Vice President, Business Development & Membership, ULI Europe

at  Urban Land Institute

ABOUT ULI EUROPE

ULI, the Urban Land Institute, is a non-profit research and education organisation focused on the real estate sector with a strong mission, to shape the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide. To advance the mission, the members have identified three mission priorities, which are decarbonisation, affordable and adequate housing and educating the next generation of real estate leaders.
Founded in 1936, we now have over 48,000 members worldwide, representing the entire spectrum of land use and real estate development disciplines working in private and public sectors.
ULI has been active in Europe since the early 1990s and today we have almost 5,500 members. We have a particularly strong presence in the major European real estate markets with National Councils in 15 countries across Europe, including e.g., France, Germany, Spain, and United Kingdom.
ULI’s main revenue sources come from individual and corporate membership, in addition to corporate sponsorship for a wide range of activities ULI delivers, including events, research and mission driven programmes such as C Change or UrbanPlan. ULI has developed a pro-active strategy to grow the philanthropic fund raising to support the delivery of our mission priorities. ,

POSITION SUMMARY

Reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer of ULI Europe, the Vice President of Business Development and Membership is responsible for overseeing all elements of our individual and corporate membership, including account management and fundraising, as well as assisting in the set up and development of philanthropic institutional fundraising strategy.
Encompassing memberships, event sponsorships and registrations, and general funding, the corporate accounts programme supports a broad range of ULI initiatives and programmes, including key events, meetings, National Councils, research, educational programmes and a variety of other ULI activities. The Business Development, Account Management and Membership teams are responsible for overseeing, developing and maintaining relationships with prospects and new and existing corporate partners to help fund ULI’s organisation and events and programmes, in addition to identifying opportunities to raise revenue to deliver on our mission priorities.
Our corporate partners are based across Europe and ULI uses a decentralised and tailored account management model. In practice, this means that the Vice President of Business Development & Membership works closely with ULI’s national council heads, teams on the ground across Europe, to build and maintain corporate accounts. The VP of Business Development & Membership will also work with business development colleagues in the Americas and Asia Pacific.
Individual membership currently makes up about 40% of total membership in Europe and is an important component to future growth. The Vice President Business Development and Membership is responsible for setting growth and retention strategies for individual members and will work closely with colleagues in the National Councils and Marketing & Communications on the execution.
ULI is focused on identifying and unlocking opportunities to broaden and deepen corporate partner engagement, and this role will play a critical role in both building long-term relationships through a thorough understanding of the company’s business and activities.

EXPERIENCE

The ideal candidates will bring a measurable track record of success in business development, relationship building and/or account management. They will have strong analytical, strategic planning, and organisational skills, with the ability to manage complex, multi-stakeholder projects. They will have a positive energy and bring exceptional team leadership and mentoring skills coupled with a collaborative approach to developing and executing strategic initiatives. The candidate should have a genuine commitment to the mission of the Urban Land Institute.
Bachelor’s degree is required.
10 years of account management/business development experience, ideally within the real estate industry in Europe, including at least 3-5 years of experience in a leadership role.
Track record of securing important investments from corporations and/or foundations.
Demonstrated ability to develop and implement institutional partnership strategies that sustainably increase revenue for an organisation.
Ability to analyse, conceptualise, and describe funding needs in a way that is compelling to potential partners, strategic partners, and other stakeholders.
Exceptional organisational skills: ability to develop and execute plans efficiently and effectively and to develop, manage, and track an annual management process.
Demonstrated excellence in written and oral communications, with a track record of writing compelling and successful proposals.
Experience communicating with senior-level executives and engaging them in a business development, or fundraising process.
Experience leading and developing a team with multiple direct reports.
Experience in identifying and developing junior talent.
Experience in and/or understanding of commercial real estate/issues of land use/universe of the built environment is useful but not required.
Be highly collaborative, have good communication, possess a good sense of humour, in addition to strong presentation and business development skills.

Business Development
In close collaboration with the CEO and wider Senior Management Team (SMT), develop and execute data-driven business development and membership marketing and retention strategies that meet the requirements and needs of the organisation, and generates a sustained base of partners aligned with ULI’s strategic priorities.
Work closely with National Councils to provide functional oversight of all business development activities.
Oversee the preparation, negotiation and tracking of proposals and deliver quarterly progress reports to monitor all new corporate activity and progress against targets.
Agree with CEO appropriate KPIs and membership targets to measure success
Engage in direct fundraising tasks, including prospect research, face-to-face and virtual meetings, and proposal writing in order to achieve revenue goals.
Work closely with CEO and research and programmes teams to develop a go to market plan for philanthropic fund raising to support the advancement of ULI’s mission priorities’ related programmes, e.g., ULI C Change and UrbanPlan.
Corporate Account Management
Lead, oversee and support the Corporate Partnerships team in providing first class account management to existing and new Corporate Partnerships.
Personally manage the accounts for key strategic Corporate Partnerships.
Organisational Leadership
Recruit, coach, mentor, develop and retain a growing team of business development and corporate account management professionals.
Collaborate with the SMT in Europe and business development colleagues in the other regions to foster effective alignment among content, meetings, membership, and marketing.
Collaborate and share best practice with teams based in the U.S and Asia Pacific to build towards ULI Global’s growth targets.
Responsible for the reporting and data analysis of key metrics and information on corporate partnerships and individual membership to CEO and Executive Committee of ULI Europe.