Business Development Director

💵 Base salary $135,000–$185,000 depending on experience, plus a performance-related bonus, on a full-time basis  
🌴 Los Angeles-based (or within easy reach), with remote-first working and regular in-person client relationship building  
🏖️ 33 days paid time off and benefits
✨ A senior commercial role working with globally recognisable brands across US entertainment, media, streaming, fandom, social and content  
🚀 A rare opportunity to shape the next stage of Storm Ideas as an AI-native entertainment agency  
💻 High-end, fast computer and all the latest software, AI tools and productivity tools you will need 

Who We Are

At Storm Ideas, we work with some of the biggest names in US entertainment. Since 2008, our international team has helped major entertainment, media and content-led businesses build stronger relationships with audiences through strategy, social, creative production, community, operations, products and technology. 

Our work sits at the intersection of entertainment, fandom, content, technology and operations. Storm is an entertainment agency for the AI era: combining deep social, content and audience expertise with practical AI capability. We help clients make excellent work today, while redesigning the teams, workflows and operations they need as AI reshapes the industry.  

We practise what we sell: we have transformed how Storm itself operates for the AI era, with agentic tools, shared context and AI-native workflows woven into everyday work. You will be stepping into an environment most agencies are still only talking about — and we want someone who finds that thrilling, and who can't wait to turn it into a business development advantage. 

Storm is headquartered in the UK, with an international, remote-first team and a client base centred on US entertainment. Our growth to date has been relationship-led by our founders and senior team — we have never had dedicated sales staff. This role is our first: a senior commercial lead who will turn everything above into a clear, disciplined and repeatable growth system in the US market. 
About the Role

This is a senior business development and commercial leadership role, based in or within easy reach of Los Angeles. 

The role is not a generic sales-rep role. We are not looking for someone to run a high-volume SaaS playbook or sell from a fixed menu of services. Storm sells trust, judgement, creativity, operational capability and transformation expertise. Our best opportunities are not one-off projects, but agency-of-record and always-on partnerships for organic social. That kind of work is won on strategy, trust and proof built over time.  

You will own the commercial system that helps Storm create, capture and convert opportunities: opening new relationships, accessing new rooms inside large entertainment clients, activating our existing network, qualifying carefully, coordinating senior Storm leaders into the right conversations, shaping pitches and proposals, and keeping the whole pipeline visible, disciplined and moving. A small AI-first marketing team will report to you, producing the research, content, proof and materials the commercial system needs — they exist to keep you selling. 

If you are looking for a role where the brief is already neat, the proposition is static and the sales process is already mature, this is not it. This role is for someone who can help build the commercial operating system while also doing the senior relationship work. 
 

What You'll Make Happen

• Build and lead Storm's commercial growth system for the US entertainment market, with a strong focus on Los Angeles-based studios, streamers, networks, platforms, franchises and entertainment brands
• Create a clear named-account strategy across priority client ecosystems, prospects, former clients, warm-path relationships, partners, intermediaries and referral sources 
• Open new rooms inside large existing client organisations by mapping stakeholders, departments, title groups, franchises, budget owners and sponsor paths 
• Take Storm's AI transformation offer to market: qualify where there is practical operational pain, sell the bounded diagnostic entry engagement, and grow programmes from the evidence it produces 
• Turn Storm's existing senior relationships into a deliberate commercial rhythm, with clear next steps, follow-up, account maps and opportunity ownership 
• Qualify opportunities with strong judgement, including strategic fit, budget, urgency, senior sponsorship, delivery feasibility, margin and cultural fit 
• Lead or coordinate early-stage diagnostic conversations that uncover client problems, commercial context, operational pain points and possible routes into paid work 
• Own the CRM and pipeline discipline for commercial growth, making sure opportunities, contacts, rooms, next steps, forecasts and risks are visible and current 
• Lead and direct our AI-first marketing team: set their commercial priorities, direct their research, content, proof and collateral output, and hold the quality bar 
• Manage the pitch and proposal flow, including RFPs, credentials conversations, proposal narratives, pitch timelines, internal contributors, follow-ups and post-pitch learning 
• Work with Storm's senior leadership and specialists to shape compelling proposals, workshops, diagnostics, retainers, pilots and larger transformation programmes 
• Represent Storm externally as a credible commercial ambassador in LA, including industry events, private meetings, client networking, partner conversations and selective roundtables 
• Build relationships with relevant agency search consultants, procurement contacts, platform partners, AI and martech partners, and other routes into entertainment clients 
• Bring market intelligence back into Storm: what clients are asking for, what clients are changing around AI, where budgets are moving, where buyers are cautious, and where our proposition needs sharper proof 
• Protect Storm from poor-fit opportunities, unfocused pitches, underpriced work and sales activity that creates delivery risk 
• Over time, recommend what additional commercial, marketing, partnerships or sales-ops support should be hired around the role 

YOUR EXPERTISE

You are likely to have: 

• Significant business development, growth or commercial experience in an agency, entertainment, media or adjacent environment 
• Existing relationships or credible access within the Los Angeles entertainment, media, marketing or agency ecosystem 
• Experience leading or contributing to pitches, proposals, RFPs, credentials meetings, SOWs and commercial negotiations 
• Evidence that you can understand bespoke services like ours — strategy, social, content, creative production and AI transformation — and a genuine appetite to engage with them deeply 
• AI already in your day-to-day work, and real curiosity about what it can do for a role like this — you don't need to be an expert, but you need to want to learn 

Who You Are

• Relentlessly high-agency: you're driven, you see possibility where others see blockers, and you turn uncertainty into momentum 
• Commercially sharp: you instinctively weigh value, fit and margin, and you care about revenue that's actually worth winning 
• Perceptive: you read people, rooms and politics quickly, and sense what really matters 
• Seller-first: selling is the mission — everything else you build exists to serve it 
• Technically minded: you're joining an AI-forward company with technical DNA, and you're at home in that world 
• A charismatic and rigorous communicator: you bring presence and warmth to senior rooms, and clarity and thoroughness to everything you share with your own team 

What It's Like To Work Here

Modern Tech Stack 

We use current tools, hardware, AI systems and working methods across our teams. You will be expected to use AI and modern commercial tools thoughtfully to improve the quality and pace of your work. 

Ideas Welcome, Always 

We actively encourage people to bring forward ideas that improve how the company works. This role is expected to shape the commercial system, not simply follow an inherited one. 

Fast, Agile, Adaptive 

We move quickly, make decisions pragmatically and adapt as tools, clients and opportunities change. 

Team-based 

This is a senior commercial role, but not a solo act. You will lead a small commercial support team and work with Storm's senior leadership, account management, marketing, creative, AI operations and delivery specialists to create and convert the right opportunities. 

Remote-First and International 

Storm is a remote-first company with an international team. For this role, we expect Los Angeles presence to matter: client meetings, events, networking and market access will be a meaningful part of the job. 

RECRUITMENT PROCESS

• Application with your resume — a short intro note is welcome but not required 
• Online video questions for shortlisted candidates, focused on your commercial judgement, relationship-led selling experience and interest in Storm's AI-native direction 
• First interview with Storm's senior leadership to discuss the role, our commercial context and your relevant experience 
• A short practical exercise relevant to the role, followed by an interview with senior leadership including task discussion 
• Final interview with a member of Storm's senior leadership 

Not sure if you tick every box? Apply anyway if the core of this role feels like work you have genuinely done, or work you are ready to own at a senior level. 

Storm Ideas is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate difference and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. 

Storm Ideas will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance and California law.