Business Development Manager at First Excelsia

Summary

• Our client is seeking a strategic, detail-oriented Business Development Manager (Development Sector) to drive its growth and revenue within the development sector by identifying, securing, and expanding strategic business opportunities.
• The ideal candidate will be responsible for leading the agency's institutional business development function, including market intelligence, donor engagement, partnership development, competitive bidding, proposal management, commercial negotiations, and client growth.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and execute the Agency's Development Sector business development strategy aligned with corporate objectives.
• Identify priority donor agencies, government institutions, multilateral organisations, NGOs, foundations, and development partners.
• Develop pursuit strategies for priority clients and funding opportunities.
• Grow existing accounts through strategic relationship management, cross-selling, and repeat business.
• Provide management with market intelligence, donor trends, pipeline performance, and strategic growth recommendations.
• Lead the preparation and submission of grants, EOIs, RFQs, RFPs, tenders, concept notes, and other competitive proposals.
• Coordinate cross-functional proposal teams to produce high-quality, compliant, and competitive submissions.
• Oversee proposal strategy, quality assurance, pricing coordination, and submission planning.
• Maintain proposal templates, capability statements, organisational profiles, and proposal knowledge assets.
• Build and manage strategic relationships with institutional clients, donor agencies, development partners, and key stakeholders.
• Represent JT Agency at industry engagements, donor meetings, conferences, and networking events.
• Lead client acquisition initiatives while strengthening long-term partnerships that generate repeat business and framework agreements.
• Lead commercial negotiations and support the development of competitive, profitable commercial proposals.
• Coordinate contract review and execution with Legal, Finance, and Operations.
• Support contract implementation through renewals, amendments, extensions, and ongoing commercial relationship management.
• Coordinate the seamless transition of newly awarded projects to implementation teams through structured handover processes.
• Ensure all contractual obligations, deliverables, timelines, budgets, and client expectations are communicated effectively to delivery teams.
• Maintain post-award client engagement to identify additional opportunities for business growth.
• Work closely with Operations, Finance, and Creative teams to maximise client satisfaction and repeat business.
• Support contract renewals, upselling, cross-selling, and account expansion initiatives. 6. Market Intelligence and Business Development Operations
• Monitor donor priorities, procurement pipelines, competitor activity, and emerging market opportunities.
• Maintain accurate CRM records, opportunity tracking, forecasting, and business development documentation.
• Continuously improve business development processes, systems, and knowledge management practices.
• Set priorities, allocate workloads, monitor performance, and build institutional proposal development capability.

Person Specification

• Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration, Marketing, International Development, Public Administration, Economics, Communications, Social Sciences, or a related discipline.
• Minimum of 5–7 years of progressive experience in institutional business development, partnerships, proposal development, grants management, fundraising, or strategic growth, with at least 3 years in a supervisory or team leadership role.
• Demonstrated track record of securing institutional funding, winning competitive bids, negotiating commercial agreements, and achieving revenue growth targets.
• Experience working with donor agencies, multilateral organisations, foundations, government institutions, or international development organisations will be a strong advantage.
• Demonstrated experience coordinating grant applications, donor proposals, procurement submissions, EOIs, RFQs, and RFPs.
• Strong understanding of donor-funded programmes, procurement processes, institutional fundraising, and partnership development.
• Excellent proposal writing, negotiation, stakeholder management, and presentation skills.
• Strong analytical, research, project coordination, and organisational abilities.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite and familiarity with CRM or pipeline management tools will be an advantage.