The Client
Our client is a long-established and highly profitable B2B services business in Scotland, with a large, loyal customer base built over many years on the strength of reputation, repeat business and referral. They are heavily established in the public sector, with a deep base of stable, long-standing work. Further investment in the business has created real spare capacity, and that headroom is funding a clear next step: investing in proactive business development for the first time. This is not a turnaround or a cold start. It is the chance to build a new commercial engine on top of a business that is already successful, with the credibility, customers and financial backing behind it.
The Role
This is a hands-on, lead-from-the-front role from day one. You will be an individual contributor who wins new private-sector business yourself while building the function around you. The growth play is the private sector, the non-tender-led markets such as finance, utilities, telecoms and data centres. You will sell a service consultatively to large organisations with a genuine, recurring need, and because the commercials are structured around value rather than a fixed price list, the role rewards a commercial mind that enjoys working out where the value sits and shaping the deal accordingly. A core part of the role is putting in place the systems, reporting and best practice the business does not yet have, adapting that expertise to a lean SME rather than imposing an off-the-shelf corporate playbook. The roadmap is clear: a dedicated business development team of three to four people in place by the end of year two, built and led by you. You will report to the Group Sales Director.
The Candidate
You are at your best building something rather than maintaining it, and you lead by example, out in front of the team rather than at a distance. You sell services consultatively, you are comfortable with longer, considered sales cycles and senior stakeholders, and you think commercially about how a deal is put together. You bring structure and best practice, and you are happy to roll your sleeves up in a business without large corporate support functions. Your sector background is open; your approach and commercial thinking are what count.
The Rewards
A salary of circa £80,000 depending on experience, plus a company car or car allowance, and hybrid working in Scotland. From day one you will work closely with, and at peer level to, the owners and directors. For the right person there is a genuine pathway, though not guaranteed at the outset, to equity in the business and a seat on the board as it grows and moves through succession. Success is measured on the growth you create rather than rigid individual targets