About us
CF is a leading consultancy dedicated to making an enduring positive impact on health and healthcare. Our purpose is to make a lasting, positive difference to health and healthcare. Our mission is to be invaluable to our clients, supporting them to innovate and make lasting improvements — and to build an exceptional company that attracts, develops and retains a trusted team.
CF serves the entire healthcare sector — from health systems, life sciences companies, and health tech to investors and the voluntary sector. Our Life Sciences practice helps pharma, biotech, and medtech clients drive rapid adoption of innovation, enabled by our deep health systems expertise and unmatched access to health data. We combine rigorous analytical problem-solving with genuine knowledge of how health systems work — not as an external observer, but as trusted advisors who work with NHS leaders and life sciences companies from the same integrated team.
As an inclusive and values-driven organisation, we are committed to excellence. With unmatched access to UK healthcare data and specialist data science expertise, our consultants are a driving force for enduring, positive change.
About the role
CF is seeking a Business Development Manager for its Life Sciences practice. Our practice is built on cultivating relationships grounded in trust, combined with demonstrating genuine insight into clients' challenges. Business development at CF is both relational and substantive: it requires the ability to engage as a peer with senior client stakeholders, combined with domain expertise, structured thinking, and collaborative problem solving.
We do not use outbound origination and prospecting. But you will only succeed in this role if you enjoy meeting new people, taking initiative, and working as a team to pursue a set of proactive priorities and to respond with agility to inbound requests.
The BD Manager works alongside the practice's Managing Partner and Director as a domain-expert contributor — deepening client relationships, shaping bespoke propositions, and ensuring that CF's intellectual offer reaches the people who need it most. This is a player-manager role. The BD Manager has line management responsibility for two roles: the BD Consultant (a CF consultant on rotation into business development) and the BD Digital and AI-Enabled Intelligence Coordinator (a role shared with the Health Investing practice). The BD Manager leads by example rather than by delegation alone — remaining personally active in client relationships, proposal development, and thought leadership, while directing, supporting, and developing a small team. It demands someone who can contribute to client conversations as a credible expert, develop compelling proposals, build CF's presence in the life sciences market, and bring out the best in the people around them.
The practice
CF's Life Sciences practice serves pharma, biotech, and medtech clients across three core service lines:
Accelerating the adoption of innovation — supporting clients to embed products and innovations in health systems, with a focus on market access, launch strategy, and adoption pathways
Data, Digital, AI and Evidence — leveraging CF's unmatched access to NHS data, real-world evidence capability, and health analytics expertise to generate insights that drive commercial and clinical decisions
Policy and Influencing — shaping the conditions in which innovations succeed through evidence-based engagement with regulators, HTA bodies, health systems, data infrastructure and government
Our clients include market access leads, medical affairs directors, commercial strategy heads, and health economics functions — alongside critical roles in regulators and health systems related to regulation, policy, and engagement with life sciences.
CF's distinctive proposition is to drive and prove the uptake of population health medicines: partner with the health system to lift adoption, measure the effect end to end with CF's access to data, and publish it. This rests on an inside-out understanding of health systems and on leveraging data, digital and AI, focused on population health, where a triple win exists of better outcomes, lower system costs and stronger returns for life sciences. The agreed direction is to shift increasingly from the UK to the global level and to engage earlier in the product life cycle. We are seeking to be at the forefront of efforts to integrate our rich access to data and use of AI, becoming a disruptor in the market.
Requirements
What you will do
1. Build and sustain client relationships
The primary purpose of this role is to cultivate the relationships that lead to consulting engagements. CF's model is relational and collaborative — engagements are earned through demonstrated expertise and genuine understanding of client challenges. You will:
Maintain and develop a portfolio of senior relationships across priority pharma, biotech, and medtech accounts, with a focus on market access, medical affairs, and commercial functions
Engage clients in genuine problem-solving conversations — bringing insight, asking the right questions, and helping clients to articulate challenges that CF is positioned to address
Support the practice leadership in preparing for and following up on client meetings, ensuring that every interaction advances the relationship
Represent CF at industry events, conferences, and roundtables — contributing intellectually, not just attending
Identify emerging opportunities and bring them to the practice leadership with a clear view of relevance and potential approach
2. Lead proposition and proposal development
Working alongside the Director and BD Consultant, you will play an active and substantive role in developing CF's propositions and proposals. This is collaborative intellectual work. You will:
Contribute domain knowledge and client insight to proposal development — helping to frame the problem correctly and ensure the proposed approach is grounded in clinical and commercial reality
Draft and review proposal content, particularly on context, requirements, and strategic framing, where healthcare and life sciences depth matters most
Shape bespoke propositions for target clients, drawing on knowledge of their therapeutic areas, pipeline, and market access challenges
Quality-assure proposals before submission, ensuring they are coherent, appropriately positioned, and reflective of CF's distinctive offer
3. Manage the commercial pipeline and client intelligence
You will maintain a clear and current view of CF's commercial pipeline and the external market landscape, using tools and digital platforms to make this efficient and insight-rich. You will:
Own the BD pipeline, ensuring every active opportunity has a clear owner, status, and next step, and — with support from the Coordinator — maintaining the underlying tracker and keeping records current
Draw on intelligence sources — including LinkedIn Sales Navigator monitoring, account tracking, and personnel change alerts — to identify engagement moments and ensure the practice leadership acts on them promptly
Prepare pipeline review materials and briefings for the weekly BD meeting, drawing out the key decisions and actions required
Review any RFP and procurement intelligence surfaced by the Coordinator, make pursuit recommendations to the Managing Partner, and ensure the team responds to relevant opportunities at pace
Hold the Coordinator accountable for CRM quality, and ensure account records support genuine strategic planning — not just administrative logging
4. Build thought leadership and market presence
CF's market presence is built on intellectual credibility. Thought leadership — white papers, insight articles, conference contributions, and policy commentary — is both a reputation asset and a direct source of client engagement. You will:
Identify thought leadership opportunities aligned to CF's service lines and target audiences, and work with the practice leadership to shape and develop content
Contribute substantively to the development of insight pieces — bringing analytical depth and sector knowledge
Ensure thought leadership is deployed effectively: targeted to the right audiences, published in the right channels, and followed up with direct client engagement
Monitor and synthesise sector developments — including regulatory changes, NICE decisions, NHS England priorities, and pharma pipeline announcements — and translate them into commercial intelligence for the practice leadership.
