Business Development Associate Team Leader

WGSN; Greater London; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days holiday

Pension & Benefits

Employee assistance

Volunteering opportunities

Learning & development

Job summary

WGSN is seeking a Business Development Associate Team Leader to drive a high-performing BDA team in the EMEA region. This on-site London-based role requires leading and coaching the team to open new business, book discovery calls, and connect prospects with sales teams.

You will manage outbound strategies, monitor KPIs and ensure high-quality opportunities while collaborating with Sales, Marketing and Account Management. Experience with Gong, Salesforce and LinkedIn Navigator is essential.

Qualifications

• Two years' experience leading or supervising a BDR/SDR/BDA team in B2B SaaS or data/insights environment.
• Proven track record coaching outbound teams and improving performance against targets.
• Comfort with Gong and Salesforce as coaching/pipeline tools.
• Experience using LinkedIn Sales Navigator for account research.
• Data-driven management style with ability to interpret metrics and act on insights.

Responsibilities

• Lead, motivate and manage the BDA team against KPIs focused on meetings, discovery and pipeline.
• Run regular 1:1s, coaching, and feedback; use Gong insights to improve practice.
• Shape outbound prospecting strategies with sales and marketing leadership.
• Use data to identify gaps and create action plans for team improvement.
• Maintain Salesforce hygiene and provide clear reporting on pipeline health.
• Guide use of LinkedIn Navigator and other tools to identify target accounts and stakeholders.
• Ensure high-quality handoffs with proper context for productive discovery.
• Collaborate with Sales, Marketing and Account Management for alignment and campaigns.
• Drive process improvements to increase efficiency and conversion.
• Assist with hiring, onboarding and ramp-up of new BDAs.

Skills

Team leadership

Coaching outbound teams

Communication

Outreach know-how

Data-driven

Interpersonal skills

Outbound prospecting

MEDPICC awareness

Tools

Gong

Salesforce

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Lusha

ZoomInfo

Job description

The role

We're looking for a Business Development Associate Team Leader to join our sales team in EMEA.

This is an on-site role from our London office.

Working at WGSN

Together, we create tomorrow

A career with WGSN is fast-paced, exciting and full of opportunities to grow and develop. We're a team of consumer and design trend forecasters, content creators, designers, data analysts, advisory consultants and much more, united by a common goal: to create tomorrow.

WGSN's trusted consumer and design forecasts power outstanding product design, enabling our customers to create a better future. Our services cover consumer insights, beauty, consumer tech, fashion, interiors, lifestyle, food and drink forecasting, data analytics and expert advisory. If you are an expert in your field, we want to hear from you.

Role overview

We are looking for an experienced BDR Team Manager to be the driving force behind a high-performing team of Business Development Associates (BDAs). The team creates new-business pipeline by opening conversations with exciting companies, booking high-quality introductory and discovery calls, and connecting the right prospects with our sales teams.

Our geared focus is on larger organisations, particularly companies with more than $100m in annual revenue. This is a true people-management role rather than a player-coach position: you will not carry an individual prospecting target. Your job is to propel the team, raise performance, improve the quality of opportunities created and help every BDA perform at their best.

Key accountabilities

• Team leadership & performance: Lead, motivate and manage the BDA team against clear individual and team KPIs, with a strong focus on quality meetings, discovery conversations and pipeline creation.
• Coaching & development: Run regular 1:1s, call coaching and structured feedback. Use Gong to review conversations, identify coaching opportunities and embed best practice across the team.
• Outbound strategy: Work with sales and marketing leadership to shape and execute prospecting strategies, account priorities, messaging and campaigns for high-value target organisations.
• Performance management: Use data to understand what is working, where performance is falling short and what action is needed. Create clear plans that help individuals and the wider team improve.
• CRM discipline & reporting: Drive excellent Salesforce hygiene and ensure activity, opportunities and outcomes are accurately captured. Provide clear reporting and insight on team performance and pipeline health.
• Prospecting excellence: Help the team make effective use of LinkedIn Sales Navigator and other data and prospecting tools to identify the right accounts, stakeholders and buying groups.
• Lead quality & handoff: Maintain a high bar for qualification and ensure meetings and opportunities are handed to the sales team with the context required for productive discovery.
• Cross-functional collaboration: Partner closely with Head of Sales, Marketing, Account Management and other stakeholders to align targeting, messaging, campaigns and feedback from the market.
• Process improvement: Continuously improve team workflows, outreach approaches, coaching practices and use of technology to increase efficiency and conversion.
• Hiring & onboarding: Support the recruitment, onboarding and ramp-up of new BDAs as the team develops.

