Business Development Manager in Watford

Specialist infrastructure platform · Home based with UK travel

An established specialist platform at a genuine inflection point. A new CEO and Chair with commercial growth mandates. A market environment where public sector estates are under pressure to decarbonise. A role designed for someone who wants to sit inside a delivery consortium, broker the commercial deal between public sector clients and infrastructure investors, and help build a commercial function from the earliest stage.

The Platform

BSR's client is the UK's leading specialist SPV management business in the social infrastructure PFI/PPP market. PFI contracts across education, healthcare, defence, roads, prisons, and renewables. The client services a major European infrastructure fund manager's full fund range alongside mandates for several other UK and international institutional infrastructure investors.

Two things distinguish it:

• Inflection point, not incumbency. A new CEO joined at the end of 2024 from an international infrastructure development background. A new Chair joined in early 2024, bringing senior public sector infrastructure credentials. This is the early commercial build of a 20 year old business deliberately pivoting for growth, not a mature BD machine where the best accounts are already held.
• A warm platform, not a cold start. The client already services several of the most active infrastructure investors in the market. The hire inherits a network of live institutional relationships into which new service lines can be farmed.

The Role

This is the first dedicated commercial appointment supporting the Senior Director of Strategic Growth. Six things matter most:

• Originate, structure, close. Build the pipeline and carry opportunities through to secured status in line with the Board-approved five year plan.
• Commercial substance. The judgement to read a proposed deal (business model, risk allocation, value pools) and spot where it stacks up. The client has specialists who build the financial models.
• Dual motion. Farming (cross-selling new service lines into existing institutional clients) and hunting (winning mandates from AIIP members, overseas institutional investors, and renewables fund managers).
• Technical fluency. Close work with the client's internal technical teams and wider delivery partners (EPC contractors, solar developers, CHP and heat network providers, ESG advisors). Not a technical expert, but fluent enough to shape a deal around what the consortium is proposing.
• A partnership with the Senior Director. He sources deals through his investor network and builds the headline commercial frameworks. The hire owns the public sector client side, operational pipeline management, and the day-to-day execution of bids and proposals.
• A succession path. Deliberately structured so the hire learns how he builds frameworks, structures deals, and manages investor relationships, and grows into those responsibilities over time.

The Deal Model

A primary example: a public sector estate that wants to decarbonise, an infrastructure investor willing to fund it, and a delivery consortium to build and run it. The client sits on the delivery side alongside its developer network, positioned to structure the commercial deal. Core instruments include Power Purchase Agreements (particularly solar across public sector estates) and EPC-backed delivery models. The service mix is broader than decarbonisation alone.

Who This Is For

A commercial operator already working in infrastructure, PFI/PPP, or energy transition, who has reached the point of wanting more ownership over how deals come together. The people who thrive here will be energised by sitting between sophisticated buyers on both sides (investors with capital to deploy, public sector clients with decarbonisation mandates) and by the challenge of reading a deal and spotting where the value sits.

PFI/PPP or infrastructure background with an established network. Renewable energy / energy transition project and funding model experience. Proven success originating, structuring, and closing major consulting or transformation deals. Experience commercialising new propositions.

Not a fit if: you're looking for a solo mandate, or for a purely relationship-led role without the commercial substance.

Next Steps

The process is confidential and designed around your time. An informal call with Michael. BSR shares the detailed candidate attraction pack, which names the client and covers the platform, the role, and the context behind the hire in full. A proper conversation. Then, if it feels right for everyone, an introduction to the hiring manager.