5. Lead, develop, and direct the BD team
The BD Manager has line management responsibility for the BD Consultant (on rotation) and the BD Digital and AI-Enabled Intelligence Coordinator. Both require direction, clear priorities, and active development rather than close supervision. You will:
Set clear priorities and workplans for both team members, ensuring their time is focused on the activities most likely to advance client relationships and drive pipeline conversion
Support the BD Consultant's professional development, providing coaching on proposal development, client engagement, and analytical problem-solving consistent with CF's approach
Direct the Coordinator's digital, intelligence, and pipeline activities, ensuring outputs are timely, accurate, and integrated into the BD operating rhythm
Embed AI tools across the team's working practices — setting expectations, modelling use, and ensuring both team members are building genuine capability in enterprise tools including Claude and Microsoft Copilot
Conduct regular one-to-ones, provide honest and constructive feedback, and actively support both team members' development in line with CF's commitment to attracting and retaining exceptional people
6. Support the BD operating rhythm
The practice runs a structured BD rhythm: weekly pipeline reviews, monthly steering committee, quarterly planning. You will keep this functioning effectively. You will:
Prepare agendas, materials, and action logs for pipeline meetings and steering groups
Coordinate BD activity across the team, including the BD Consultant, ensuring effort is focused on the highest-priority opportunities
Track and report on BD performance, identifying where win rates, conversion, or pipeline coverage need attention
Embed AI tools into the BD operating model, using enterprise tools including Claude and Microsoft Copilot to automate synthesis, drafting, and intelligence tasks, and actively champion their use across the team
7. Ensure commercial governance and compliance
The BD Manager is accountable for the commercial integrity of the practice, owning the standards and executing tasks personally when needed, as well as ensuring the team delivers against them. You will:
Ensure all bids and proposals are compliant with both client requirements and CF's internal policies, including pricing governance, discount authorisation, and resourcing standards. The Managing Partner will sign off before submission
Own costing tables and fee schedules for Life Sciences engagements, ensuring accuracy, consistency with CF rate card policy, and appropriate sign-off from the Managing Partner on exceptions
Ensure contracts and purchase orders are in place before work commences, and that invoicing is accurate, timely, and tracked, working with the EA and finance function to resolve issues promptly
Produce the Life Sciences annual business plan, translating the practice strategy into priorities, targets, and quarterly milestones, drawing on market intelligence, and working in collaboration with the Managing Partner and Director
Run the monthly Life Sciences steering committee, setting the agenda, ensuring data and pipeline reporting prepared by the Coordinator is accurate and decision-ready, chairing the meeting, and tracking actions through to completion
Maintain oversight of win rate and pipeline conversion, identifying patterns — whether in bid quality, client fit, or competitive positioning — and driving continuous improvement in how the practice competes
What we are looking for
The following sets out what this role requires against CF's competency framework. For each competency we describe what it means specifically for this role at this level.
1. Commercial drive
Takes personal responsibility for contributing to CF's commercial success. This role carries direct accountability for pipeline conversion, win rate, and revenue growth — these are measurable outcomes, not background considerations. The BD Manager thinks entrepreneurially about where CF can create value for clients, maintains persistence and a learning orientation in the face of inevitable losses, and continuously looks for ways to strengthen the practice's competitive position.
2. Problem solving
Able to work through complex, incomplete commercial and client problems and provide clear guidance on the way forward. In this role, problem solving means helping clients articulate challenges, framing the right question before proposing an approach, and structuring propositions that address root causes rather than symptoms. Prior experience in strategy consulting, market access, HEOR, medical affairs, or health policy — environments where rigorous, evidence-based problem solving is the norm — is essential.
