General Manager

About Meridian
Meridian Robotics makes humanoid robots deployable. We do not build robots; we provide the evidence, the assessment and the sealed record that let a duty holder, an integrator and an insurer agree that a specific robot can operate safely in a specific place.
The problem. A humanoid can pass every vendor test and still be undeployable: the site has not been assessed, the interfaces with people and machinery are undocumented, the insurer has no basis to underwrite it, and nobody competent has signed anything.
Today that gap is closed by ad-hoc consulting, or not at all.
The product. Meridian turns permission to deploy into a defined, auditable decision:
• Robot Safety Passport for the machine — its declared capabilities, limits and safety functions, held as evidence rather than marketing.
• Deployment Passport for the site — the environment, the tasks, the people and the controls, assessed against our Permission-to-Deploy Framework of 150 controls across 12 engineering domains.
• PTD Certificate sealed by a competent person, with the underlying evidence held in Meridian Command, our platform, so an insurer or regulator can trace every conclusion to its source.
Delivery is consultant-powered: credentialed functional-safety associates carry out assessments on our method and platform, so quality is consistent and the business scales without a large permanent headcount.
Where we are. The platform is in development the brand and website are live, and a growing record index of UK and European facilities backs our targeting. We serve logistics, manufacturing, healthcare, hospitality and facilities, with a UK logistics beachhead in the Golden Triangle.
The company is bootstrapped and preparing for Beta with design partners. The next twelve months are about proof: paying customers, an insurer who relies on our evidence, and the first sealed certificates.
Why now
Three things are converging, and the window for a trusted, independent deployment layer is open now rather than in three years.
• Humanoids are leaving the lab. Vendors are moving from demonstrations to pilot fleets in logistics and manufacturing, and the first large operators are running trials. Each pilot creates a duty holder with a decision to make and no established way to make it.
• The standards are being written. ISO 25785 on humanoid safety and the revised machinery framework will define what “safe to deploy” means; the organisations that operationalise those standards into an assessment method early will set the market’s expectations.
• Insurers need evidence. Carriers cannot price a risk they cannot see. A sealed, traceable record of robot, site and controls is the input they lack, and the party that provides it becomes structurally hard to replace.
No one owns this position yet. The certification bodies are slow, the integrators are conflicted, and the robot vendors cannot mark their own homework. Meridian is built to be the independent record that works everyone else relies on.
The role
You will run Meridian Robotics. The founder sits as chairman; you own the plan, the pipeline, the people and the numbers, and you take the business from a built product to a trading company.
The title is Founding General Manager; deliver the first year and it becomes Managing Director.
In practice, you will:
• Close the first deals yourself. The design partners, the insurer engagement and the first paid deployment audit are yours to win. There is no sales team beneath you until the offer is repeatable.
• Own the commercial engine. Pipeline across integrators, duty holders, robot vendors and insurers; pricing for the RoboReady tiers; the public face of Meridian at industry bodies, standards forums and online.
• Stand up delivery. Recruit and quality-assure the competent-person associates who assess sites and seal certificates, and run the first audits end to end with the Technical Authority until the method is proven.
• Shape the product. Be the voice of the customer into the build: with the CTO advisor, decide what ships for Beta and what waits.
• Run the company. Operating plan, budget, cash, monthly board pack, the next two or three hires when the outcomes justify them, and a fundraise alongside the founder if and when that is the right route.
Your first year
We will agree these outcomes with you before you start, and measure the role on them rather than on activity.
Who we are looking for
An operator with commercial teeth who is credible in a room of safety engineers and equally credible with an underwriter.
You will be deep in one of our three worlds assurance, automation or insurance and quick to learn the other two with the Technical Authority beside you.
You probably come from one of these places
• A commercial leadership role at a certification or assurance body — BSI, TÜV SÜD, Lloyd’s Register, DNV, Pilz, SICK, Intertek where you sold permission to operate to duty holders.
• Business development leadership at a systems integrator or automation house, where you know the logistics buyers and have watched deployments go wrong.
• An early leadership role in a specialty MGA or emerging-risk insurtech, where you learned what carriers will underwrite and how evidence becomes policy wording.
Experience we need
• 8–15 years, with at least 3 running a P&L or building a business line.
• Complex B2B deals closed personally, where the buyer had never bought the category before.
• Possible Working knowledge of machinery or functional safety (ISO 10218, ISO 13849, the Machinery Regulation), or the ability to acquire it fast and credibly.
• Recruited and managed specialists, including contractors and associates.
• Comfortable running a business whose founder is not in it day to day: you set the agenda.
It would help if you have
• Relationships with UK logistics operators, integrators or humanoid vendors.
• Worked with insurers as customer, partner or employer.
• Been early in a venture, or built something new inside a large firm.
• A public voice you write, speak and post, and enjoy it.
The kind of person
You are structured and evidence-minded, because our product is a sealed record and the business must think that way. You are sceptical of hype and fluent in it: you can talk to a humanoid enthusiast and a risk manager in the same afternoon and be trusted by both. And you can explain, in plain words, why a robot that works may still not be deployable.
If that reads as demanding, it is meant to. It is also entirely achievable with what already exists, and everything you need to do it is in place: product, method, brand, target list and technical backing.
Who we are looking for
An operator with commercial teeth who is credible in a room of safety engineers and equally credible with an underwriter. You will be deep in one of our three worlds — assurance, automation or insurance — and quick to learn the other two with the Technical Authority beside you.
You probably come from one of these places
• A commercial leadership role at a certification or assurance body — BSI, TÜV SÜD, Lloyd’s Register, DNV, Pilz, SICK, Intertek — where you sold permission to operate to duty holders.
• Business development leadership at a systems integrator or automation house, where you know the logistics buyers and have watched deployments go wrong.
• An early leadership role in a specialty MGA or emerging-risk insurtech, where you learned what carriers will underwrite and how evidence becomes policy wording.
Experience we need
• 8–15 years, with at least 3 running a P&L or building a business line.
• Complex B2B deals closed personally, where the buyer had never bought the category before.
• Working knowledge of machinery or functional safety (ISO 10218, ISO 13849, the Machinery Regulation), or the ability to acquire it fast and credibly.
• Recruited and managed specialists, including contractors and associates.
• Comfortable running a business whose founder is not in it day to day: you set the agenda.
It would help if you have
• Relationships with UK logistics operators, integrators or humanoid vendors.
• Worked with insurers as customer, partner or employer.
• Been early in a venture, or built something new inside a large firm.
• A public voice — you write, speak and post, and enjoy it.
The kind of person
You take equity seriously and salary lightly. You are structured and evidence-minded, because our product is a sealed record and the business must think that way. You are sceptical of hype and fluent in it: you can talk to a humanoid enthusiast and a risk manager in the same afternoon and be trusted by both. And you can explain, in plain words, why a robot that works may still not be deployable.
Who you will work with
Meridian is deliberately small. You will run it with a founder, a technical authority, a build lead and a bench of associates, and you will choose the next hires.

Work arrangement
Yes