Group Commercial Sales Director - London - An opportunity to lead the Commercial Sales strategy within a group of MEP Design consultancies across the UK. We require a strategic Sales Director who has experience winning work within the Building Services design sector. You will be responsible for developing the commercial infrastructure, market sectors, Key account frameworks and managing the business development teams across the group of companies. The Group Commercial Director will be responsible for building and running the commercial infrastructure and sales engine that connects the group's operating companies, enabling them to win more work, win better work, and cross-sell across the portfolio in a disciplined and scalable way. The role is fundamentally to build a scalable, high performance sales engine across the group. The group already has capable fee earners and directors who own client relationships. What it lacks is the strategy, process, data discipline, and accountability framework to make those relationships commercially productive at scale and a consistently high performing sales culture which is able to forecast and achieve sales targets. This person provides that. In year one the priority is the first acquired businesses, where commercial performance is variable and the BD infrastructure is underdeveloped. From year two the role expands across the full group, including all acquired entities, with accountability for pipeline quality and cross-referral across all five businesses. Key Responsibilities 1. Group Commercial Strategy • Define and own the group's commercial strategy, covering target sectors, client types, and geographic priorities, drawing on the group's capability matrix. • Set annual and quarterly revenue targets by entity and at group level, working with the CFO and Platform Director. • Identify and prioritise cross-sell opportunities across the portfolio, particularly where capability combinations give the group a competitive advantage. • Monitor market trends, competitor activity, and procurement landscape changes to keep the group's commercial positioning current. • Progressively build, as required, central sales team capability to be able to work alongside or independent or individual entities to identify and close group-level opportunities. • Provide overall leadership and oversight for sales / business development teams in each individual entity, ensuring that the teams are being developed and grown as required 2. Pipeline Management and Commercial Accountability • Own the group-wide pipeline view. Ensure all entities maintain a clean, qualified pipeline with consistent data standards, judgement-based probability scoring, and sector and client-type tagging. • Chair a regular group commercial review with the commercial leads of each entity, holding them accountable for pipeline coverage, activity levels, and conversion rates. • Challenge and support entity directors on bid selectivity. The group should be pursuing opportunities it can credibly win, not pursuing everything that arrives. Develop a Go /No Go strategy for new bids to avoid loss making projects • Establish and track KPIs across the group: weighted pipeline coverage, win rate by sector, cross-entity revenue, CRM adoption rates, and BD activity metrics per director. 3. Large Bids and Strategic Opportunities • Take personal ownership of the group's most significant bid opportunities, particularly those requiring multi-entity delivery, cross-sector credentials, or a group-level relationship. • Define and enforce a consistent pitch process including kickoff, client research, team selection, presentation preparation, and mandatory rehearsal for all scored presentations. • Drive win-rate improvement through better bid strategy, improved pitch delivery, and structured post-bid debriefs. 4. CRM, Data, and Commercial Infrastructure • Lead the roll-out of a group CRM system that is fit for purpose, mobile-friendly, and genuinely adopted by fee earners across all entities. • Define the CRM data model: account hierarchy, contact categorisation, pipeline stages, and activity logging standards. Ensure the system integrates with Deltek and other systems as the ERP backbone. • Build and continuously improve the group commercial reporting layer: pipeline vs. target dashboards, win rate by sector, BD activity metrics, and group cross-sell revenue tracking. 5. Group Marketing and Brand • Oversee the group's marketing function, working with Group Marketing Manager to develop and deliver a group marketing strategy that amplifies the portfolio's sector specialisms. • Define and manage a proper marketing budget, replacing the current ad hoc approach with a planned programme of event attendance, speaker opportunities, content, and client hospitality. • Position the group company and its operating companies as leaders in their chosen sectors, particularly heritage, education, Passivhaus, net zero, and healthcare MEP, through thought leadership, industry events, and targeted outreach. • Establish a group annual event as the platform scales, bringing together clients, prospects, and the extended professional network. • Monitor marketing and bid material, looking at consistency and continuous improvement • Oversee social media activity to promote group, LinkedIn messaging, positive news stories, etc 6. Integration Commercial Continuity • Support the Group Integration Director on all future acquisitions by managing commercial continuity: client communication during ownership change, cross-referral from day one, and integration of acquired pipelines into the group CRM. • Help newly acquired entities understand the group commercial model and adopt the CRM and pipeline standards without disrupting their existing client relationships. • Identify commercial synergies at due diligence stage and build them into 100-day integration plans. Candidate Profile The right person for this role is not a traditional building services director who happens to have won some work. Nor is it a pure salesperson with no sector credibility. It is a commercially minded professional who understands how building services and MEP consultancies win work, can hold senior chartered engineers accountable for commercial targets, and has the process discipline to build a commercial engine that works across multiple acquired businesses simultaneously. Essential Background • Established career in building services, MEP, or sustainability engineering consultancy. Must be credible in a room of chartered engineers and understand how the sector buys, how clients procure, and what actually differentiates a winning pitch. • A network of architects, developers, main contractors, asset owners, and public sector clients that can be activated quickly. The group needs new pipeline from day one, not in 12 months. • Demonstrated track record of personally winning fees in the sector. A minimum threshold of £750k per year in secured revenue is expected; £1.5m-plus is the target range. This person must be able to prove they can win, not just manage a process. • Experience holding senior professionals accountable for commercial performance. This role requires the confidence to challenge directors with 20-year careers and 6-figure billings on their pipeline activity, their bid selectivity, and their conversion rates. • Experience building and scaling a sales team and sales capabilities within an organisation. • Track record of building or improving commercial infrastructure: CRM implementation, pipeline management, bid processes, or sales accountability frameworks in a professional services environment. • Experience with companies who have a reputation for high quality delivery and being viewed as user friendly for clients and fellow professionals. Highly Desirable Background • Experience working in a PE-backed business or acquisitive group, with an understanding of the commercial dynamics, pace, and accountability expectations that come with institutional backing. • Experience spanning more than one operating entity: managing commercial performance across multiple offices, geographies, or acquired businesses. • Exposure to integration commercial continuity: maintaining client relationships and pipeline momentum through ownership changes. • Familiarity with public sector frameworks, NHS procurement, or heritage and listed building commissioning, given the group's strongest win sectors. What Good Looks Like as a Person The specific combination of traits this role requires is relatively rare and worth being explicit about. • Credible, the candidate does not need to be a chartered engineer, but they must be able to sit in a room with them and be respected. Knowledge of the sector, its language, and its client relationships is non-negotiable. • Systematic rather than instinctive. It needs someone who builds systems that make every director more commercially productive, and who holds them to those systems. • Comfortable with accountability. This person will be managing up to the Platform Director and managing sideways to entity MDs. They need to be direct, data-literate, and unafraid to have difficult conversations about pipeline quality or bid selectivity. • Patient with culture change. The commercial culture across the group is not yet where it needs to be. Engineering-led businesses do not always see BD as their job. The Group Commercial Director needs to change that gradually and without alienating the people they depend on to deliver