3. Teamwork
Works effectively as part of the practice leadership team alongside the Managing Partner and Director, sharing knowledge generously and contributing to a collaborative working culture. As a player-manager, the BD Manager also builds a high-performing small team — the BD Consultant and Coordinator — by working alongside them, not just above them. The ability to work independently and contribute effectively in a team, including with senior colleagues and clients, is essential.
4. Continuous learning
Always seeking to deepen expertise and stay current in a fast-moving sector. The BD Manager is expected to monitor regulatory developments, NICE decisions, NHS England priorities, pharma pipeline activity, and AI tool advances — and to translate that learning into better propositions and sharper client conversations. The ability to learn actively from colleagues, embrace new tools, and contribute to CF's collective knowledge is a genuine expectation of this role.
5. Sector expertise
Deep, practical knowledge of the life sciences sector — how pharma commercial, market access, and medical affairs functions operate; how, in the UK, NICE, NHS England and the MHRA — and, for the EU and Canada, the EMA and national HTA bodies — shape the adoption environment; and how health data and real-world evidence are used in commercial and policy decisions. This expertise must be genuine and demonstrable: the BD Manager needs to engage as a peer with senior client stakeholders, not as a facilitator. A clinical, scientific, or health economics background is strongly preferred. Familiarity with NHS data infrastructure is desirable.
6. Client relationships
Creates authentic relationships based on honesty, reliability, and genuine care for client success. CF's model is built on trust earned over time through intellectual credibility and consistent follow-through — not on transactional outreach. The BD Manager must be confident and credible in senior stakeholder environments, able to build trust quickly and sustain relationships across long sales cycles. Every client interaction is recognised as an opportunity to build CF's reputation and create future opportunities.
7. Managing delivery
Makes things happen in practice. In this role, managing delivery means owning the commercial governance of the practice — ensuring bids are compliant, costings are accurate, contracts and invoices are in place, and the annual business plan and steering committee are run to a high standard. It also means building the capability of the BD team, maintaining momentum across multiple concurrent opportunities, and being results- and outcome-focused rather than activity-focused.
8. Data and AI literacy
Comfortable using data and evidence to inform commercial decisions — interpreting pipeline data critically, asking good analytical questions, and combining quantitative information with sound judgement. Actively uses AI tools to improve the quality and efficiency of BD work: this means demonstrated, practical fluency with enterprise tools including Claude and Microsoft Copilot, not theoretical familiarity. The BD Manager is also expected to champion AI adoption across the BD team and help embed it as a standard working practice.
9. Communication
Communicates in CF's register: straightforward, jargon-free, and authentic — real people solving real problems. Strong written capability is essential: proposals, thought leadership pieces, client correspondence, and internal briefings must all be clear, well-structured, and of a professional consultancy standard. Equally important is the ability to present and communicate compellingly in person — in client meetings, at conferences, and in senior internal forums.
10. Sector influence
Builds a reputation as a respected voice in health and life sciences — with relationships across the sector that open doors and create opportunities for CF and its clients. The BD Manager is expected to develop visible expertise in a defined area (such as market access, real-world evidence, or a specific therapeutic domain) through published thought leadership, conference participation, and professional engagement. This profile is a CF asset, not a personal one, and should be built deliberately and consistently.
11. Business growth
Leads strategic growth initiatives, develops new client relationships, and contributes to CF's position as the leading specialist health consultancy in its chosen markets. This means identifying where CF can create genuine value, building the propositions and relationships that convert to engagements, and maintaining resilience and a learning orientation when bids are lost. The BD Manager treats every loss as intelligence and every win as a foundation to build on.
12. Building an exceptional company
Takes responsibility for developing CF's people, culture, and capabilities. As line manager to the BD Consultant and Coordinator, the BD Manager invests genuinely in their growth — providing honest feedback, creating development opportunities, and building a team that is stronger over time. This is the second part of CF's mission in action: building an exceptional company that attracts, develops, and retains uniquely talented people.
How this role sits in the team
The BD Manager reports to the Managing Partner for Life Sciences and has direct line management responsibility for two roles: the BD Consultant (a CF management consultant on rotation into Life Sciences business development, typically for six to twelve months) and the BD Digital and AI-Enabled Intelligence Coordinator (a role shared with the Health Investing practice). The BD Manager works in close daily collaboration with the Director on proposal development and client strategy. The EA supports across the practice on logistics and administration. This is a player-manager role: the BD Manager is expected to contribute directly and substantially to client relationships and propositions, while also directing, developing, and supporting the team beneath them.
CF values
CF's four values — Be Connected, Uphold Standards, Inspire Change, and Create the Future — are not aspirational statements. They reflect how we work. For this role, Be Connected is particularly central. CF's ability to have enduring positive impact on health and healthcare depends on the quality of relationships our people build and sustain. We are known and trusted because we show up with depth, honesty, and a genuine commitment to the challenges our clients face.
Benefits