Channel Development Manager

Channel Development Manager 

Location: Bangalore, India (in-office)

Reports To: Regional Director, Southeast Asia

Compensation: INR 16-20 LPA fixed + performance incentives per distributor signed

Travel: 15-20% (trade shows, distributor visits across SEA and other target markets)

NOTE: Candidates with International Business Growth Experience Preferred For Example (SEA,Africa and MENA region)

About FasalFasal builds deep technology for farm autonomy. We solve two problems that cost growers billions every year: the Decision Gap (lack of real-time data to act on) and the Execution Gap (labour shortages that mean critical actions like irrigation and fertigation get missed or done poorly).

Our platform works in three layers. IoT sensors monitor soil, micro-climate, and crop conditions in real time. Over 200 AI-powered crop models turn that data into specific, actionable advisories. And FasalJet, our irrigation and fertigation automation system, executes those actions precisely, without depending on manual labour.

We have over 12,260 IoT devices deployed, serving more than 10,000 growers across 200,000+ acres in India and five Southeast Asian countries. We hold 3 patents and have accumulated over 10 billion proprietary data points. We are backed by British International Investments, TDK Ventures, 3one4 Capital, Wavemaker Ventures, Omnivore, and others. Forbes Asia 100 To Watch.

The Opportunity

Fasal is expanding internationally through distribution partners: established agricultural businesses in each country who take on our products, sell to growers and enterprises in their region, and provide local support.

We have appointed 7 distribution partners across 5 countries in the last 8 months. This is working, and now we need to scale it significantly.

The immediate focus is Southeast Asia: Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka. But the model is designed to work in any market where agriculture is a significant sector. As you prove the engine in SEA, you will help extend it to MENA, Central Asia, and other regions where Fasal sees demand.

We generate a strong pipeline of inbound interest from potential distribution partners and direct enterprise customers through digital campaigns. The role is about converting that interest into signed, activated partners and customers, consistently and at pace.

• What You Will DoFind and close distribution partnersTake qualified inbound leads from our digital campaigns and convert them into signed distribution agreements. You own the conversation from first response to signed deal.
• Write the outreach messages yourself. These go to CEOs and senior management of established agricultural businesses. The messages need to be specific, respectful, and sharp enough that a busy person in Manila or Ho Chi Minh City replies.
• Run qualification calls to quickly assess fit: does this company have an existing grower network, agricultural distribution experience, the working capital to stock inventory, and genuine intent to build a new product line?
• Lead persuasive first meetings with senior decision-makers. These are experienced business owners who have been in agriculture for decades. You earn their trust by understanding their business, not by reading a pitch deck at them.
• Negotiate terms and close. Move conversations forward with urgency. Deals that drift for months without a decision need a forcing function, and you provide it.
• Close direct enterprise customersEngage directly with large plantations, agribusinesses, and enterprise growers who come through the pipeline as potential direct customers rather than distribution partners.
• Understand their operations, present Fasal's value proposition in the context of their specific crops and challenges, and close device sales.
• Know when a lead is a better fit as a direct customer versus a distribution partner, and route them accordingly.
• Build and improve the acquisition engineShape the messaging and targeting strategy for our lead generation campaigns. You work with the marketing team or agency on what to say and to whom; they handle the media buying and execution.
• Continuously improve the qualification process based on what you learn from every call. Understand which kinds of companies convert and which do not, and feed that back into the funnel.
• Research which channels work in which markets. Facebook dominates in some SEA countries; LINE in Thailand; Zalo in Vietnam. Know your landscape.
• Maintain a clean, honest pipeline. Every deal has a realistic status, a clear next step owned by you, and a timeline.
• Support early activation of new partnersCoordinate with the technical team to ensure new distribution partners receive hands-on training and demo support in their first 90 days.
• Track whether new partners are actually selling: first demo to a grower, first device sold, first reorder. Flag problems early.
• Work closely with our Regional Director for SEA, who provides on-ground support in Thailand and coordinates across the region.

Who You Are

You have spent 4-7 years in B2B sales, channel development, or business development. At least 2 of those years involved recruiting new channel partners, distributors, dealers, or resellers: finding and signing new ones from scratch, not managing existing relationships.

You have personally closed 10 or more partner/distributor agreements in your career. You can walk us through each one: how you found them, what convinced them, how long it took, and what you learned from the ones that fell through.

You are a strong writer. You can draft a cold outreach message on the spot that a busy CEO would actually read and respond to. You have natural commercial instinct and your own voice.

You are comfortable on calls with senior decision-makers: people who are older, more experienced, and initially skeptical. You know how to listen first, ask sharp questions about their business, and earn respect before you pitch anything.

Your English is excellent, written and spoken. You will communicate daily with business leaders across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and potentially other regions.

Candidates with agricultural industry experience who have already built distributor or dealer networks for ag-input, irrigation, or farm technology companies will be strongly preferred.

If you have done this in agriculture, you understand the buyer, the seasonal rhythms, and the trust dynamics that make this market unique. That experience is hard to replicate.

• Experience that translates well to this role
• Channel development or distributor recruitment at irrigation, agri-input, or farm equipment companies (Netafim, Rivulis, Jain Irrigation, UPL, Syngenta, or similar).
• International BD or channel sales at hardware or IoT companies that sell through distributors (TP-Link, Hikvision, Schneider Electric, Honeywell, or similar).
• Partner or supply-side acquisition at marketplace or platform companies where you ran campaigns and also closed individual partners through calls and negotiation.
• International sales roles at Indian startups expanding into SEA or other emerging markets.
• What will make you thrive hereYou prefer building to maintaining. The idea of opening a new market from zero excites you more than managing a mature territory.
• You are resourceful and self-directed. At a startup, nobody hands you a playbook. You write it yourself, and you rewrite it when it stops working.
• You care about the work. Agriculture may not be glamorous, but the idea that your work helps real growers access better technology matters to you.
• You enjoy the hunt. The pace of qualifying, pitching, negotiating, and closing, week after week, gives you energy rather than draining it.