VP - Sports Lighting & Construction

IKIO is seeking a senior leader to build a national sports, stadium, school, municipal, college, and large-venue lighting business. This role combines commercial origination, industry relationships, project credibility, technical fluency, contractor/partner development, and disciplined control of construction exposure. The leader must understand how a sports-lighting project moves from owner need and specification through photometrics, controls, procurement, contractor selection, bid strategy, installation, commissioning, acceptance, and warranty. The job is not simply to sell fixtures; it is to build a repeatable capture-and-delivery ecosystem that can compete nationally while protecting IKIO from uncontrolled prime-contractor, licensing, bonding, cash, schedule, safety, and warranty risk.

Core Accountabilities

• Own the national school, municipal, college, stadium, athletic-complex, and large-venue sports-lighting pipeline, forecast, bid strategy, and commercial performance.

• Build relationships with owners, athletic/facility stakeholders, architects/engineers, sports builders, GCs, electrical contractors, cooperatives, procurement influencers, representatives, and controls/project partners.

• Create a gated bid/no-bid process covering buyer access, project economics, photometric viability, controls, procurement route, schedule, bonding/licensing, installer capacity, warranty, payment, and construction risk.

• Determine the right contracting route for each project: product-only, contractor-prime, ESCO/GC-prime, or IKIO-prime only after formal executive/finance/legal/risk approval.

• Build a qualified partner-contractor ecosystem with license, insurance, bonding, safety, sports-lighting experience, project- management capacity, controls/commissioning capability, and geographic coverage.

• Work with applications/engineering on photometrics, aiming, optics, controls narratives, fixture mounting, retrofit/new-pole approaches, and submittal/commissioning requirements without becoming the technical department.

• Build reference sites and referenceable delivery routes that improve credibility in school, municipal, college, and venue pursuits.

• Develop repeatable delivery models and standard bid packages that clarify scope, exclusions, responsibilities, schedule, acceptance criteria, change control, warranty, and closeout.

• Recruit specialized sellers, estimators, field/project capacity, or partner resources only as validated pipeline and backlog justify the investment.

• Protect product-company economics: profitable growth and risk-adjusted margin matter more than winning every construction bid.

Candidate Profile

• Current relationships with school/municipal/college/venue owners, sports builders, A/E firms, GCs, electrical contractors, cooperatives, controls partners, and/or procurement influencers.

• Track record of originating, bidding, winning, or delivering complex sports/large-area lighting or electrical construction projects.

• Working fluency in photometrics, aiming, poles/mounting, fixture/optical selection, lighting controls, commissioning, and how technical decisions affect field execution and customer acceptance.

• Strong construction-commercial judgment: prime/sub route, scope definition, schedule, labor, licensing, bonding, insurance, safety, warranty, change control, cash exposure, and closeout.

• Ability to build a partner network rather than defaulting to IKIO self-performing or carrying project risk without a validated reason.

• Experience making disciplined no-bid decisions when economics, scope, technical viability, delivery capability, or risk are unacceptable.

• Leadership capability to recruit and coach specialized sellers/estimators/project resources and build a scalable vertical rather than personally handling every pursuit.