We're currently looking for an experienced Business Development professional to join us as a New Business Development Manager.

The team and the role

Operating across our 8 UK offices and with our US colleagues, our Marketing & Business Development (MBD) team plays a crucial part in driving our growth strategy covering priority sectors and key markets. 

Our New Business Development Managers are at the heart of this strategy and your key focus will be identifying opportunities to win new work from pipelines of clients, prospects and targets.  In practice, the role will focus on managing new business pipelines, coaching and supporting Client Partners, sharing sector knowledge, and collaborating with partners and lawyers to represent the firm externally.

A typical day

You'll be working alongside partners, lawyers and other professionals across our business to win new work from a defined pipeline of existing clients, short-term prospects, referrers and longer-term targets.  You'll be part of the team reviewing our client portfolios holistically, embedding a sales culture and coaching colleagues on their business plans and key account plans for defending and growing key clients.  Alongside our other MBD specialists, you'll develop creative marketing campaigns to target key decision makers, and collaborate on the insights from our client and market feedback channels.

Driving a sales culture, you'll be working with peer colleagues in the US, as well as with contacts from our international networks, to support sector-related initiatives and targeting. You'll be part of the team onboarding new clients in our priority sector(s), setting the foundations for the best possible client experience.  Working collaboratively with our KM team and knowledge lawyers, and other business services colleagues, you'll help to ensure strong returns from our investments in value add support, training, insights, innovation, legal technology, and DEI and ESG initiatives.

Who we are looking for

To be successful in this role, you'll be experienced in leading a sector-driven focus and managing new business pipelines – you'll be as comfortable engaging directly with clients as working with colleagues in a variety of roles.   You'll be able to spot and track trends across sectors for future risks/opportunities and develop future cross-selling opportunities.   You'll have the gravitas to influence at partner level and the ability to challenge thinking.  As a business, we're on an ambitious growth path so a flexible and adaptable approach is what we need.  First class communication skills and analytical thinking will help you build relationships.

Experience of working in professional services would be beneficial, particularly if you have worked in the Financial Institutions sector.  

Why you, why now

If you're happy challenging the thinking of senior and/or technical experts as part of a team all focused on growing our share of a very competitive market, you'll thrive in an environment of collaborative conversations and knowledge sharing.

This is a great time to join us, as we've recently reset our strategy to support our growth - the new strategy was on the back of some really detailed review and analysis work, and has been signed off by our Board, so the plans and initiatives you'll be working on are recognised as being central to our growth.  There are exciting projects to be part of!

Your location

This role can be aligned to any of our offices (Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds, London, Newcastle, Plymouth and Southampton) – we typically spend around 3 days in the office and 2 days at home, and operate a very flexible approach.

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, emphasising that we're more than just suits!

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, full-time or part-time working patterns.

Through our DEI initiatives we create an environment in which difference is valued. We have an Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Group, led by our Board Sponsor, which works with our colleague networks (we currently have firm supported networks for race, ethnicity, and cultural heritage, LGBTQ+, disabilities, 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 ED&I 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.

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.