Associate Director - Business Development

YouGov M.E. FZ-LLC; Dubai; On-site; AED 300,000 - 540,000; Full time

Job summary

YouGov MENA seeks a senior, player-coach sales leader to own and close complex opportunities across the UAE and KSA. You will guide high-value deals, set qualification standards, and escalate for senior sign-off when needed while coaching junior colleagues as the team grows.

You will report to the GM/Regional VP of MENA and collaborate with Research and Product to ensure commercially sound, deliverable proposals that carry your sign-off.

Qualifications

• 7-9 years' experience in consumer insights, market research or subscription/SaaS sales, including time in MENA.
• Experience leading, coaching or mentoring junior colleagues or readiness for first-line people leadership.
• Track record closing a portfolio of complex or high-value opportunities.
• Strong knowledge of brand and communications tracking, syndicated and custom consumer research.

Responsibilities

• Team Leadership & Development: vision for future hires, ultimately coaching and developing the team and contributing to recruitment.
• Pipeline Ownership & Deal Leadership: own a personal sales target, lead qualification using MEDDPICC, manage multiple opportunities and make defensible decisions under pressure.
• Commercial Quality & Sign-off: partner with management to sign off on proposals and pricing within parameters and shape bespoke commercial solutions.
• Client Leadership & Account Growth: act as trusted adviser to senior client stakeholders and grow senior relationships across deals.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: work with Research and Product, use YouGov platform confidently, and develop data-led narratives for clients.

Skills

MEDDPICC

Sales leadership

Forecasting

English fluency

Tools

Salesforce

Gong

Job description

About the Role

This is a senior, player-coach sales role within YouGov MENA: you focus on running and closing a portfolio of complex, higher-value opportunities yourself, with people leadership responsibilities to follow as a team is built out. You set the standard for how business is qualified, shaped and won, and you are the point of escalation when a deal needs senior judgement, sign-off or a steady hand with the client. You are a credible senior presence with clients and prospects across the UAE and Saudi Arabia, comfortable leading a pitch, negotiating terms or stepping into a stalled deal, while also coaching more junior colleagues on how to do the same. You report to the GM/Regional VP of MENA, and work closely with Research and Product to make sure every proposal that carries your sign-off is commercially sound and deliverable.

Key Responsibilities

• Team Leadership & Development

  There is no direct team in place at present. As and when Business Development Executives or Managers are recruited into the role, you would be expected to lead, coach and develop them, including taking part in their recruitment, bringing them into your own deals wherever possible so they gain experience.

• Pipeline Ownership & Deal Leadership

  Own a personal sales target linked to revenue, forecasting it accurately enough to defend under scrutiny. Lead qualification and discovery on the team's more complex, sensitive or high-value opportunities, applying MEDDPICC rigorously. Manage a portfolio of concurrent opportunities, allocating resource across deals and balancing competing priorities across the team. Make defensible calls under pressure and with incomplete information, weighing the bigger picture and not only the immediate deal.

• Commercial Quality & Sign-off

  Work with management to sign off on significant proposals and pricing before they reach the client, within agreed parameters. Shape bespoke commercial solutions for deals that don't fit a standard template, working with Research and Product where needed. Own quality for what leaves your team's book of business, acting as the final check on high-value or sensitive deliverables.

• Client Leadership & Account Growth

  Act as a trusted adviser to senior client stakeholders on complex opportunities, brought in when a decision genuinely matters. Own senior client relationships through the sales cycle and into early account life for the team's most significant deals, making sure YouGov is never reliant on a single contact. Build recognised sector expertise and share it across the team so knowledge isn't dependent on one person. Confidently position the full YouGov suite (Data Services, Data Products, Sport and Custom) and advise honestly on what's appropriate for the client.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration

  Partner with Research and Product to keep proposals methodologically sound and deliverable, and to shape bespoke solutions. Use the YouGov platform suite (Crunch, BrandIndex, Profiles) confidently in front of senior prospects, and monitor usage to spot growth or retention risk early. Build data-led narratives that connect insight to a client's business decisions, coaching the team to do the same.

