Corporate BD Lead

Linklaters is a global law firm, providing legal services in 20 countries and through 30 offices.

Linklaters is a people business. Being best in class in the eyes of our clients means that our people must be exceptional.

We look not only for brilliant minds, but for people who will thrive in our environment: people who love working collaboratively and demonstrate the innovative, efficient, agile, entrepreneurial, and responsible mind-set we aim to bring to every interaction.

Ours is an environment of outperformance. We achieve this not with targets and incentives, but by fostering a positive, supportive, fair, and open atmosphere.

We respect and value difference but insist on inclusivity. We celebrate all aspects of diversity and challenge any form of bias. This is vital to our ability to work as one team, with a common goal.

Global BD Lead, Corporate - The role:

Your role will be to lead the global Corporate business development (BD) team. You will play a critical role in building and managing an energised, focused and high-performing global Corporate BD team that drives BD initiatives to support the practice's growth in line with firm strategy. You will oversee BD across multiple specialised subgroups, including Mainstream Corporate/M&A, Antitrust & Foreign Investment Group, Employment and Incentives, Pensions, Tax, Technology, Media and Telecommunications & Intellectual Property (TMT IP).

• Develop and lead the execution of a global business development strategy for Corporate, overseeing all business development activities for this practice and its subgroups.
• Establish close working relationships with partners and other key stakeholders to agree how BD can support the practice in its strategic and go-to-market objectives.
• Drive the execution of BD initiatives and ensure these efforts are in support of the practice's objectives and wider firm strategy.
• Set targets and establish key performance indicators and metrics to track the effectiveness of BD efforts for Corporate and its specialized subgroups.
• Drive the use of product, market and client feedback and insights to help inform and execute the corporate BD strategy.
• Support the global Corporate BD team to work across BD – and across the firm - to identify and drive cross-selling opportunities.
• Support the global Corporate BD team to prioritise efficiently and effectively to ensure ongoing alignment with the firm strategy and the needs of the Corporate practice.
• Work closely with Sector & Client BD teams to drive the practice's profile and growth in relation to priority sectors and market opportunities.
• Work closely with Marketing teams to ensure that client and market engagement strategies and campaigns support the delivery of global Corporate BD priorities.
• Work closely with Pitching teams to ensure that pitches continuously support Corporate to build client relationships and win the right work.
• Ensure the global team is operating efficiently and efficiently, making best use of the firm's systems and processes, working with BDM Operational Excellence and Planning where necessary to support this.
• Lead and develop a high performing global team, driving talent development and fostering a positive and inclusive team culture.

Global BD Lead, Corporate - What we're looking for:

• Strong, extensive experience in a BDM leadership and/or client-centric and partner-facing role
• Long-standing experience of data-driven opportunity spotting, driving profitable revenue and embedding business development best practice
• Client centric mindset focused on relationship growth and the client experience
• Strong understanding and experience of marketing legal products
• Experience leading client feedback conversations with senior clients (General Counsel, Heads of Legal and other senior decision-makers)
• Excellent knowledge of BDM technology and tools, with a good understanding of the impact of future technologies on BD and client analytics and data, and how to use these tools to deliver opportunities.
• Comfortable with data, analytics and creating a compelling data-driven narrative to get buy in from partners
• Evidence of developing measurement strategies, performance metrics, and reporting frameworks to drive growth and focus.
• Possess strong stakeholder management skills, across all levels, internal and external to marketing.
• Collaborative, with a global mindset and experienced in leading global, cross-functional teams

Global BD Lead, Corporate - What's on offer:

This role is based at the Linklaters London office with a hybrid working model available.

Joining Team Linklaters will see you qualify for a range of benefits designed to reward the vital contribution you'll be making to our success. These include:

Health & Wellbeing

• Private Medical Insurance
• Free in-house fitness centre and subsidised health club memberships
• Free onsite GP service and periodic health assessments 

Finance

• Pension and flexible savings options
• Income protection and life assurance
• Mortgage advice and will-writing services

Family & Lifestyle

• Electric car and cycle to work schemes
• Emergency family care
• Additional holiday/birthday leave
• Maternity/paternity/shared parental leave
• Travel insurance and season ticket loan
• Option to join sports and social clubs, as well as our employee networks groups (such as our Gender Equality Network, With Pride, or Social Mobility Networks)

Technical Skills

This list of duties and responsibilities above is not exhaustive.  It is intended to describe the general content of, and requirements for, the performance of this job. As such, the role may also include the undertaking of additional tasks as required.

Application Policy

Applications and CVs (direct or via agency) are only accepted online via the portal. Queries related to our roles must be directed to the relevant recruitment team and not the partners, practices or stakeholders  for legal roles or  for business team roles).