Strategic Development Director

At abrdn, our purpose is to enable our clients to be better investors. Clients worldwide trust us to find future-fit investment opportunities to deliver the outcomes they want. Our technology and insight help empower them to make better decisions, while the powerful partnerships we build help to enhance the expertise that we offer. And by enabling clients to invest responsibly, it helps us to build a better world.

About the department

The abrdn Adviser sales channel is dedicated to delivering our ambition of being the easiest business to work with. The remit of the team is to build, develop and retain partnerships with adviser firms in the UK by maximising our potential to grow and improving the customer experience.

About the role

The Strategic Development Director is a senior sales role within the Adviser business delivering the strategic focus and leadership required to establish relationships with the key players who will drive new sustainable growth for abrdn. The role will:

• Develop and lead abrdn’s strategic relationships strategy, shaping and setting our growth ambition across the Adviser business.
• Collaborate seamlessly with teams across sales, adviser, and abrdn to facilitate successful delivery of strategic priorities.
• Continuously review the market to identify and secure new routes to market for abrdn including Corporate Partners.
• Focus on identifying and winning key strategic partners across the rapidly changing landscape of VI’s, consolidators, aggregators, and national firms.
• Ensure business development activities are appropriately focused on strategic partner growth opportunities.
• Be highly active and visible across the panel of strategic partners including key outlets/offices supporting regional business development efforts.
• Set the pace and lead the delivery of the growth plan, creating a performance culture where everyone can thrive and deliver against targets.
• Identify and engage senior stakeholders to establish a position of influence at the highest level within the firm.
• Define a clear stakeholder map and engagement strategy to effectively build and maintain key stakeholder relationships.
• Provide critical thinking, challenge, and insight to influence improvements and change across the business.
• Keep up to date with emerging market trends which can positively impact efficiency, productivity, and delivery of solutions for today, whilst also anticipating the challenges of tomorrow.
• Pro-actively provide actionable market insight for our executive, proposition, marketing, commercial, and distribution teams for continuous improvement.

About the candidate

• Can demonstrate strong 'Platform' knowledge, with a successful history/performance in a business development role.
• Strong leadership behaviours and experience driving high-performing sales teams.
• Can build and maintain strategic relationships at the most senior level within large organisations.
• Commercially astute with an intuition for business, negotiation, and influencing skills to facilitate successful delivery of strategic and operational priorities.
• Can set the 'tone from the top', leading through change and articulating our direction as a business, bringing together the why, what, and how.
• Experience of being thought leaders to key decision makers and influencers through sharing insight and ideas they can implement.
• Ability to build strategic priorities and harness our intellectual capital, thought leadership, and data insights to generate best-in-class solutions for clients.
• Demonstrates a positive personal industry presence and network of external stakeholders and competitors.
• Confident in influencing and challenging thinking at a senior level faced with a number of conflicting priorities and opinions, using exceptional verbal and written communication skills.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Committed employer. Therefore, if you have a disability and would like to apply to one of our UK roles under the Disability Confident Scheme, please notify us by completing the relevant section in our candidate questionnaire and one of our team will reach out to support you through your application process.

Our benefits

There's more to working life than coming home with a good salary. We have an environment where you can learn, get involved, and be supported. When you join us, your reward will be one of the best around. This includes 40 days’ annual leave, a 16% employer pension contribution, a discretionary performance-based bonus (where applicable), private healthcare, and a range of flexible benefits – including gym discounts, season ticket loans, and access to an employee discount portal.

Our business

Enabling our clients to be better investors drives everything we do. Our business is structured around three distinct areas – our vectors of growth – focused on our clients’ changing needs. We’re committed to providing an inclusive workplace where all forms of difference are valued and which is free from any form of unfair or unlawful treatment. We define diversity in its broadest sense – this includes but is not limited to our diversity of educational and professional backgrounds, experience, cognitive and neurodiversity, age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, religion or belief, and ethnicity and geographical provenance. We support a culture that values meritocracy, fairness, and transparency and welcomes enquiries from everyone. If you need assistance or an adjustment due to a disability please let us know as part of your application and we will assist.