This list is not exhaustive and there may be other activities you are required to deliver.

Skills, experience & qualifications required

• Approximately two years of experience leading, managing or formally supervising a BDR/SDR/BDA team, ideally in a B2B, SaaS, subscription, data or insights-led environment.
• A strong track record of coaching outbound sales teams and improving performance against measurable goals.
• Comfortable and confident using Gong and Salesforce as core tools for coaching, performance management, pipeline visibility and CRM discipline.
• Experience using LinkedIn Sales Navigator for account and contact research.
• A data-led management style: you can interpret activity and conversion metrics, diagnose performance issues and turn insight into action.
• Excellent coaching, communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to motivate different personalities and experience levels.
• A strong understanding of outbound prospecting, account prioritisation, lead qualification and effective discovery handoffs.
• Commercial confidence working with larger, complex organisations and supporting outreach into multiple stakeholders and functions.
• Comfort working in a collaborative, fast-moving environment and partnering across Sales, Marketing and Account Management.
• Experience with Lusha, ZoomInfo or similar prospecting/data-enrichment platforms is ideal.
• Experience selling or prospecting into enterprise or upper mid-market organisations would be beneficial.
• Familiarity with MEDPICC sales approaches is preferred.
• Experience in trend intelligence, data, research, SaaS, media, information services or another subscription-led business is ideal but not required.

What we offer

Our benefits and wellbeing package offers flexible benefits you can tailor to your own personal needs, including:

• - 25 days of holiday per year - with an option to buy/ sell up to 5 days
• - Pension, Life Assurance and Income Protection Flexible benefits platform with options including Private Medical, Dental Insurance & Critical Illness
• - Employee assistance programme, season ticket loans and cycle to work scheme
• - Volunteering opportunities and charitable giving options
• - Great learning and development opportunities.

More about WGSN

WGSN is the global authority on consumer trend forecasting.

We help brands around the world create the right products at the right time for tomorrow’s consumer.

Our values

We Are Everywhere

The future is everything, it happens everywhere. WGSN is the world-leading forecaster because we track and analyse consumer behaviours, product innovation, design and creativity, everywhere.

We Are Future Focused

We utilise our global resources and intelligence to research, source and analyse quantitative and qualitative data to produce our forecasts. Everything we do is focused on working with our customers to create a successful and positive tomorrow.

We Are Rigorous

We source, review and assess quantitative and qualitative data to produce robust, actionable forecasts. To provide credible insights and design solutions for our clients, it is essential that rigour runs through everything we do.

Our culture

An inclusive culture is one of our key priorities. We want our people to truly be themselves and thrive. We love having a diverse team of people who bring new ideas, different strengths and perspectives & reflect the global audience we work with.

Inclusive workforce

We are committed to supporting the environment and sustainability, including ensuring our pension plan defaults to sustainable options and striving to be net zero by 2030.

Recognising great performance

is a key part of our culture. Our Awards schemes recognise and reward the brilliant achievements of our people.

Flexible working environment

We offer a flexible working environment with a wide range of flexible, hybrid and agile working arrangements. Conversations about flexible working have always been, and will continue to be, actively encouraged here, but we do not offer full remote working.

Adjustments

We want to ensure everyone has the opportunity to perform their best when interviewing, so if you require any reasonable adjustments that would make you more comfortable during the process, please let us know so that we can do our best to support you.

A Note for Applicants

We use AI to help our team screen applications and identify candidates whose skills and experience match the role. This technology removes personal information to promote a fair and unbiased process. We believe this tool helps us find the best talent while maintaining transparency and fairness.