We are a tech startup serving the mortgage industry. Our first non-founding full time employee (still equity only, pre-funding) has come on board to lead biz dev. I see a lot of title inflation in banking so I'm in favor of VP Business Development as a title for him. My cofounder thinks that we should avoid titles for employees to keep the startup org flat. She is pushing for Director of BD, or perhaps none. Since we sell software to banks, everyone has VP or above title. Is it a mistake to start him at VP of BD? His last role at a big four firm was Manager. The employee wants the VP title and I don't really mind either way. Should I care more?
Do people even see VP as higher than Director or the other way around? A quick search for VP of BD yields ~1300 hits on FD vs ~6500 hits for Dir of BD so the latter is more common, at least in this community! Thoughts? I just want to do what's best for business.