Business Development Manager

Role Overview

• Act as one of the primary faces of Instrument in new business conversations.
• Lead discovery and “hello” sessions with prospective clients, uncovering needs and mapping them to Instrument’s capabilities.
• Manage core inbound opportunities independently, while supporting senior leadership on marquee pursuits.
• Build trust quickly, ensuring client stakeholders see Instrument as a knowledgeable, creative, and strategic partner.
• Partner across the end-to-end sales cycle of inbound requests for core project opportunities, from intake and qualification through proposal development to close.
• Optimize the pursuit and proposal process, making responses, timelines, and communication progressively more efficient and effective.
• Track, analyze, and share pipeline health insights (conversion metrics, deal velocity, source quality, win/loss patterns) with studio leadership.
• Maintain CRM hygiene and ensure pipeline data flows accurately into financial reporting.
• Ensure proactive follow-ups and touchpoints keep opportunities moving forward.
• Optimize and enhance repeatable growth systems: intake rubrics, opportunity score cards, proposal templates, and pursuit playbooks that right-size effort to opportunity.
• Create and maintain highly functional knowledge bases, including case study libraries, competitive positioning, engagement model documentation, and reusable pursuit materials.
• Help identify and establish a suite of tools to support contact enrichment, signal monitoring, stakeholder and organizational mapping.
• Partner with studio leadership and internal technologists/operations teams to identify opportunities to automate processes: brief scoring, response templating, contact intelligence, trigger-based outreach.
• Develop a deep understanding of the studio’s historical work, partnerships, and case studies.
• Be hands-on in building the artifacts of business development
• hello and teaser decks, case studies, tailored narratives, proposals and BU-specific positioning, in partnership with the team.
• Translate strategy and creative thinking into client-ready materials that showcase craft, capability, and commercial value.
• Develop a perspective on how to position core services and capabilities, refining that perspective continuously to fit the client’s ecosystem.
• Demonstrate bias toward action, moving quickly to create materials and context that maintain momentum, at a high standard of quality.
• Support studio leadership with net-new BU, product area and contact targeting outside existing relationships.
• Amplify and activate ABM strategy across tiered targets, from high-touch to scaled outreach, in partnership with Marcomm.
• Partner with Strategic Growth Directors and studio leadership to re-engage and nurture lapsed relationships.
• Identify expansion opportunities within existing accounts and collaborate on tailored pursuit strategies.
• Develop fluency in engagement models, team design, and productized offerings, supporting their evolution.
• Contribute to strategic growth initiatives, including annual studio planning, account assessments, and re-planning moments.
• Partner with strategy, design, technology and delivery leads during the pursuit process to ensure realistic, differentiated, and inspiring solutions and proposals.
• Ensure studio leaders and individual contributors are managed efficiently in new business processes, with clear briefs, defined time commitments and streamlined involvement.
• Work with studio partners to inform how proposals, project approaches, and engagement designs balance ambition with practicality.
• Be a connective tissue across disciplines, ensuring each pursuit feels integrated and cohesive.
• Connect with central BD, marketing, and BI functions to leverage shared resources and provide studio-specific visibility and intelligence
• Model positive growth behaviors from proactive opportunity identification, to rigorous qualification, strategic confidence, and commercial discipline.
• Support growth training and enablement, helping coordinate pitch and presentation development for team members involved in client-facing moments
• Mentor junior team members involved in pursuit processes
• Contribute to a growth culture that feels like a resource that strengthens the team**

Requirements

• 5–8+ years in BD, growth, or account development in an agency or consulting environment
• Experience with retained or annuity accounts, intra-account growth or ABM activation
• Demonstrated ability to build, scale, and automate growth systems
• Track record of leading enterprise-level client conversations and managing pursuit processes end-to-end with operational discipline, optimizing them over time
• Strong narrative and positioning instinct, and an ability to frame and articulate services and capabilities for different audiences.
• A practitioner’s mindset
• curious, hands-on, and proactive in making. You don’t wait for direction, you build momentum.
• A sense of urgency toward the opportunities, you move just as fast as our delivery teams.
• Ability to balance bold innovation with pragmatic solutions, adapting strategies to maximize success.
• Demonstrated ability to foster trust with clients and teams, building inclusive, collaborative environments.
• A passion for creativity and a drive to positively contribute to Instrument’s growth and reputation.
• A resilient, positive energy that motivates the team and instills confidence with clients.
• Comfort with overcommunication and alignment, ensuring no one is left behind in the process.
• Experience with a major technology client
• procurement structures, vendor management, BU dynamics
• Experience working with across product, brand or marketing-led teams, with an ability to understand workflows, team structures, and how to effectively position and pitch design and technology services.
• Fluency in CRM and pipeline management (HubSpot preferred)

Benefits

• Flexible, Hybrid Work Environment
• Great Compensation with Annual Reviews (Learn more about our Pay Philosophy)
• 401(k) Matching with Immediate Vesting
• Robust Medical, Vision, and Accident Insurance
• Generous Paid Holidays and unlimited PTO
• Sabbaticals
• Monthly Wellbeing Stipend
• Career Management and Leadership Training