Business Development Manager

Aquent; London; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Aquent seeks a Business Development Manager to lead the creation of strategic partnerships with clients in the tech sector. The role will involve extensive collaboration across product, engineering, and legal teams to shape product direction and optimize go-to-market strategies. Ideal candidates will have extensive experience in negotiating complex deals, alongside strong analytical and strategic skills.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in product partnerships or product business development.
• Expertise in structuring complex agreements.
• Fluent in legal and business contract issues.

Responsibilities

• Identify and build new strategic frameworks for partnerships.
• Recruit and integrate partners into products.
• Close strategic deals to drive revenue growth.

Skills

Data analysis

Negotiation

Strategic thinking

Education

Experience in product partnerships or related field

Job description

We are looking for aBusiness Development Manager to work with our client

The Global Business Development team partners closely with product teams like Signals, Business Messaging, and Retail Media to validate early-stage product ideas. Unlike traditional BD roles, this team doesn’t manage accounts or carry revenue targets. Instead, we focus on short- to long-term workstreams (2 to 24 months) that help shape product direction through hands-on partner collaboration.

A typical day involves syncing with product teams, analyzing pilot feedback, and engaging with select partners to test new features or concepts. The role is highly cross-functional and strategic—working across product, engineering, and legal to refine go-to-market plans and surface early insights that influence product-market fit.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• You will identify and build new strategic frameworks of partnership ecosystems.
• You will recruit and work with partners within the ecosystems to integrate withproducts.
• You will close strategic deals with ads and commerce partners to drive revenue growth.
• You will demonstrate expertise in complex legal and business issues, developing creative solutions that benefit both parties.
• You will execute across various products and collaborate with internal stakeholders to drive decision-making and define go-to-market strategies.
• This role also involves representing the clientin executive-level meetings with partner companies.

Qualifications

• The ideal candidate will have 8+ years of experience in product partnerships, product business development, or a related field within an internet or technology startup environment.
• They should possess expertise in structuring and negotiating complex partnership agreements, as well as experience collaborating with product teams to develop new product partnerships and ecosystem strategies.
• They should be skilled in data analysis, able to derive actionable insights, and effectively present findings to senior leadership through clear and concise presentations.
• They should be comfortable working through ambiguity and early product lifecycle stages
• Identify, evaluate, negotiate, and close key deals with an ecosystem of ads and commerce partners that help drive revenue growth in core business
• Demonstrate fluency in the most complex legal and business issues in contracts and develop creative win-win solutions with our partners
• Be agile and execute across a broad range of products including mobile, video, advertising, big data, platforms, commerce and growth
• Analyze markets and synthesize recommendations into actionable partnerships plans
• Lead cross-functional internal alignment to drive decision making in the deal process
• Collaborate with a broad range of internal constituents to help define go-to-market strategy and drive sign-off from internal leadership
• Represent the clientin meetings with executives from our partner companies

Top 3 must-have HARD skills:

Good to have skills:

• Launched Products and partnerships before – or led them at their own capacity
• Can work with ambiguity

Client Description

Our Client is the largest social media company in the world. They have substantial B2B and B2C advertising and media platforms, as well as a nonprofit initiative. With the mission of bringing people together, they now boast over 2 billion users, and are rapidly developing as they influence the world around us.

Aquent is dedicated to improving inclusivity & is proudly an equal opportunities employer. We encourage applications from under-represented groups & are committed to providing support to applicants with disabilities. We aim to provide reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, to those with a medical condition, disability or neurodivergence.