Business Development Manager

The Business Development Manager leads SAWACO's expansion into priority growth platforms including mobile desalination units, high purity water solutions, and Water-as-a-Service models. The role is responsible for identifying, qualifying, developing, and converting strategic opportunities into sustainable revenue streams, long-term contracts, and market partnerships that support SAWACO's growth objectives. This position combines strategic market development, commercial leadership, executive reporting, and cross-functional coordination.

The Business Development Manager is expected to supervise the Sales Manager, shape the medium- and long-term opportunity pipeline, and provide the CEO with clear, well structured reports, business cases, and recommendations that support decision making.

• Build and own SAWACO's strategic opportunity pipeline across mobile desalination, high purity water, Water-as-a-Service, O&M services, and selected new market segments.
• Identify and open new business opportunities with industrial clients, developers, utilities, government entities, EPC contractors, and strategic partners.
• Develop market-entry plans, commercial strategies, and account development plans for target sectors and regions.
• Lead opportunity qualification, customer discovery, solution positioning, commercial evaluation, and business case preparation for new pursuits.
• Structure and pursue long term contracts, recurring revenue models, rental based services, and partnership led growth opportunities.
• Supervise the Sales Manager and ensure alignment between strategic business development priorities and sales execution activities.
• Coordinate with technical, operations, finance, ESG, QHSE, fleet, dispatch, IT, and AI/automation teams to shape feasible and competitive solutions.
• Lead the preparation of high-quality proposals, executive summaries, tender responses, presentations, and internal investment memoranda.
• Prepare concise, decision ready weekly, monthly, and ad hoc reports for the CEO covering pipeline status, market intelligence, commercial risks, opportunity sizing, partnership progress, and recommended actions.
• Monitor market trends, competitor activity, customer demand patterns, and regulatory or infrastructure developments that could affect SAWACO's growth strategy.
• Represent SAWACO in client meetings, commercial negotiations, industry events, and strategic partnership discussions across Saudi Arabia and selected regional markets.
• Maintain disciplined CRM, pipeline forecasting, and opportunity review processes to improve conversion, prioritization, and forecast accuracy.

Bachelor's degree in engineering, business administration, marketing, or a related discipline; MBA preferred.

• CRM
• ERP
• Microsoft Office
• Power BI
• Proposal Development Tools

• Fluent English required
• Arabic preferred

• Practical knowledge of generative AI tools for research, drafting, summarization, market scanning, proposal support, and productivity improvement.
• Fair knowledge of prompting, including how to structure clear inputs, refine outputs, and use AI responsibly while protecting confidential business information.
• Ability to combine human commercial judgment with AI assisted analysis and writing to improve speed, quality, and insight.

• 8-12 years of experience in business development, strategic sales, commercial management, or market expansion roles, preferably in water, utilities, infrastructure, industrial services, or technical solution businesses.
• Proven experience in winning long term contracts, developing strategic partnerships, and opening new revenue streams.
• Strong experience with tenders, proposals, commercial negotiations, and business case development.
• Strong understanding of desalination, water treatment, mobile water systems, high purity water applications, or related industrial utility solutions.

The ideal candidate is a commercially strong and strategically minded business development leader with experience opening new markets and converting complex opportunities into contracts. The person should be credible with customers, disciplined with numbers, confident with executive stakeholders, and capable of translating technical water solutions into compelling commercial value propositions.

The role requires excellent written communication and report writing. The successful candidate should be able to prepare clear CEO level updates, investment notes, commercial justifications, and opportunity assessments with strong structure, sound analysis, and actionable recommendations.