Director, Business Development (Europe, Comms)

As the Director, Business Development you will identify, grow and expand new business opportunities within an assigned list of biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device accounts for Syneos Health Communication’s creative, medical communications and public relations agencies located in Europe (primarily UK, France and Germany).

Reporting into the VP, Business development, you are competitive, proactive, and passionate about business development. You display a hunter mindset and ability to think strategically about complex client organizations of all sizes to unlock new business opportunities in those accounts through strong prospecting skills coupled with deep seated curiosity and expertise. You will leverage your existing industry network combined with extensive understanding of the agency and wider healthcare industry landscape to identify client challenges that can be addressed by the unique solution set of our agency network.

This position can be located within commuting distance of one of our European office locations in London, Paris or Munich. International travel is required 50% of the time to attend meetings at client offices, represent our agencies at industry events and attend internal meetings in our offices in Europe as well as the USA.

Performance in this role will impact Syneos Health Communication’s financial performance in three key elements:

• Pipeline opportunity generation.
• Converting identified opportunities into business in partnership with the Growth (conversion) team and internal agency SMEs.
• Expanding contacts and relationships within assigned and newly identified accounts.

• Actively work to identify opportunities within the list of assigned accounts as well as display the initiative to prospect other companies where you have identified business opportunities that align to the BD strategy and agency competencies.
• Maintain high levels of knowledge on your assigned accounts including pipeline assets, key contacts, overall Syneos Health footprint and organisational structure.
• Generate high levels of personalised outreach daily to potential prospects and leveraging all available channels i.e. email, phone, social media, events, etc.
• Record all outreach activity in the CRM and maintain regular reporting of activity to the VP, BD and senior agency leadership – able to discuss outreach trends and adjust outreach messaging and approach quickly based on response patterns observed.
• Be a strong presenter – able to switch between in-person and virtual presentations with ease and comfortable presenting 1:1 or to large groups of clients.
• Maintain strong relationships with the Communication and agency leaders to understand current business footprint and client map including revenues, nature of engagements, scope of offering, existing relationships, potential opportunities, etc.
• Work closely with the Region Europe Growth Group to convert identified opportunities through successful agency KO, proposal development and pitch delivery.
• Develop strong relationships across the wider commercial BD organisation including Consulting and Deployment solutions to identify and deliver relationships that can be leveraged and/or opportunities for cross selling to a particular client.
• Position yourself as an industry thought leader, actively networking to develop brand awareness and solutions to challenges. Be a trusted, credible leader internally and externally.
• Actively research, synthetize and communicate current trends and changes in our industry.

• Bachelor’s degree in business or a science related field.
• Extensive related BD experience with track record of sales success.
• Extensive experience within an agency, medical publisher environment or relevant service provider to the pharmaceutical industry.
• Deep understanding of the biopharmaceutical industry including commercial and medical affairs organisations.
• Ability to work and travel internationally (primarily Europe and USA) is essential.
• Strong communication skills both written and verbal.
• Ability to speak another major European language (French, German, Etc) is preferred.
• Experience with developing and executing successful sales & prospecting strategies.
• Must have a strategic mindset along with being a thought leader and a strategic partner with clients.