What We're Looking For

• 7-9 years' experience in consumer insights, market research or subscription/SaaS sales, including preferably meaningful time in MENA markets.
• Some experience leading, coaching or mentoring junior colleagues, or clearly ready to step into first-line people leadership.
• A track record of managing and closing a portfolio of complex or higher-value opportunities, beyond simply carrying a personal quota.
• Strong knowledge of brand and communications tracking, syndicated and custom consumer research.
• Confident using Salesforce and Gong (or equivalent) to manage a book of business and forecast accurately.
• Fluency in English required; Arabic an advantage.
• Based in the UAE, with good working knowledge of the UAE and KSA markets.

Preferred Skills

• Experience running MEDDPICC-based qualification and coaching others on it.
• Exposure to tenders, RFIs or multi-stakeholder deals.
• Existing relationships with mid-to-senior client stakeholders in the UAE or KSA.
• Comfortable acting as escalation point and sign-off for proposals and pricing.
• An eye for process improvement and a genuine interest in developing people who go on to outgrow the role.
• Experience registering and maintaining accounts, where needed, on client platforms for RFQ sharing and proposal submissions.
• A genuine interest in using AI to work smarter across the sales cycle, from speeding up proposal reviews to building sharper MEDDPICC account and target cards and pulling together client insight.

Why Join Us?

You'll take on a senior, hands on sales role in one of YouGov's highest potential growth regions, in a team with significant autonomy while still closing your own deals, shaping how the team sells, and building the experience that leads towards Director-level leadership of the MENA sales function.

Why join YouGov?

Join our global team to help us achieve our social mission: to make millions of people’s opinions heard for the benefit of our local, national, and international communities. Understanding diversity of opinion requires diversity of background. Although our global panel of millions of people worldwide powers our research, our biggest asset is our people. If our research is to be truly representative of what the world thinks, we need people from all walks of life to be part of the team to bring their perspective to the work we do.

Life at YouGov

We are driven by a set of shared values. We are fast, fearless, and innovative. We work diligently to get it right. We are guided by accuracy, ethics, and proven methodologies. We respect and trust each other, bringing these values into everything that we do. We strive to provide YouGovers with best-in-class benefits to support their physical, financial, and emotional wellbeing. We want our employees to have a sense of belonging and uniqueness in a supportive workplace, so they can bring their full selves to work.

Equal Opportunity Employer

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity or expression, and sexual orientation), parental status, national origin, marital status, age, disability, genetic information, HIV status, political affiliation, socioeconomic background, veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law or in line with our responsibilities as a fair and ethic employer. All employment decisions are made based on occupational qualifications, merit, and business need.

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Who we are

YouGov is an international online research data and analytics technology group. Our mission is to offer unparalleled insight into what the world thinks. We are the market research pioneer of Multi-level Regression with Post-stratification ('MRP') for accurate predictions at a granular level. Our purpose is to give our global community a voice by collecting, measuring and analysing their opinions and behaviours and reporting the findings accurately and free from bias.

What we do

At the core of our platform is an ever-growing source of connected consumer data that has developed daily over our 20 years of operation. We call it living data. All of our products and services draw upon this detailed understanding of our 27+ million registered panel members to deliver accurate, actionable consumer insights. As innovators and pioneers of online market research, we have a strong reputation as a trusted source of accurate data and insights. Testament to this, YouGov data is regularly referenced by the global press, and we are the most quoted market research source in the world.* Leading in online market research, we have a strong record for data accuracy and innovation. A study by the Pew Research Center concluded that YouGov “consistently outperforms competitors on accuracy” as a vendor of choice.

Our purpose Our purpose is to give our global community a voice by collecting, measuring and analysing their opinions and behaviours and reporting the findings accurately and free from bias.