The Vice President, Business Development is an entrepreneurial self-starter with exceptional interpersonal and communication skills, and extensive experience developing complex new business strategies for Fortune 100 brands. This individual should have a strong understanding of the digital ecosystem, competitive landscape, and key client decision-makers.
This global role supports new business efforts across our 16 offices. As a senior member of the management team, the VP will lead the new business process from RFI through final presentations and negotiations, shaping both the proposal strategy through to final presentation milestones. We are looking for a new business leader who is comfortable working within our process, interfacing with C-Suite of CM and partner agencies. This person understands the rigor required to be a key pillar in high-performing new business team. The ideal candidate will demonstrate poise, professionalism, and the ability to motivate and guide teams, navigate high-pressure decisions, and deliver solutions on tight deadlines.
The VP, Business Development will lead both Critical Mass solo pitches and inter-agency pitches within Omnicom. Reporting into the SVP, Business Development, with a supporting structure across Directors, Coordinators and a dedicated design and copy team.
You Will:
- Achieve annual revenue targets by successfully closing qualified inbound leads. Focus 70% of effort on running the end-to-end pitch process for CM-only and IAT pitch efforts; and 30% on managing Business Development team members.
- Lead the development of RFP/RFI responses and presentations, shaping the storyline and mobilizing teams to deliver solutions under tight timelines.
- Inspire confidence in team members and effectively guide them through the response process.
- Drive year-over-year topline growth by achieving/exceeding agreed upon revenue targets.
- Bring analytical rigor and strategic discipline to pitch positioning, proposal strategy, and team execution
- Lead both Critical Mass solo pitches and inter-agency pitches within Omnicom.
- Oversee forecasting and reporting on a weekly, quarterly, and monthly basis for the executive team and OMC leadership.
- Understand and internalize Critical Mass’ client criteria to appropriately screen new business opportunities.
- Pitch opportunities that span from AOR, creative experience, media and performance marketing
- Cultivate and maintain relationships with intermediaries to drive inbound lead generation.
- Draw on industry insights, past agency experience, and client needs to help formulate strategy and solutions in collaboration with the team.
- Represent the company at awards and industry events, networking with industry leaders and prospective clients.
- Demonstrate strong intellectual curiosity and a desire to understand and address client pain points.
- Grasp each client’s unique business needs and challenges, developing tailored responses that demonstrate Critical Mass’ understanding.
- Possess strong critical reasoning skills and provide well-reasoned critiques and suggestions on the direction of initiatives, department, company, or specific pitches.
You Have:
- 10+ years of experience in an interactive agency or related service industry; Bachelor’s degree from a four-year college or university.
- Proven track record of developing relationships with key industry players and building partnerships with sophisticated Fortune 100 buyers in the digital marketing space to drive new business for Critical Mass.
- Demonstrated success in meeting or exceeding new business revenue targets.
- Ability to cultivate trust and credibility with peers and maintain strong working relationships across all levels of Critical Mass’ distributed organization.
- Exude polish, professionalism, and executive presence in all client interactions
- Excellent oral and written communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate and succinctly communicate value propositions, strategies, and proposed solutions to clients.
- Experience interfacing with agency C-suite during pitch engagements.
- High emotional intelligence and the ability to read the room is a must for this role.
- Proficiency with AI tools to enhance productivity output
- Demonstrates flexibility, adaptability, diplomacy, and strong work ethic as a collaborative team player
- Thrive in high-pressure pitch environments with tight deadlines and complex stakeholder management
- A focused approach that is buttoned up and detail-oriented while maintaining big-picture strategic thinking
- Strong work ethic as a team-player; results-oriented, flexible, patient, adaptable, persuasive, and diplomatic.
- Experience managing and mentoring staff.
- General management experience, particularly in account management, is a plus.
Our new hires & employees are the future of our organization, and we want to set you up for long-term success. In an effort to do so, we expect our team to work from an office a minimum of 3 days a week.
Critical Mass is an equal opportunity employer.
Critical Mass uses artificial intelligence in our recruitment process to enhance job postings, filter keywords during the review of prospective candidates, and, in some cases, transcribe interviews with our recruiters. Human review remains central to the process, and all hiring decisions are ultimately made by our team.
The Critical Mass Talent Acquisition team will only communicate from email addresses that use the URLs criticalmass.com, omc.com and us.greenhouse-mail.io. We will not use apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or Google Hangouts for communicating with you. We will never ask you to send us money, technology, or anything else to work for our company. If you believe you are the victim of a scam, please review your local government consumer protections guidance and reach out to them directly.
If U.S. based: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/job-scams#avoid
If Canada based: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/finance/consumer-affairs.html
If U.K. based: https://www.gov.uk/consumer-protection-rights
If Costa Rica based: https://www.consumo.go.cr/educacion_consumidor/consejos_practicos.aspx
