Business Development Specialist

Position Summary: The Business Development Specialist provides integrated support across market research, pursuit coordination, inside sales activities, and CRM/data management. This role supports early client positioning efforts by surfacing actionable client intelligence, building and maintaining target lists, coordinating SOQs/RFQs, and enabling BD leaders with clean data and clear insights. Working closely with Business Development, Marketing, and Market Champions within the sector, the Specialist supports pipeline visibility, qualification, and early engagement while reinforcing consistent business development engagement practices across sectors and service areas.

Key Responsibilities:

• Maintains priority client plans and contact maps; researches capital programs, upcoming procurements, funding sources (municipal bonds, federal/state grants), and long-range facility planning.
• Tracks procurement portals, vendor systems, industry calendars, and publications; flags Go/No-Go opportunities early and coordinates internal notifications.
• Gathers and organizes differentiator information, teaming opportunities, relationship pathways, and competitive intelligence to support early client positioning and pursuit preparation activities.
• Supports use of client experience insights by surfacing relationship feedback, pursuit learnings, and client priorities to assist BD leaders in engagement planning and opportunity evaluation.
• Researches potential cross-service opportunities and supports coordinated client engagement discussions across sectors, practices, and solution areas by aligning firm services with documented client needs.
• Builds and verifies contact lists for owners, developers, general contractors, subconsultants, PM/CM firms, and facility stakeholders.
• Launches and monitors outbound outreach sequences; tailors messaging by market sector and delivery method (Design-Bid-Build, CMAR, Design-Build, PPP).
• Qualifies inbound and outbound leads, routes them appropriately, and coordinates discovery or positioning meetings for BD leaders and market champions, while maintaining clear handoff to BD leadership for ongoing relationship ownership.
• Prepares meeting briefs and background intelligence to support informed BD engagement discussions and ensures follow-up tasks and notes are documented and captured.
• Supports an assigned sector or solution area by facilitating tactical BD coordination meetings, helping maintain alignment on client priorities, pipeline activity, and pursuit positioning while reinforcing consistent business development practices.
• Coordinates regular BD communication updates by preparing materials, tracking key actions, and helping maintain alignment between BD leaders, marketing, and operational teams to support client engagement and pursuit readiness.
• Maintains accurate CRM records including contacts, accounts, pursuits, stage gates, deadlines, probability, and revenue forecasting details to support pipeline visibility and informed BD decision-making.
• Supports CRM data hygiene within BD activities by maintaining accurate pursuit, contact, and engagement records and reinforcing established data quality standards.
• Monitors activity metrics, conversion rates, and pipeline coverage to help identify trends and support BD leaders in evaluating engagement effectiveness.
• Creates or maintains dashboards for BD leaders showing pursuits, activities, sequencing results, and overall pipeline health.
• Maintains current account and pursuit information in CRM systems to support consistent reporting and BD planning activities.
• Supports visibility into BD activities and outcomes by tracking engagement activities (tradeshows, sponsorships, campaigns, client outreach).

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in business/marketing, and/or business administration preferred.
• 3+ years experience in AEC business development, marketing, inside sales, or sales operations with a related degree, or 5+ years of experience without a related degree.
• Strong working knowledge of RFQ/RFP processes, pursuit coordination, and professional services BD.
• Proficiency with CRM systems (Deltek Vantagepoint/Cosential, Salesforce, Dynamics, or similar).
• Experience with Microsoft 365, SharePoint, and list-building or sequencing tools.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to synthesize intelligence and communicate clearly.
• Excellent organization, detail orientation, and ability to manage large portfolio and multiple deadlines.
• Curiosity, resilience, and comfort interacting with technical staff and external partners.
• Adobe InDesign experience is a plus but not required.
• Other duties as assigned.
• Prolonged periods of sitting or standing at a desk and working on a computer.
• Ability to read, write and communicate in English.
• Occasional travel as required.