Client Development Specialist

The Client Development Specialist (CDS) is a sustainability consulting and account-development professional who directly supports 10-15 assigned Account Managers. The CDS helps sustain and grow existing accounts and develop new accounts by coordinating activity, maintaining account and opportunity visibility, and connecting needs with the right Branch Pattern people and resources.

The CDS builds a broad working knowledge of Branch Pattern's services and value so they can represent the firm confidently, ask thoughtful discovery questions, and engage the right technical experts. Account Managers retain ownership of client relationships, account strategy, and key pursuit decisions; the CDS creates leverage through reliable preparation, coordination, follow-through, and CRM discipline.

• Build trusted working relationships with 10-15 assigned Account Managers and understand their portfolios, priorities, opportunities, communication preferences, and support needs.
• Prepare for and support account and client touchpoints with research, agendas, relationship history, talking points, materials, and timely follow-up.
• Capture stakeholder intelligence, commitments, risks, and next steps; maintain action lists and help advance account plans.
• Represent Branch Pattern professionally in introductory conversations, account meetings, networking settings, and conferences; connect client needs to the right services and technical leaders.
• Help identify retention, expansion, cross-service, and new-account opportunities while escalating technical, contractual, or relationship concerns to the appropriate leader.

• Source, qualify, and route leads; coordinate early pursuit activities, internal alignment, schedules, files, milestones, and due dates.
• Work with capture, proposal, marketing, and technical teams to assemble qualifications, collateral, presentations, resumes, and proposal responses.
• Research clients, prospects, stakeholders, competitors, sectors, and potential partners; translate insights into practical account, pursuit, and campaign actions.
• Monitor inputs and deadlines, surface gaps, coordinate post-meeting and post-submission follow-up, and record outcomes and lessons learned.

• Maintain current account, contact, lead, opportunity, milestone, stage, and next-action records in the firm's CRM as the authoritative source.
• Monitor stale or missing information and overdue actions, prompt responsible owners, and prepare practical views of account health, pipeline, and follow-through.
• Coordinate clear ownership, handoffs, and deadlines across Client Development, Marketing, Finance, Operations, and technical teams.
• Use available reporting, collaboration, and AI-enabled tools to improve research, preparation, information organization, and workflow efficiency with appropriate human review.

• Bachelor's degree in sustainability, environmental science, business, marketing, communications, engineering, architecture, construction management, or a related field; or equivalent relevant experience.
• 0-4 years of experience in consulting, client development, business development, account support, sustainability, professional services, or a related field. Relevant internships and project experience count.
• Demonstrated interest in sustainability, the built environment, and helping clients improve outcomes for people, planet, and performance.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, professional presence, and the ability to learn and explain multidisciplinary services while knowing when to involve a technical expert or leader.
• Strong organization, follow-through, attention to detail, and ability to manage multiple Account Managers, accounts, deadlines, and priorities.
• A relationship-oriented, service-minded working style with the ability to listen, ask good questions, build trust, and collaborate across levels and disciplines.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office and collaboration tools; willingness to learn CRM, project-information, workflow, and AI-enabled tools.

• Experience or coursework related to sustainability consulting, architecture, engineering, construction, real estate, energy, building science, or professional services.
• Experience with CRM or business-development systems such as Deltek Vantagepoint, Open Asset, Salesforce, or comparable platforms.
• Experience supporting account plans, proposals, qualifications,…