Business Development Senior Director (CX Partnerships) in London

Function: Business Development – Customer Experience

Location: UK (London-centric; hybrid)

Reporting to: Head of Business Development / CX Leadership

Role Type: Hunter | Growth | Partnerships | End-to-end selling (with collaboration)

Why this role exists

Customer Experience is one of Kantar’s biggest growth opportunities — and partnerships with platforms like Qualtrics and Medallia are central to that ambition. This role exists to unlock new revenue at pace by sitting at the intersection of clients, platforms, and Kantar expertise. You will spend significant time face‐to‐face with clients and partners, building trusted relationships, spotting whitespace, and converting opportunity into pipeline and wins. This is not a passive partner role. It is a high‐energy growth role for someone who is commercially sharp, strategically minded, deeply curious about CX, and relentless about finding new ways to grow — through new logos, cross‐sell, and partner‐led opportunity creation.

What you’ll do

• Hunt for growth through CX partnerships
  • Act as a front‐line hunter for CX opportunities, using Qualtrics and Medallia as accelerators into new buying points.
  • Build deep, trusted relationships with partner sales teams, aligning on joint targets, priority accounts, and GTM activity.
  • Turn partner conversations into qualified pipeline, proposals, and wins — not just meetings.
  • Identify and pursue new logos as well as CX‐led cross‐sell opportunities into existing clients.
• Be out in the market — a lot
  • Spend meaningful time in client offices and partner offices (e.g. Qualtrics), building proximity, trust, and momentum.
  • Network relentlessly across the CX ecosystem: clients, platforms, events, and industry forums.
  • Bring Kantar’s CX thinking, IP and thought leadership into live commercial conversations.
• Lead strategic, commercial conversations
  • Run senior‐level discovery conversations that uncover CX tensions, priorities, and decision drivers.
  • Shape compelling, right‐sized CX propositions that combine platform capability with Kantar insight, analytics and consulting.
  • Own opportunities end‐to‐end for CX‐led deals, while collaborating with domains and conversion teams on larger or more complex work.
• Work as a connector inside Kantar
  • Partner closely with Marketing to turn CX campaigns, thought leadership and events into live opportunities.
  • Work hand‐in‐hand with CX, Brand, Innovation, Analytics and other domains to bring the best of Kantar into each deal.
  • Collaborate with the wider Business Development team to ensure CX opportunities are connected, not siloed.
• Build and manage a high‐quality pipeline
  • Take full ownership of pipeline creation, progression and forecasting.
  • Be rigorously CRM compliant — clean data, clear next steps, realistic close plans.
  • Focus on pipeline health and velocity, not just volume.

What success looks like

• Strong partner‐sourced and CX‐led pipeline growth.
• Clear contribution to new logo wins and CX cross‐sell revenue.
• Deep, productive relationships with Qualtrics and Medallia stakeholders.
• High proportion of time spent with clients and partners, not behind a desk.
• A reputation internally as someone who creates opportunity and makes things happen.

What you’ll bring

• Proven experience in business development, partnerships or consultative sales, ideally within CX, insights, consulting, technology or platforms.
• Strong commercial instinct — you know how to qualify, shape, and close opportunities.
• Confidence operating in partner‐led sales environments.
• A natural relationship builder who thrives face‐to‐face with clients.
• Strategic curiosity about CX, customer journeys, and experience transformation.
• Energy, hunger and resilience — you enjoy the chase and the win.
• High standards around CRM discipline, forecasting and follow‐through.

Why this role is exciting

• It sits at the heart of CX growth for the UK.
• You’ll work with some of the most influential CX platforms in the market.
• You’ll have real autonomy to shape how partnerships drive revenue.
• It’s a true hunter role with strategic depth, not a transactional sales job.
• Success is visible, valued, and commercially meaningful.