Senior New Business Development Manager

We're looking for an experienced business development professional to lead our New Business Development team and help us identify, pursue and convert the commercial opportunities that will support Womble Bond Dickinson's continued growth.

Working closely with our Sector Leaders, Business Group Heads and Client Partners, you'll lead a pipeline-focused approach to winning new work from existing clients and new business prospects. You'll also support and develop our New Business Development Managers, helping the team bring focus, rigour and momentum to every stage of the sales cycle.

What's the team and role about?

Our New Business Development team works alongside partners to identify and pursue opportunities throughout the sales cycle, helping the firm win new work, strengthen existing client relationships and expand our client base.

As our Senior New Business Development Manager, you'll lead the New Business Development Managers and manage your own business development pipeline. You'll work closely with senior stakeholders to identify the opportunities with the strongest commercial potential and support partners in progressing them from initial identification through to close.

You'll also act as an important link between our partners and colleagues across the wider Marketing & Business Development Group. This will include translating client and market insight into focused business development activity, coaching partners on their approach to opportunities and ensuring our marketing activity reaches the audiences that matter most.

What will you actually be doing?

Working alongside colleagues in the New Business Development team and across the wider Marketing & Business Development Group, you'll be responsible for:

• Supporting the Head of Business Development in championing a sales-driven culture that helps us win profitable, high-quality work, grow our client base and cross-sell our services.
• Leading and supporting our New Business Development Managers as they work with Client Partners to progress opportunities through the sales cycle.
• Embedding a disciplined approach to pipeline management, from identifying and prioritising opportunities through to conversion.
• Coaching Client Partners on their business development activity, joining client meetings where appropriate and making sure opportunities receive the right follow-up.
• Collaborating with Sector Leaders to identify major commercial opportunities and use client and market insight to shape marketing plans, campaigns and new service propositions.
• Building strong relationships with colleagues in the US, our strategic alliances and the Lex Mundi network to identify and progress cross-border opportunities.
• Prioritising activity against agreed Sector and Business Group plans, ensuring our resources remain focused on the clients, prospects and opportunities with the greatest commercial potential.
• Supporting our Bids & Tenders team with pitches and strategic pursuits by sharing relevant relationship, market and opportunity intelligence.
• Working closely with Marketing, Account Management and Bids & Tenders colleagues to support priority pursuits, strengthen client relationships and maximise commercial opportunities.

Why should you be excited about the role?

• We're committed to growth and see BD as central to delivering that, so you'll be part of a team that has leadership backing.
• We've defined the markets we're targeting and our positioning, so you'll be clear about the clients and prospects in our BD pipeline and the opportunities we want to pursue.
• You'll spend lots of time in and amongst a group of partners who are hungry and all focused on the same part of the market, so there'll be lots of energy, conversations and knowledge sharing between everyone.
• Working alongside the New BD team will be our Marketing Planning & Campaigns team. While you manage the BD pipeline, they'll manage the marketing plan, and you'll form a tight team working alongside the sector / market leaders.
• We're doing a lot more with our colleagues in the US, so there'll definitely be opportunities to collaborate on cross-border projects and international growth plans.

Who's this role right for?

To be successful in this role, you'll need as a minimum:

• Experience of pipeline-led business development, with a track record of progressing opportunities through the sales cycle in a structured and disciplined way.
• Business development experience gained within a B2B or professional services environment.
• Previous people management experience, including supporting team members' development and career progression.
• Experience of working with senior stakeholders and coaching or influencing them on their approach to business development.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to communicate clearly and confidently with people at different levels of seniority.
• The ability to manage a busy and varied workload while developing a strong understanding of your target markets, their commercial drivers and emerging opportunities.
• The confidence and enthusiasm to represent the firm externally, build relationships and participate in client and prospect meetings.

What makes it great to work here?

We continually work hard to create an open culture that sets us apart from other firms. Our culture gives us much more of a human feel and has helped us earn the Great Place to Work® certification in the UK, based entirely on feedback from our people. Recognising our commitment to creating a high-trust workplace where people feel valued, supported and empowered to succeed.

As signatories to the Mindful Business Charter, it's important to us that our people are able to maintain healthy and happy lives, both in and out of work. We have a number of resources and initiatives designed to support health and wellbeing and we're very happy to talk flexible working.

Through our DEI initiatives we create an environment in which difference is valued. We have an Diversity, Equity and Inclusion team and an Inclusive Recruitment Lead, who all work with our colleague networks (we currently have firm supported networks for race, ethnicity, and cultural heritage, LGBTQ+, disabilities, neurodiversity, families, and women's career development and we're in constant dialogue with our people about how we expand our networks to better support everybody). Find out more about DEI at WBD here. We encourage applicants from all social backgrounds, ethnicities, disabilities, gender identities and sexual orientations.

We are committed to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible to all. If you have a disability or long term condition and need us to make any adjustments to give you the best possible recruitment process, please let us know by contacting the recruiter on the right hand side of this page. Please also let us know if you need this job advert or the application form in a different format.

We will offer an interview to candidates with a disability or long-term condition who meet the minimum criteria for this role. You can opt into this scheme within the application form. Your response to this question is only used for this purpose, is only visible to the recruitment team and is not used for data monitoring.

We are an in-house recruitment team and will always aim to fill our roles directly in the first instance. If you're an agency, please click here for ways that you can work with us.

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