Senior Business Development Manager (m/w/x) Dispute Resolution

About Marketing & Business Development (MBD)

MBD is a dynamic global team which includes business development specialists, research analysts, brand, marketing and communications experts. By working collaboratively, our team shapes the firm’s client strategy, completes analysis of complex business issues, targets opportunities, develops compelling proposals and creates content and marketing campaigns that lead our digital presence. Together, we define the client experience and shape the perception of Freshfields around the globe.

The Dispute Resolution (DR) MBD team leads strategic positioning, visibility, and client service activities for the world’s preeminent Dispute Resolution practice.  Our global dispute resolution team is among the largest and best practices in the world, ranking Band 1 globally by Chambers & Partners and boasting 800+ litigators across 19 offices worldwide.

Role summary

This is a dynamic role requiring excellent teamworking and communication skills as well as the ability to build strong, trusted relationships with partners and senior internal stakeholders (across 12 offices in CE and beyond) and to work collaboratively with brand, marketing, communications, research and other business services across our global firm.

The Senior Business Development Manager will have considerable experience of working for a global firm in a fast-paced, professional, and client-focused environment. The role requires broad experience with legal or other professional services business development activities and initiatives and the know-how to operationalize and execute across the various legal disciplines of a DR practice, multiple practice areas, sectors and geographies. A successful candidate will have specialized expertise in all aspects of business development, such as pitching, marketing/thought leadership campaigns, content or credentials creation, directory submissions, or key account client relationship management. It is intended that any existing specialization or expertise continues to be leveraged significantly within this role and used to coach and mentor colleagues in CE and beyond.

With this context, the role holder will work closely with the ‘Head of’ to lead the Global Business Development team for DR and will:

• Engage with the specific strategic challenges and opportunities for CE DR, then lead the formulation of a focused marketing and business development strategy that strengthens relationships with existing clients, targets and positions the partners to win new work effectively and continues to build the reputation of the firm in CE and beyond
• Be visible, credible and use their strong influencing skills to represent and engage the whole of CE DR (12 offices across 7 countries) in the strategy, then manage associated BD and marketing activities effectively across a wide range of internal and external stakeholders
• Lead the bid strategy including, as appropriate, involvement in the creation of compelling credentials, proposals and pitches, and advising partners on how best to respond to fast turn-around bids, CE DR focused panels or other opportunities to win work for the CE DR practice as the lead or as part of a team, ensuring that opportunities are pursued tenaciously and pitch activity is recorded, tracked and results are reportable via Salesforce
• Oversee the creation of practice group-specific content, campaigns and events and the completion of relevant directory and award submissions to increase engagement with priority clients and enhance the personal brands of leading practitioners, as well as the firm’s global reputation
• Manage the development of the headline marketing campaigns to support the broad dissemination to the market of DR’s proprietary insights, for example the firm’s “mass claims/class actions” campaign, among others
• Leverage their commercial mindset and knowledge of business development best practices, as well as marketing technology and tools e.g. Salesforce to analyze trends, anticipate opportunities to win work and develop existing clients and services, track key relationships, and report on the success of initiatives
• Demonstrate strong people management and leadership skills, with the ability to inspire and drive three direct reports to become a high performing CE DR BD team, as well as coaching and mentoring individuals to support their career and personal development goals
• Build trusted relationships with partners, stakeholders and global colleagues to achieve a ‘one team’ global mindset
• Establish an agile and responsive bespoke service model based on mutual respect and appreciation of skillsets across the team
• Contribute to continuous improvement in the firm’s approach to business development, including setting high expectations of the team to coach, learn from each other and share knowledge, content and data proactively to centralized tools, such as Foundation

Key requirements (skills/experience)

• Educated to degree level, with considerable experience in global professional organizations (preferably legal)
• Deep understanding of how to develop effective go-to-market strategies for compelling proprietary content
• Affinity for leveraging digital tools to reach both broad and targeted audiences
• Strong emotional intelligence, independent thinking and execution, and mature professional judgment
• Excellent teamworking and collaboration skills, with the ability to build strong relationships internally and externally with senior stakeholders, as well as act as a source of guidance for less experienced team colleagues
• Strong multi-tasking and project management skills and demonstrated capabilities to manage multiple deadlines and changing project criteria, and resilience under pressure
• Superior written, presentation and oral communications skills, with demonstrated excellence in grammar and proofreading, as well as the proven ability to create well-crafted drafts of substantive materials, requiring limited editing by senior stakeholders
• Extensive working knowledge of Microsoft Suite software
• Ability to work flexibly in a fast-paced environment with tight deadlines and high expectations
• Natural curiosity and propensity to learn from all experiences; enthusiasm and ability to coach and mentor direct reports into well-rounded business development professionals
• Additional language skills would be of interest – German required.