and resource allocation.
• Maintain a portfolio-level view across all M&A and strategic investment activity, balancing near-term impact with longer-horizon platform bets.
• Prepare and present investment theses, strategic rationale, and recommendations to executive leadership and the Board with clarity, rigor, and strong governance discipline.

Mergers & Acquisitions (End-to-End)

• Lead the full M&A lifecycle: origination, strategic screening, valuation and modeling, diligence orchestration, negotiation, signing/closing, and key post-close decisions.
• Build and sustain an active pipeline through proactive market mapping, ecosystem outreach, and trusted banker/advisor relationships.
• Partner closely with Finance, Legal, Tax, Global People, Product & Engineering, and Security to structure and execute transactions with disciplined risk management and commercial outcomes.
• Drive integration planning (in partnership with integration leaders) to ensure value capture, accountability, and measurable outcomes against the acquisition thesis.
• Establish and continuously improve M&A standards, playbooks, stage gates, and approval frameworks appropriate to scale and complexity.

Corporate Venture & Strategic Investments

• Define the strategic investment thesis for venture/minority investments to extend platform capabilities, strengthen ecosystem leverage, and create future acquisition options.
• Source, evaluate, negotiate, and execute minority investments and co-investments aligned to technology and market roadmaps.
• Manage portfolio governance: board/observer roles, follow-on decisions, portfolio company engagement, and strategic value realization.
• Build durable relationships across the venture capital and startup ecosystem to ensure early visibility into disruptive technologies and emerging category leaders.

Business Model Innovation, Executive Advisory & Governance

• Serve as a primary advisor to the CEO, CFO, CSO, and Board on corporate development strategy, pipeline, and transaction decisioning.
• Champion business model and ecosystem innovation (e.g., platform extension, marketplace models, new monetization constructs) in partnership with Product and Finance, supported by disciplined business cases and pilots.
• Ensure strong governance across all inorganic activities: confidentiality, conflicts protocols, investment committee materials, and decision documentation.

People Leadership & Operating Model

• Build, lead, and develop a high-performing Corporate Business Development organization spanning M&A, strategic investments, and deal operations.
• Define the coverage model, roles, and capabilities (e.g., sourcing, diligence, modeling, negotiation, integration value tracking) and scale processes as the company grows.
• Set a high bar for talent, integrity, and exe