Business Development Manager

ARK is a social enterprise, empowering local communities through the provision of agile and sustainable interventions to create greater stability, opportunity, and hope for the future.

We believe that strong, resilient communities are the foundation of local, national, regional and international development and stability – and ultimately a safer, peaceful and more prosperous world. At ARK, we have delivered research and programmatic interventions validating this approach in over twenty countries since 2008. As a social enterprise we work in partnership with communities, our donors, and other implementers to build local capacities, generate opportunity and bring about sustainable change.

• A fantastic opportunity to work in a company that demonstrably delivers social impact.
• Flexible working – this is a hybrid role. You will be supporting the team remotely but must be able to travel occasionally to ARK regional offices.
• Employee benefits such as comprehensive group medical and life insurance.
• Leave entitlement of 25 working days a year, as well as the usual UK bank holidays.

PURPOSE OF POSITION:

The purpose of this position is to lead ARK’s business development efforts. This includes managing project and proposal design and drafting, opportunity tracking, partner identification and engagement, competitor analysis, client engagement and strategy development.

The role is responsible for bid prioritisation, coordinating resources for bids and ensuring the coherence of all tender submissions. You will also develop high quality cross-cutting content and processes for business development and work closely with ARK’s technical leads to ensure ARK stays at the cutting edge of the sector.

You will work to improve the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of ARK’s BD activity by directly contributing to tender submissions and mobilising team members and external resources to work on identified opportunities. The role will require for you to work closely with the senior leadership team to prioritise opportunities and ensure adequate resources are allocated to our responses.

The Business Development Manager will manage the BD lessons learning process, driving continuous improvement of ARK’s BD activities. You will be responsible for winning new projects by leveraging your successful track record in a previous BD or senior development sector role, innate understanding of our clients’ requirements, and ability to write clearly and compellingly.

You will also work closely with ARK’s senior leadership team to develop our commercial strategy including developing our commercial offer and positioning within the market. You will routinely scan relevant BD portals and frameworks to proactively identify new opportunities that align with ARK’s values and capabilities and will build relationships with new donors and partners identified.

The role would ideally be based in London (other locations can be considered) with the requirement for occasional overseas travel.

About you

You have a proven track record of successfully winning new projects in a previous BD role in the development, stabilisation or security sector and have some knowledge and experience in one of ARK’s technical areas of expertise. You enjoy successfully building effective relationships with stakeholders from a wide range of professional and cultural backgrounds, and working effectively in politically sensitive and challenging environments.

You are proactive, well organised, enjoy working as part of a close-knit team, and are genuinely committed to achieving lasting change for the beneficiaries we serve. You have strong analytical skills, are able to understand complex problems quickly and write clearly and compellingly in English.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Opportunity tracking: The selected candidate will work with ARK’s senior leadership and Operations Team to identify framework and related business development opportunities. The candidate will monitor framework call-down requests, expressions of interest and terms of reference for potential projects and keep up-to-date with all developments on government frameworks and other market developments, include partner…