Business Development Manager

at  Russell Cooke

TECHNICAL SKILLS, EXPERTISE AND ATTRIBUTES

• Experience working in a business development and marketing department within professional services.
• Comfort with being considered ‘the expert’ on BD and a point person to stakeholders across different levels of seniority around best practice and skills, leading initiatives and conversations with senior stakeholders, accepting and working through challenges.
• Energy and an appetite for working with a range of stakeholders in different areas of the firm. Strong relationship building, collaboration and interpersonal skills.
• Professional, credible and confident with persuading and influencing where appropriate Experience leading on client facing proposal documents and processes/ work winning opportunities with clients.
• Organised with excellent attention to detail and accuracy.
• Shows initiative, curiosity and willingness to challenge with solutions/ new ideas.
• A team player, with an interest in all areas of marketing and business development.
• Effective and adaptable business writing and communication skills.
• Ambition and appetite to come into a newly created team and role, roll up their sleeves and make a positive impact.
• Doesn’t take themselves too seriously.
  Russell-Cooke is a UK Top 100 law firm with over 250 highly-regarded specialist lawyers based across our three offices in London. We work for a mix of commercial, not-for-profits and private clients.
  We have an impressive breadth of expertise ranging from commercial transactions through private wealth to expertise in children’s services and financial crime. We are top ranked in Chambers and Legal 500 and have been named by The Times in their list of best Law Firms 2024.
  Our current strategic plan anticipates that our growth will continue in a consistent upward trajectory. In order to meet our stretching growth aspirations we recently undertook a root and branch review of our BD requirements and capability. We have identified a need for greater BD capability and have created a number of new positions to meet that need. A new Director of Marketing and Business Development was put in place in October 2023 and Head of BD in January 2024. We are now recruiting into the business development team to support progress already made in focusing the departments across the firm more on BD as a routine consideration in how they plan and win their business. The head of BD also takes responsibility for our events provision.
  There is a requirement to work across our 3 offices in Holborn, Putney and Kingston as required with this role, a minimum of 3 days a week.
  For the right candidate there will be an opportunity for advancement in the firm.
  We are an equal opportunities employer.

We are looking for an energetic, organised and commercially minded Business Development Manager to join us in a newly created role within the business development arm of a recently restructured Marketing and Business Development team.
Based in our Putney office, but with the opportunity to work across all of our three offices, the role will provide a high degree of visibility for the successful candidate and will involve working closely and collaboratively with senior stakeholders and lawyers across the firm and a variety of disciplines.
The successful candidate will have business development experience within a professional services firm.
The role would be suitable for a Senior BD Executive, with previous experience of working in a law firm, looking to step up, or an existing Manager who is looking for a new challenge in a specialist business development role at a firm where they can work across a number of key groups, helping shape their growth.

In particular, this role will work closely with the Head of Business Development to deliver the firm’s Business Development activity and the team’s goals and objectives. This will involve elements of cross over and liaison with colleagues specialising in marketing activity. Duties will include but are not limited to:

• Working closely with departments across the firm to develop and implement BD plans and client/ referrer relationship management best practice in support of the wider firm strategy, providing guidance on effective marketing and BD to reach identified target audiences.
• Manage, in conjunction with relevant departments and teams across the firm, tenders and work winning opportunities, through planning, co-ordinating, ensuring delivery and seeking feedback on outcomes.
• Attending departmental BD meetings, being a link between departments, spotting opportunities and facilitating progress around cross departmental and team collaboration.
• Working with lawyers and all staff across the firm to advocate BD and client/ referrer relationship management.
• Work closely with the head of BD to drive opportunity and focused firm-wide BD initiatives and research projects aimed at targeting clients and providing an infrastructure for the firm to win work.
• Act as a gateway between the lawyers and the wider marketing and business development team, helping the firm understand effective marketing and business development is and who in the team supports on what.
• Oversight of a BD executive recently recruited into the team.