Business Development Manager

Business Development Managers at Code and Theory are the beating heart of the business development process. They are thoughtful, organized, proactive, and curious – never afraid to try something new and always eager to improve. This role has unprecedented exposure to agency leadership teams and will be directly responsible for shepherding opportunities from initial outreach and qualification through to closure.

We’re looking for a polished communicator who has an opinion about what the markets are doing. This person needs to be a relationship builder, a connector (internally and externally), and genuinely interested in the work we do for our clients.

While Business Development Managers oversee the proposal and pitch process, they work closely with cross-disciplinary teams including, but not limited to, Strategy, Design, and Technology. This role will have the full support of the Business Development Team, including the CGO, Director, Associate Director, and Coordinator. 

WHAT YOU’LL DO:

• Act as primary client liaison from initial qualification to closure for opportunities under 5MM in initial expected revenue, involving discipline and agency leadership when appropriate
• Lead multi-functional teams, including strategy, design, and tech, and collaborate closely with agency leadership, during the pitch efforts for opportunities that will result in 5MM+ annual revenue
• Oversee our pipeline of new business, including potential revenue analysis and all delivery milestones
• Lead opportunity qualification efforts, evaluating the creative and business potential and develop a recommendation for how best to proceed
• Uncover and synthesize the information that is relevant to a proposal or pitch effort, including that which is provided by the client in the form of RFPs and briefing documents, along with the additional color that comes as a result of initial conversations
• Utilize those initial conversations as opportunities to establish Code and Theory's strategic perspectives, and introduce prospective clients to the agency, its work, and its differentiators
• Collaborate with production teams to align on a proposed level-of-effort analysis that balances client budgets with what is realistic for successful delivery
• Collaborate with the Business Development Coordinator and cross-department leaders on the creation and evolution of proposal and marketing materials
• Lead the proposal creation effort, as well as that of any prospective materials or supplementary deliverables that may be necessary to successfully close opportunities (working under the direction of the CGO)
• Collaborate with CGO on outbound new business strategy, including key opportunities, targets, and messaging approach

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

• Experience within an agency environment, ideally within a business development, production, account services, or similar function. 
• Refined written, verbal, and in-room communication skills.
• Ability to establish process, project manage multiple workstreams, and organize deliverables.
• The proven ability to unearth and understand the business needs of our clients, and to align those needs with the perspectives, services, and the strategic processes for which Code and Theory is known.
• A strong interest in user-centric design and innovative consumer marketing. 
• A strong interest as well in the business-driven imperatives that drive the evolution of companies which seek agency services, across sectors as diverse as Publishing, Finance, CPG, Healthcare, E-Commerce, Travel, and Government.
• An affinity for cultivating relationships, and for the consultative sales process. An understanding of pipeline management and revenue forecasting. 
• A strategic thinker with experience mobilizing and leading creative and technical teams, contributing to and refining the efforts of the group as a whole.
• A maker mentality and the skills (both technical and creative) to create and improve upon agency-wide sales and marketing materials. 
• The ability to draft and refine proposal language, editing for clarity while retaining strategic nuance and technical specificity.

ABOUT US

Code and Theory is a digital-first creative agency that lives at the intersection of creativity and technology, which enables us to work across the entire end-to-end customer journey. We pride ourselves on not only solving consumer and business problems, but also helping to establish new capabilities for our clients.

Since 2001, we have helped redefine the publishing landscape, working with over 145 publishers in the process, while helping to create the first and second generation of digital-first publishers. Striving to never be pigeonholed, today we work across every major category, from tech to CPG, financial services to travel & hospitality, government and education, and partner with leading brands and startups alike, including adidas, Amazon, CNN, Con Edison, Estee Lauder, J.P. Morgan Chase, MARS, NBC, Samsung, Spotify, TikTok, and Xerox. 

Code and Theory has a dedicated healthcare practice, eponymously named Code And Theory Health, focused on driving category innovation as we've done for other industries over the past two decades, working with clients such as Pfizer, J&J and Bioreference Laboratories. 

The Code and Theory global network of agencies is growing and includes Kettle, Mediacurrent, Rhythm, and TrueLogic. Collectively, our team is comprised of nearly 1000 strategists, technologists, designers, analysts, and content creators, and with a remote-first approach to offices, we are distributed across North America, South America, Europe and Asia.

Code and Theory is an equal opportunity employer, and we value diversity at our company. DE&I at Code and Theory isn’t just an industry concept that we support, for us it is a mandate and a practice that we weave into everything we do, and everything we make, every single day.