Business Development Lead (Social Value)
Remote role. Salary £85-90K plus bonus plus benefits
Purpose of the Role
The Business Development Lead is a senior, strategic role focused on market presence, influence, and opportunity creation. This role exists to ensure our Client is deeply embedded in the conversations, networks, and partnerships that shape the future of social value, procurement, Corporate ESG, and impact measurement.
You will act as our Clients' outward-facing connector, maintaining a constant pulse on regulatory change, sector maturity, and emerging demand, while building high-value relationships that translate into long-term growth opportunities. Success in this role is defined by influence, insight, and strategic optionality, rather than quota attainment.
This role is ideal for someone who is naturally networked, intellectually curious, and commercially astute, able to spot where the market is heading before it becomes obvious, and positions our Client accordingly.
Key Responsibilities
Market Visibility & Positioning
- Maintain a deep, real-time understanding of the social value, procurement, and ESG landscape, including regulatory change, policy direction, competitor activity, and sector level maturity.
- Represent our Client at conferences, roundtables, industry forums, advisory groups, and working groups, building credibility and visibility at senior levels.
- Contribute to our Clients' thought leadership agenda, including articles, insight pieces, webinars, and trend analysis that shape market conversations.
- Proactively identify opportunities for our Client to lead, convene, or meaningfully contribute to sector wide discussions and initiatives.
Partnership Development
- Identify, secure, and manage strategic partnerships with consultancies, membership bodies, framework providers, technology partners, and other ecosystem actors.
- Develop collaborative propositions that extend our Clients' reach, strengthen its value proposition, and open new routes to market.
- Build and manage long-term partner relationships, ensuring clarity of purpose, mutual value, and sustained engagement.
- Act as a strategic point of contact for partners, ensuring our Client remains a partner of choice within the ecosystem.
Network Engagement
- Build and nurture relationships with public sector bodies, procurement leaders, social value specialists, policymakers, and senior corporate stakeholders.
- Embed our Client within the networks that shape policy, guidance, and best practice around social value and procurement reform.
- Act as a trusted, credible presence in senior level forums across the sector
Opportunity Creation & Emerging Markets
- Identify early indicators of growth opportunities driven by legislation, policy change, or sector evolution.
- Support expansion into emerging markets, including new industries, international opportunities, or adjacent ESG and compliance-driven sectors.
- Provide structured market insight to inform go-to-market strategies for new products or verticals.
Work Winning & Strategic Responses
- Lead our Clients' approach to RFIs, RFQs, and tenders, ensuring opportunities are shaped early and responses are strategically positioned and differentiated.
- Coordinate internal teams (Product, Consulting, Sales, Leadership) to deliver high-quality, coherent submissions for priority opportunities.
- Own opportunity qualification, guiding where our Client invests time and resource based on strategic fit and likelihood of success.
- Translate market insight and client context into clear win themes, narratives, and propositions.
- Ensure responses consistently articulate our Clients' value, credibility, and market leadership.
- Capture learning from bid outcomes and feed insight back into positioning, product, and future work-winning strategy.
Internal Collaboration
- Feed high-quality market intelligence into Product, Marketing, Consulting, and Sales teams.
- Support cross-functional initiatives that depend on partnerships, visibility, or external engagement.
- Work closely with Sales on partner-generated leads and strategic opportunities, maintaining clear role distinction
Experience & Capability
- Experience in business development, partnerships, stakeholder engagement, or ecosystem development—ideally within SaaS, impact tech, public sector, procurement, or ESG-related markets.
- Strong understanding of social value in the UK public procurement context.
- Strong working knowledge of UK public procurement processes and requirements.
- A good technical understanding of social value and social impact measurement.
- Experience supporting or leading tendering, RFIs, RFQs, or strategic proposals within regulated or compliance-led markets.
- Proven ability to identify and leverage emerging trends, networks, and market opportunities.
- Experience representing an organisation externally at events, panels, or sector groups.
- Exposure to impact measurement, sustainability, ESG, or compliance-driven markets.
Personal Attributes
- Exceptionally well-connected, with a natural instinct for staying ahead of market developments.
- Proactive connector and relationship builder with strong professional credibility and a wide professional network.
- Strategic thinker who can anticipate change and recognise opportunity early.
- Confident, engaging communicator at senior and executive levels.
- Self-starter who thrives in an agile, fast-paced scale-up environment.
- Highly collaborative, enjoying cross-functional working and shared ownership.
- Genuine passion for social value, impact, and responsible business.