Business Development Manager
Role Overview:
Role: Business Development Manager - Digital Healthcare
Salary: £74,000-£83,000 per annum
Location: Remote-first / Hybrid - London (office visits on average once per fortnight)
Note - There isn't current a commission / bonus scheme in place for this role.
The Opportunity:
Our client, an established digital agency specialising in healthcare and life sciences, is looking for an experienced Business Development Manager to join their growing team.
This is a fantastic opportunity for an ambitious Business Development professional to play a key role in driving new business growth across the healthcare and pharma sectors.
This is a hands-on business development role, with a strong focus on the day-to-day activity required to build pipeline, identify new opportunities and convert prospects into long-term clients.
You'll be responsible for developing new business relationships, managing both inbound and outbound opportunities, leading pitches and proposals, and working closely with internal Strategy, Design and Delivery teams to shape compelling solutions for prospective clients.
The role would suit someone who understands how to sell complex digital programmes, rather than a traditional product or service, and who can confidently engage with senior stakeholders across healthcare and pharma organisations.
Importantly, we're looking for someone who has experience working within a digital agency environment AND has a strong understanding of the healthcare/pharma sector. Both are essential for this role.
Key Responsibilities:
Business Development & New Business
- Own and drive day-to-day new business activity across the healthcare and pharma sectors
- Identify and develop new business opportunities through a combination of inbound and outbound activity
- Build and manage a healthy sales pipeline, balancing short-term opportunities with longer-term relationship building
- Proactively identify target organisations, decision-makers and new opportunities within the market
- Lead initial conversations with prospective clients and understand their challenges, objectives and requirements
- Manage opportunities through the full sales cycle, from initial engagement through to pitch, proposal and close
- Lead pitches and strategic proposals for high-value opportunities
- Build strong, long-term relationships with prospective and existing clients
Client & Commercial Strategy
- Work closely with Strategy, Design and Delivery teams to shape opportunities and ensure briefs are fully understood
- Challenge briefs and assumptions where appropriate to identify stronger commercial opportunities
- Translate client challenges into compelling digital solutions across strategy, research, design and technology
- Clearly articulate the value, outcomes and ROI of proposed solutions
- Identify opportunities to expand existing client relationships and generate additional revenue
Market Development
- Maintain a strong understanding of the healthcare and pharma landscape, including market trends, investment and emerging opportunities
- Identify new sectors, organisations and areas of growth for the agency
- Represent the business externally through industry events, networking and client meetings
- Work closely with Marketing to ensure campaigns, content and thought leadership activity generate meaningful commercial opportunities
- Use CRM and pipeline data to track performance, forecast accurately and continuously improve the approach to new business
Internal Collaboration
- Work closely with senior leadership, Client Services, Strategy, Design and Delivery to ensure a joined-up approach to new business
- Keep internal stakeholders informed on pipeline, opportunities and commercial performance
- Help ensure the wider team understands client expectations and what good looks like from a commercial perspective
What We're Looking For:
Essential Experience
- Proven experience in a Business Development / New Business role within a digital, design, CX, communications or technology-led agency
- Strong experience within the healthcare and/or pharma sector
- Proven track record of selling complex digital programmes, ideally spanning discovery, strategy, design and build
- Experience managing the full business development lifecycle from prospecting through to successful conversion
- Strong experience with both inbound and outbound business development
- Confident leading pitches, proposals, client meetings and senior-level commercial conversations
- Strong understanding of how digital, technology, user experience and research come together to solve business problems
- Excellent stakeholder management and relationship-building skills
- Commercially astute with a strong understanding of pipeline management, forecasting and revenue generation
- Experience using CRM systems and data to manage and improve new business performance
Desirable
- Experience selling digital transformation, digital products or customer experience programmes
- Experience working with HubSpot or similar CRM platforms
This isn't a role for someone looking purely to manage an existing pipeline or sit at a strategic level - we're looking for someone who wants to be actively involved in winning new business every day.
If you're an experienced Business Development professional with a background in digital agency and healthcare/pharma, and you're looking for a role where you can have a genuine impact on commercial growth, we'd love to hear from you.