Client Development Manager

CLIENT DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT ROLE

The Client Development Manager leads key business development support and operations, facilitating the creation of insightful, differentiating pitch content and market insights and enabling a firmwide culture of knowledge sharing and collaboration. The primary role of the Client Development Manager (CDM) is to partner with the NA Board Practice and its members on strategic 'hands on' business development and content-creation. The CDM works in close collaboration with consulting teams as well as other client development colleagues and cross-functional teams to enable world-class business development and opportunity pursuit.

KEY RELATIONSHIPS

Reports to

Director of Development and Operations, NA Board & CEO Practice
North America Board Practice Leader

Partners Closely With
Board Practice Analysts

Client Development Managers and Analysts across Industry and Functional Practices.

Other Key Relationships

Director of NA Analysts

Consultants

Board Practice Associates

Marketing Team

Position Location

North America, preferably an East Coast office or Chicago

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Business Development and Opportunity Pursuit
•  Serve as go-to resource and the "face" of client development for the NA Board Practice, partnering with consultants and client development colleagues on BD efforts (e.g., driving competitive pursuits, launching strategic campaigns to grow the practice, etc.).
•  Partner closely with Board Practice and relevant industry consultants to design pitch strategies and create supporting materials.
•  Quarterback pursuit teams in preparing for client meetings, ensuring preparation and rehearsal meetings are scheduled, meeting objectives and timelines are shared and well understood, and content-plan is co-created in a manner that satisfies the internal stakeholders and ultimately the external stakeholders.
•  Create insightful, customized qualifications packs and pitch materials for new business development opportunities. Orchestrate regular updates of key materials with the support of the practice team.
•  Manage the workflow and quality of deliverables of the Board Analysts leading and/or contributing to quals development.
•  Partner closely with Board Practice Leaders and Consultants across practices doing board work to develop content/materials for specific strategic client situations/meetings (e.g., pitch, annual/quarterly review, relationship-building).
•  Identify opportunities to leverage and build knowledge/insights/ data/analytics to enable BD and pursuit activities. Content Creation, Sharing and Management
•  In partnership with Practice Leadership and the Client Development team, redefine and continuously improve the Board go-to-market narrative - incorporating new service lines and evolving solutions.
•  Translate and tailor firm-level intellectual capital strategy/ themes being driven by Marketing and other client development teams, ensuring dots are connected.
•  Gather learnings from pitches and business development to share internally to ensure we are continuously refining and improving our processes, responsiveness, and pitch effectiveness.
•  Actively contribute and participate in the global client development community by sharing insights, ideas and best practices with fellow CDMs.
•  Create approach and direct Board Analyst team to maintain, curate, and regularly update practice templates for pitch content/materials on Ampler, SharePoint and the Board Practice Connect site.
•  Create and identify best-practice pitch content/materials to regularly share with Practices and firm.
•  In close collaboration with Practice Leadership, develop communication strategy for syndicating pitch content to/across Practice and Firm. Practice Operations
•  Develop approaches, leveraging Quest tools as possible, to assess the board opportunity pipeline and analyze win/loss outcomes and stats on a regular basis.
•  In close collaboration with the Board Analyst team, maintain tools to support search execution and current data/statistics related to the practice; oversee specialized research for F500/F1000 CEO and CFO mappings, priority/emerging director archetypes, BD target lists and other KPIs.
•  Work with initiative teams to leverage new technologies and evolve processes.
•  Identify new sources of data that are easily integrated into our daily operations and tools. Team Leadership/Management
•  Provide oversight of and develop Board Analysts when partnering with them on tasks and/or projects.
•  Guide Board Analysts as needed on creation of BD deliverables, including training and quality control. DESIRED OUTCOMES

Desired outcomes will be developed and refined in partnership with Board Practice and Client Development Leadership. Some initial priorities for the first 12 months include:
•  Establish fluency in writing complex proposal decks, bringing the firm's breadth of offering to client situations, in particular with new and compelling ways of talking about the Boards offering in the market.
•  Propose improvements of process design and technology tools and identify best practices for opportunity identification, work intake and assignment, and content development/management
•  Enable the team's capacity and capability to support Board specific projects and pursuits to keep pace with the practice's current and growing volume and scope of work.
•  Develop and lead a strong team of Analysts who are able to meaningfully contribute to deliverables and initiatives.
•  Develop a broad, strong cross-functional firmwide network. CANDIDATE PROFILE

Successful candidates will be self-directed, collaborative, comfortable with ambiguity, highly organized, and detail oriented. In addition, they will demonstrate the ability to communicate clearly, exhibit grace under pressure and balance multiple priorities effectively. They will have a proven track record of creating compelling, insightful content and the ability to imagine new and innovative ways of approaching the market. They will be a strong relationship builder with a relentless client service orientation and the confidence, maturity and resilience to be a credible trusted partner to a sophisticated internal client base to drive greater business performance.

IDEAL EXPERIENCE
•  Approximately 5-10 years of work experience in a corporate environment, ideally within executive search, management consulting, other professional services, or market research.
•  The role involves significant client service and the management of multiple projects toward tight timelines in a fast-paced environment where competing demands are the norm.
•  Experience with researching and organizing information from databases and/or internet resources. Ability to analyze and synthesize data into other formats. Familiar with business reference resources such as Capital IQ, LinkedIn, BoardEx, BoardroomAlpha, etc. Comfort level with AI tools.
•  Strong verbal and written communication skills in English.
•  Strong business acumen and commitment to exceptional client service with internal and external audiences.
•  Advanced research, analysis, and synthesis skills and experience.
•  Proficiency with MS Office applications (Excel, PowerPoint, and Word), with ability to create client-ready presentations in PowerPoint.
•  Undergraduate degree required, master's degree a plus. CRITICAL LEADERSHIP CAPABILITIES

Project Managing for Results
•  Demonstrates excellent project management skills, outlining key tasks and reviewing performance and progress on projects/pursuit deliverables on a regular basis to ensure the team is achieving results.
•  Works to achieve business development goals for the Practice while overcoming obstacles and/or planning for contingencies.
•  Hands-on, "rolls up one's sleeves" approach. Energized by executing projects autonomously as well as part of a distributed team.
•  Tenacious, with a track record of working successfully to steer self and collaborative team through complex situations.
•  Proactively seeks to be involved in many diverse projects.
•  Shows strong sense of urgency about reaching deadlines for pursuit opportunities and agreed-upon reactive and proactive business development projects/targets.
•  Checks work of self and others to ensure business development deliverables are accurate, continuously improved, distinguished and high quality; can give, receive, and integrate feedback constructively. Collaborating and Influencing
•  Collaborative approach: takes initiative to create and foster enduring relationships with senior leaders, practice members, and other colleagues; works well in a team environment.
•  Demonstrates strong listening skills; invites and uses the opinions, perspectives and best practices of others in the Firm, Practice, the Client Development team and other stakeholders, to influence, drive engagement and shape the way forward.
•  Demonstrates strong influencing toolkit; can drive for consensus in a collaborative and efficient manner; able to challenge in a non-confrontational manner.
•  Credible and mature with the ability to support their point of view with both factual evidence and experience-based opinion click apply for full job details