The role: Business Development Lead

Salary:   £65,000-£80,000 dependent on experience 

Location: London / hybrid. 

Scope: Full-time, permanent 

Who we are

We are a global consultancy that works with large businesses, governments and institutions that matter. We help them change their ways of working to become more responsive, adaptable and impactful.

We are a fast-growing business working with clients around the world. Our customers are senior leaders (e.g. CEOs, Chief Digital Officers, Transformation Directors)  in businesses, government, health systems, multilaterals and big philanthropic organisations. Our work includes transforming operating models and ways of working, resetting how their services are delivered, and building sustainable digital capability inside institutions.  You can read more about what we do on our website. 

Our consultants are highly experienced digital leaders, who have led transformation within large institutions. Many are well known as individual leaders, and our history and the impact of our work means that Public Digital has a global reputation which is outsized to our current size and is fuelling our growth. 

Our consultancy business is structured around four sectors, each led by a Partner:

• UK & Europe, which supports both private sector, public sector and third sector clients. This is our biggest sector, and the work is mainly in the UK. 
• Americas, which includes a strong line of public sector work in Canada, a growing footprint of public sector and philanthropic work in the US, and Latin America, which is at start-up stage and focussed on private sector businesses. 
• Global Development, which works with large international philanthropic institutions and multilateral agencies to build digital capacity in the Global South, with teams based in several countries across Africa. 
• Healthcare, which works across regions delivering more specialist work to support healthcare providers and systems with digital transformation. 

Our small, specialist commercial and business development team works as business partners to our consultancy leadership within those sectors to bring in new leads and convert them to new work. This involves a blend of client-facing engagement, and behind-the-scenes activity, working with our Partners to:

• Co-develop and support sector growth strategies. 
• Build and track our sector pipelines. 
• Be responsible for ensuring the business has good routes to market through frameworks, contract vehicles or partnerships.
• Own the drafting of proposals and pitches that win new work.
• Support management of our most important accounts.
• Provide commercial challenge and support to our consultants. 

This role offers growth and leadership potential to the right candidate. As a fast-growing business, we are constantly evolving, and this role offers the opportunity to help shape how Public Digital grows and what the capabilities in the team looks like. 

The role

Our Business Development Leads work closely with our sectors to help drive their growth through winning work with new clients, and extending and expanding our work with existing clients. They will work as a true business partner to the sector: being agile and responsive to the needs of our consultancy team, while not being afraid to challenge. 

They report to our Commercial Director, build and manage a small specialist team to support sales and business development in each sector, and work alongside marketing colleagues to ensure joined-up marketing and sales efforts to drive growth. 

Our Business Development Lead needs to be: 

• Highly commercial, focussed on supporting profitable growth and confident to constructively challenge leaders in the organisation 
• Intellectually curious, and committed to understanding Public Digital’s work and approach to transformation, spending time getting to know the business so they can credibly communicate and promote the business
• Able to write fluently and well: please note that drafting high quality proposals will be an important part of the role
• Agile and wide ranging in their outlook, able to confidently apply themselves to a variety of different activities and projects to respond to different business needs, working in a collaborative and multidisciplinary and agile way within the culture of the organisation and with the different skills and expertise in PD
• An exceptional stakeholder manager, working with clients, Founders, partners, consultants, and suppliers  
• Be a team-builder and an excellent people manager, creating, developing and scaling a high performing team of both in-house talent and external experts.
  
  

What you will do:

• Embed yourself within two of our sectors, getting to really understand the work that Public Digital does, our competitive landscape, our routes to market, and how we promote and sell it
• Work collaboratively with consultancy leaders, other commercial/business development colleagues, Finance and People teams across all of your work. 
• Track and help to build the sector pipelines, working as a business partner to the sector leadership
• Manage the end-to-end pursuit of key pieces of work - engaging with clients and partners alongside consultants to shape new work, owning and writing proposals and pitches, responsibility for commercial constructs and pricing, and negotiating contracts etc
• Creating and participating in client pitches
• Pricing new work with consultants and/or reviewing and critiquing pricing in line with commercial priorities  
• Lead or commission research on target sectors and accounts
• Coaching and guiding consultants around business development, supporting them with lead generation and advising them on routes to market
• Being a key champion and owner of our CRM, Hubspot, championing and role modelling its use
• Leading other agendas which enable our growth, such as social value. 
• Design and build the business development teams working to you that will enable each sector to get to the next level of growth

Requirements

About You:

• Proven experience in a business development role where you have demonstrated building expertise in selling and communicating a complex service
• Experience in overseeing and writing proposals and tenders, including in formal public sector procurement exercises; and confidence / enthusiasm for writing outstanding content
• Strategic, intellectually curious, open to learning, and keen to work with colleagues who are leading experts in their field
• Exceptional communication and presentation skills, with the ability to articulate complex ideas in a clear and concise manner
• Commercially confident particularly around pricing work and designing how it will be delivered
• The ability to interpret data, extract insights, and make data-driven decisions
• Experience of team building and nurturing talent is highly desirable

Benefits

What’s in it for you: 

• Opportunity to grow and progress rapidly within an engaged, supportive environment 
• Be entrepreneurial and contribute to the growth and success of Public Digital 
• Focus on enabling people to deliver high-impact work with leading institutions around the world 
• Focus on learning, development and progression 
• Ability to build and develop your expertise and profile through publishing blog posts, presenting at events and sharing knowledge and experience
• Be empowered to do your best job 
• Home and remote working, flexibility in how you deliver work 
• Buddy system and prioritised mental health 
• Generous holiday allowance of 30 days, plus an additional office closure over the Christmas period.
• Private healthcare cover.
• Additional Flexible benefits.