Reports To: SVP, Strategic Partnerships
Location: This role requires a full-time presence in Durham, NC (with national travel as required)
Please note: We are only able to consider candidates who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents (green card holders) and who do not require current or future visa sponsorship of any sort.
Job Summary:
We are seeking an experienced Vice President of Real Estate Development to lead the management and scaling of our nationwide real estate portfolio post-contracting. This role focuses on managing real estate risk and maintaining strong landlord relationships. Responsibilities include overseeing due diligence, land development, purchases, lease compliance, and building processes for growth from hundreds to thousands of sites. The ideal candidate has successfully managed large-scale portfolios in retail, convenience, fuel, or QSR, is highly organized, thrives in detail-oriented environments, and balances hands-on management with strategic systems implementation. The mission of this role is simple: manage real estate risk and keep our landlords happy.
Key Responsibilities:
• Lead post-contract real estate development by managing the landlord process, overseeing deployment and design from due diligence through land purchase, and development, while ensuring compliance and accurate execution across a large portfolio on time.
• Oversee comprehensive due diligence (title/survey review, design validation, risk assessment) and negotiate with landlords/co-tenants to amend leases, CC&Rs, and secure required approvals/consents.
• Ensure full compliance with lease and purchase obligations, including rent and maintenance, key date tracking, performance standards, earnest money management, and timely closings.
• Build, lead, and mentor a high-performing team to execute development and portfolio management; manage landlord/tenant relationships to drive responsiveness, satisfaction, and long-term partnership health.
• Proactively manage portfolio risk, track milestones and obligations, and resolve issues quickly; monitor performance, identify inefficiencies, and implement continuous improvement strategies.
• Govern and optimize IONNA’s real estate portfolio across multiple markets; design and implement scalable processes, tools, and systems to expand from hundreds to thousands of sites.
• Collaborate cross-functionally (deployment, construction, legal, finance, operations) to ensure seamless handoffs from contracting through operational readiness.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
• Landlord satisfaction: relationship health and speed/effectiveness of issue resolution.
• Team Leadership: Build, Develop, and Retain a High-Performing Real Estate Team.
• Risk management: fewer development/lease disputes, missed obligations, and financial exposures.
• Scalability: systems and processes implemented that enable growth from hundreds to thousands of sites.
• Cycle time: reduced time from contract execution to operational readiness.
• Compliance: on-time rent, key-date adherence, and accurate/timely deposits and closings.
Required Qualifications:
• Bachelor’s degree required (Real Estate, Construction Management, Business, Finance, or a related field). MBA or relevant masters preferred.
• A minimum of 10 years of real estate development experience, including substantial multi-site and multi-market experience; 7 or more years leading managers and teams.
• Proven record managing large portfolios in infrastructure, retail/convenience/fuel/QSR, or EV charging.
• Strong negotiation, relationship management, and cross-functional leadership; able to balance hands-on execution with strategic portfolio oversight.
• Exceptional organization, detail orientation, and follow-through; proven team building and people-leadership skills are necessary.
• Expertise in due diligence (title/survey/entitlements), land acquisition/purchases, land development, lease administration/compliance, and landlord/tenant relations.
• Demonstrated ability to design and scale processes/systems to support rapid portfolio growth (comfortable using real estate compliance systems, lease administration & performance reporting tools).
• Proficient with Salesforce for pipeline, portfolio, and milestone/obligation tracking, as well as portfolio/lease tools, and project management platforms as needed.
Preferred Qualifications:
• Background in distributed retail or infrastructure portfolios such as convenience, QSR, or fueling networks.
IONNA is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices through a competitive base salary, as well as offering bonus programs, comprehensive benefits such as medical, dental, vision, life, 401(K), and paid holidays. Actual base salaries are based on several factors unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skill set, experience, certifications and specific work location. We are committed to an inclusive and diverse team.
IONNA is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, veteran status, genetic