Director – Business Development

Location: Flexible within the UK with the ability to travel to London for team, candidate and client meetings as well as industry events on a regular basis.

In summary

We are looking for a highly experienced business development professional to effectively plan and execute Business Development and Sales activities with C-suite and board-level prospects, growing Swann’s revenue, and expanding its reputation within industry sector groups. This is a senior, frontline role within our organisation, reporting to the Managing Director.

The key functions of the Director – Business Development are to:

• Plan and implement lead generation and sales growth strategies
• strategically identify prospective clients, nurture and generate new sales leads
• convert leads to retained work by successfully pitching our services to prospective clients
• successfully manage the whole sales process and build lasting – and fruitful – relationships with clients
• serve as an ambassador for all the Group’s brands

The detail

The Director – Business Development will have key responsibilities in the following areas:

• Developing and maintaining knowledge of Swann’s services, as well as those of its sister brands, the industry we operate in, and contribute to thought leadership
• Developing and engaging with networks of decision makers, via face-to-face, video and phone channels
• Proactively manage and utilise the business’s CRM
• Generate and develop leads, maintaining and growing an appropriate sales funnel and pipeline
• Developing and presenting high quality proposals that are commercially appropriate
• Negotiating with prospective clients to secure mandates
• Contribute to client management during the delivery phase, liaising closely with the research team delivery the mandate

The ideal candidate will:

• have demonstrated executive search, recruitment or other professional services B2B sales experience in a Business Development or account management, or customer service-driven role that required creation of relationships, identification of opportunities and conversion. This could have been as a Sales Executive, a BDE, an Account Executive, or similar.
• have previous experience selling 5- and 6-figure contracts to executive and C-level clients
• have excellent listening, negotiation, influencing and networking skills
• have had exposure to natural resources, infrastructure, energy, construction and/ or manufacturing sectors (highly desirable)