Department: Business Development
Location: London
Role: Senior Business Development Manager
Contract: Full time, Permanent
Overview
The Senior Business Development Manager (SBDM) will lead strategic growth initiatives across the firm’s professional services and insurance practices. This role is responsible for driving revenue growth, strengthening client relationships, supporting partners with go‑to‑market plans, and ensuring BD activity aligns with the firm’s broader commercial and client strategy. The successful candidate will work closely with senior lawyers, sector leads, and cross‑functional teams to identify market opportunities and enhance client engagement.
This senior‑level BD Manager role encompasses all aspects of business development and marketing, involves a high degree of people management and assumes significant involvement and influence with partners and associates both in the UK and internationally. It will involve working closely with Senior BD Leadership and significant co‑ordination with peers in other practices, sectors and regions. With a client‑centric mindset, you will be expected to:
Key Responsibilities
- Develop and execute business development plans for the professional services and insurance practice areas, aligned to firm‑wide strategy.
- Conduct market, competitor and client analysis to identify growth opportunities, including cross‑selling across practice groups.
- Support partners in shaping value propositions, differentiators, and market positioning within the professional services sector.
- Lead pursuit strategies for domestic and international opportunities.
- Engage productively with the BD team globally, ensuring strategies and campaigns maximise opportunities around the firm and are pursued in a coordinated and efficient manner.
- Effectively support Senior BD Leadership team as appropriate to deliver broader firm projects with a focus on wider firm strategy.
- Develop and drive BD strategy for specific sectors.
- Coach partners and senior associates on pitching, relationship management, and opportunity development.
- Lead multi-disciplinary teams in creating compelling pitch proposals, RFP responses and capability materials tailored to insurer and professional services clients.
- Work with marketing teams to deliver targeted campaigns, thought leadership, events and digital content to support practice growth.
- Identify and pursue cross‑sector collaboration opportunities, particularly with risk, regulatory, disputes, corporate and employment teams.
Key Account Management
- Act as a visible, client‑facing representative of the firm, participating directly in client meetings, workshops, reviews, and relationship‑building activities.
- Facilitate regular client listening, feedback loops, and relationship‑mapping to enhance service delivery and identify expansion opportunities.
- Collaborate with partners and fee‑earners to deliver client development plans, implement key account strategies, and monitor progress against revenue targets.
- Use CRM systems and data insights to strengthen client engagement and ensure pipeline visibility.
Stakeholder Engagement and Leadership
- Act as a trusted advisor to partners, offering strategic BD counsel and commercial insight.
- Drive accountability for BD activity, ensuring consistent follow‑through on plans, pipelines and client actions.
- Mentor junior BD team members, fostering a collaborative and high‑performance culture.
- Provide senior‑level input on budgets, reporting, KPIs and forecasting.
Team Management
- Manage a mixed‑ability team, overseeing their contribution, their management of other team members and their achievement of a high level of service and performance, while encouraging their own development and growth.
Essential Skills & Experience
- Significant BD or client development experience in a law firm, professional services, or insurance environment.
- Strong understanding of the insurance sector, its ecosystem, and commercial drivers.
- Demonstrated success in developing and executing strategic growth plans.
- Exceptional relationship management skills, with experience managing or supporting key accounts.
- Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders and work confidently with partners.
- Strong commercial acumen, analytical capability, and market awareness.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including experience with pitches and thought leadership.
- Ability to manage multiple projects under pressure with strong organisational skills.
- Strong IT skills with experience of CRM systems (preferably InterAction), Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
- Strong organisational skills and the ability to handle multiple priorities within tight timescales.
- Able to work to very tight deadlines under pressure and to assimilate information quickly.
- Strong interpersonal skills including confidence, positivity, diplomacy and the ability to gain credibility quickly.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Demonstrates attention to detail with a high level of accuracy.
- Experience of managing and coaching the development of junior team members and to set a positive role model for junior members of the team.
- Educated to degree level (2:1 or above) or possesses equivalent experience.
- Holds a professional marketing qualification, e.g. CIM/CAM (desirable).
Business Services Competencies
- Technical Excellence
- People and Team
- Client/Stakeholder Relationships
- Service Delivery and Commercial Awareness
- Personal Effectiveness
Equal Opportunities Employer
Clyde & Co is proud to be an equal opportunities employer. Our values encourage us to support fairness, celebrate diversity and prohibit all forms of discrimination in the workplace to allow everyone to excel at work. Therefore, we welcome and encourage all applications from suitably qualified individuals, regardless of background or identity.
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