Business Development Associate

About Odyssey:

K-12 education is one of the most consequential determinants of a child’s future — and many families have had limited ability to shape how and where their child learns. Education Savings Account (ESA) programs along with the Education Freedom Tax Credit are changing that. One of the fastest-growing public education initiatives in the U.S., they give states the ability to put education funding directly in the hands of families, who can then choose the learning experiences that best fit their child — from schools and tutors to therapy, curriculum, and technology.

But once these policies are signed into law, states face an enormous operational challenge. They must stand up entirely new programs, manage the secure and compliant flow of public funds, approve and monitor thousands of vendors, support families at scale, and prevent fraud — all while delivering a high-quality user experience.

That’s where Odyssey comes in.

We partner with state agencies to design, launch, and operate ESA and school choice programs on their behalf. We provide the technology, program operations, vendor ecosystem, and family experience that make these programs actually work in the real world. Today, we operate across 10 states, and our platform powers programs serving 250,000+ students and over $2B in annual education funding — and we’re just getting started.

Most recently, we launched the Texas Education Savings Account (EFA) program — the biggest day-one ESA launch in the country — which has already received nearly 200,000 applications. It’s the kind of moment that captures exactly what we’re building toward: programs that work at scale, from day one, when it matters most.

We’re backed by respected investors, including a16z and Tusk Venture Partners, and we’re building the team that will take us to the next stage.

Odyssey sits at the intersection of GovTech, EdTech, and FinTech. We are a public-sector operator, a technology company, and a program delivery partner all at once. The work we do is civic infrastructure — it determines whether families can access life-changing educational opportunities.

Why This Work Is Different

We’re in the weeds with state partners, internally with our product teams, and turning ambiguous policy into real systems that families depend on. This means building a platform that meets each state’s configuration needs while being flexible enough to support all customers. We are not building be-spoke software!

If you want a highly structured environment, this will feel uncomfortable. If you want ownership, speed, and problems that actually matter, you’ll feel right at home.

The Role

Odyssey is looking for an exceptional individual to help drive the company's next phase of growth, reporting directly to our Chief Commercial Officer.

This role is ideal for someone with a background in technology, startups, management consulting or another rigorous, fast-paced environment who wants to move from advising organizations to helping build one.

You'll work directly with Odyssey's commercial leadership across the full go-to-market lifecycle—from researching new markets and building pipelines to developing presentations, managing our CRM, supporting proposals and procurements, and helping advance major opportunities.

This is a high-ownership role. The work will range from highly strategic to highly tactical. We're looking for someone who is just as willing to roll up their sleeves and execute as they are to think strategically.

This is also not a traditional sales development role. You won't spend your day working from a call script. Instead, you'll have broad exposure to how Odyssey identifies markets, develops relationships, competes for business, and ultimately wins and launches major government programs.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and manage the pipeline. Help identify prospective customers, partners, programs, and opportunities. Conduct research, build target lists, identify relevant stakeholders, and support outreach that creates new opportunities for Odyssey.

• Own CRM hygiene and GTM operations. Help maintain Odyssey's CRM as the source of truth for the commercial organization. Ensure opportunities, contacts, meeting notes, next steps, deadlines, and pipeline stages are consistently captured and current. Develop regular pipeline reporting and help leadership understand where opportunities stand and what needs to happen next.

• Create great presentations and materials. Build and refine pitch decks, proposals, one-pagers, briefing materials, market analyses, and other collateral. You'll frequently start with incomplete information or rough ideas and be expected to turn them into polished, executive-ready materials.

• Advance business development opportunities. Work alongside commercial leadership to move opportunities forward. Develop account plans, research stakeholders, prepare meeting materials, capture follow-ups, coordinate next steps, and help maintain momentum across long and complex sales cycles.

• Support proposals and procurements. Play a central role in responses to RFIs, RFPs, and other government procurements. Help organize requirements, draft and edit responses, gather information from across the company, manage deadlines, and produce polished submissions.

• Support Odyssey's leadership team. Prepare executives for important external meetings, develop briefing documents, conduct background research, coordinate follow-ups, and jump into high-priority projects as they arise.

• Help run the GTM machine. Build trackers, organize files, schedule meetings, maintain contact lists, take notes, follow up on action items, and handle the day-to-day work required to keep a fast-moving commercial organization organized.

• Do whatever helps us win. We're a growing company, and the work won't always fit neatly into a job description. We value people who see something that needs to get done and take care of it.

About You

• You have approximately 2–5 years of professional experience, ideally in management consulting, strategy, business operations, technology, or another rigorous and fast-paced environment.

• You have excellent structured problem-solving skills and can quickly get smart on an unfamiliar market or business problem.

• You are an exceptional writer and communicator who can synthesize complex information into clear, persuasive materials.

• You are excellent at building presentations and care about both the substance and polish of the final product.

• You are highly organized. Details, deadlines, follow-ups, and administrative tasks don't fall through the cracks when you own them.

• Experience building market-sizing analyses, business cases, financial models, or executive presentations.

• You are comfortable with data and can use spreadsheets to analyze markets, organize information, and support decision-making.

• You have strong commercial instincts and are interested in understanding how companies identify customers, build relationships, compete, and win.

• You have a strong sense of ownership. If you notice something hasn't been done, your instinct is to figure out how to get it done rather than wait for someone else.

• You are comfortable with ambiguity and can operate without a perfectly defined process or playbook.

• You can manage multiple priorities simultaneously and exercise judgment about what matters most.

• You are a thoughtful user of AI and modern productivity tools and are constantly looking for ways to work more effectively.

• You are excited about Odyssey's mission and want to help build a category-defining company.

• Must be comfortable working 3-4 days a week onsite in our NYC office.

• Must be open to domestic travel, up to 20%.

Nice to Have

• Experience at a leading management consulting firm.

• Experience supporting C-Suite executives.

• Experience working on growth strategy, go-to-market, commercial strategy, market entry, due diligence, or public-sector engagements.

• Experience working with state or local government procurements.

• Experience with Salesforce, HubSpot, or another CRM.

• Exposure to technology, government, education, financial services, or another regulated industry.

Our Commitment to Equal Opportunity Employment:

Odyssey is an equal opportunity employer. Reasonable accommodations are available upon request.