Director, Business Development

Role Overview

• Own and optimize a warm, existing book of business, including past clients, active conversations, referrals, and inbound opportunities.
• Lead senior-level conversations around RFPs, scoping, pricing, and margin, both internally and with clients.
• Drive opportunity strategy from first conversation through close, ensuring pursuits are well-qualified, thoughtfully positioned, and commercially sound.
• Understand and plan around experiential buying cycles, long lead times, and seasonal/tentpole moments.
• Serve as the primary owner of RFP responses and complex deal pursuits, partnering with Strategy, Creative, Production, and Account leaders.
• Guide pricing and scope decisions to balance competitiveness with profitability.
• Confidently articulate value, tradeoffs, and investment levels to clients.
• Capture learnings from wins and losses to continuously refine approach.
• Design and maintain structure around new business: playbooks, follow-up systems, task ownership, and forecasting.
• Own pipeline reporting -ensuring leadership has clear visibility into opportunities and risk.
• Improve consistency and discipline across how opportunities are tracked, prioritized, and advanced.
• Proactively re-engage former clients and dormant relationships through thoughtful, timing-aware outreach.
• Identify and act on reactivation triggers (leadership changes, launches, agency reviews, tentpole moments).
• Build long-term relationships rooted in trust, credibility, and deep understanding of client needs.
• Partner with leadership to design the broader new business team structure, including how hunters, associates, PMs, or SDR-style support are deployed.
• Work alongside freelance or junior support handling appointment setting, follow-up, CRM hygiene, and light deal support.

Requirements

• 8–10+ years in business development or growth leadership within experiential, creative, or integrated agencies.
• Deep understanding of experiential buying cycles, long lead times, and seasonal/tentpole planning.
• Proven success leading complex RFPs, scoping, pricing, and margin discussions.
• Strong commercial instincts with comfort navigating nuanced, high-value deals.
• Experience owning and growing a warm book of business—not starting from zero.
• Ability to think strategically about pipeline design, forecasting, and systems.
• Collaborative, credible partner to Creative, Production, Account, and Leadership teams.
• Calm, confident communicator who can lead senior client conversations.
• Thrives in entrepreneurial environments where structure is being built, not inherited.

Benefits

• Fully remote work environment, with a co-working stipend provided
• Wellness stipend to support physical and mental well-being
• High-growth opportunity with meaningful ownership and impact
• Comprehensive insurance and benefits, plus 401(k) with company match after one year of employment