Business Area Lead – Water (Consultancy) in London

Our vision is to create a safe and sustainable world. The Leader of the Water Business Area provides a focus on driving growth through proactive client engagement, business development, and expanding networks. Overseeing the team’s performance, safety, and growth while fostering market development in key areas.

Key responsibilities

• Client management: Proactively develop new client relationships and expand existing ones, targeting key sectors and emerging opportunities. Actively contribute to business development by identifying and pursuing new market opportunities, particularly through networks and partnerships. Accountable for sales order book and delivering sustainable pipeline growth. Working as part of the Water Practice leadership team to define BD strategy, marketing strategy, routes to market for new offerings and pricing strategy.
• Financial performance: Maintain budgetary (P&L) responsibility for the Business Area. Alongside the Senior Leadership Team, participating in budget setting, meeting or exceeding budgeted sales order intake targets, utilization, budgeted revenue, profit and cash targets, and operational KPIs on a period, half year and annual basis.
• Operational: Responsible for management of the project portfolio: delivery is on time, to target and milestones are met.
• Capability: Develop the team's capability not only in technical skills but also in market knowledge and client engagement, ensuring they contribute to business growth. Encourage innovation in creating scalable offerings that respond to client needs and drive recurring revenue streams.
• Market knowledge and profile raising: Expand external presence through active participation in industry forums, conferences, and thought leadership initiatives, positioning Ricardo as a key player in the water quality and management sector. Build relationships with influential stakeholders, including industry bodies, government agencies, and private-sector leaders.
• Resourcing and people management: Define the resourcing needs within business area and contribute to the overall strategy, ensuring a balance of cost and flexibility, identify opportunities to create external partnerships in line with the Practice strategy.

Key competencies and experience

• Proven experience in business development and client relationship management, with a strong network within the water sector or related industries.
• A track record of winning new business through active engagement with industry stakeholders, leveraging networks to drive business growth.
• Proven strong people leadership, including development, mentoring and coaching of individuals and being an inspirational presence for the wider business.
• A track record of delivering projects and programmes of work to revenue, profit and cash targets in a high value consultancy environment.
• Appropriate industry and market knowledge relevant to the Practice and associated Growth Solution(s).
• Experience of successfully worked alongside key enabling and support functions.
• Used to working with business systems and analysing financial/operational data and utilising these to make decisions and continuous improvements.

Skills and Behaviour

• Proactive and outward-facing with strong networking and relationship-building abilities, able to drive new business opportunities and expand the organisation’s market presence.
• Excellent relationship building, communication and interpersonal skills.
• Commercially focused with an entrepreneurial mindset, capable of identifying and pursuing opportunities for growth, and aligning business objectives with market trends and client needs.
• Able to provide a consistent, resilient leadership shadow that promotes global inclusivity, a growth mindset and collaboration across the organisation, and embodies the Ricardo Values, to create a supportive, engaging and challenging environment for our people.
• Strong client-centric focus, able to build and maintain high-impact client relationships, resulting in increased market share and business growth.
• Analytical, with the ability to make connections across a complex organisation.
• Positive minded, pragmatic and outcome focused, with the ability to deliver tangible results.

Desirable

• Working across business areas and capabilities to create differentiated solutions and develop new business.
• Appreciation of and receptiveness to digital enablement and systems implementation.
• Experience of working in a complex / matrix global organisation.

Working with Ricardo

You will be warmly welcomed into our workplace where every voice matters. We are diverse thinkers and doers, coming together to create a culture of inclusion. We will support you to find your place. We will encourage you to use your passion and expertise to make a positive impact through the projects you work on. Your knowledge and desire to bring about change will be invaluable in helping deliver innovative solutions that support communities across the globe in becoming safer and more sustainable.

Work life balance

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that is working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core to our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential.

Benefits

We want you to know how much you are valued. Your remuneration and benefits package will reflect that. You will receive a range of benefits which include support for your physical and mental health. Our core benefits include 25 days' annual leave, plus 8 flexible bank holidays, a competitive company pension scheme, life assurance and professional subscriptions reimbursement. We also offer a wide range of flexible benefits to suit your lifestyle.

Next steps

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person's potential, and we'll help you reach yours. We have an ambitious diversity, equality, and inclusion approach. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse workforce creates a richer and more varied working environment. Diversity also drives innovation, by allowing us to offer our clients the best consultancy service that we can. As part of our commitment to engage positively and pro-actively with all our employees and to ensure an inclusive culture, we are recognised as a 'disability confident' employer.