Senior Business Development Manager (Enterprise / Key Account)

Top Employers Institute; Amsterdam; On-site; EUR 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

2 days volunteering PTO

4-week sabbatical after 5 years

Flexible working: home or office

Job summary

Top Employers Institute is seeking a Senior Business Development Manager to drive complex, consultative new business revenue with large, multi-stakeholder accounts. This individual contributor role focuses on owning the pipeline, book, and deal cycle, from zero to multi-million deals across territories.

You’ll structure agreements with multiple buying influences and sustain a high-volume outreach to balance depth with breadth, leveraging MEDDPICC or similar methodologies and CRM visibility.

Qualifications

• 5–10+ years in B2B sales with independence to operate
• Verifiable quota/target attainment and revenue contribution
• Evidence of self-generating pipeline across strategic and high-velocity wins

Responsibilities

• Own a new business target and execute your own BD plan
• Originate new-logo opportunities with hypothesis-driven outreach
• Develop relationship management for complex accounts across multiple stakeholders
• Run a structured, multi-threaded sales process and close durable agreements
• Maintain high-volume outreach while pursuing long enterprise deals
• Represent the organisation at trade shows and events to generate opportunities

Skills

B2B sales

Multi-stakeholder deals

SaaS/Tech sales

Self-generated pipeline

Complex account management

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent

Tools

CRM tools

Job description

About the Role
We’re looking for a Senior Business Development Manager to drive complex, consultative new business revenue with large, multi-stakeholder accounts, and to keep a broad, self-generated pipeline of new organisations moving at pace. This is an individual contributor, specialist-level role – not a people-management position – for someone who thrives on ownership of their own pipeline, book, and deal cycle, whether that means opening a territory from zero, turning around an underperforming patch, or sustaining a high-volume new-logo motion once a territory is up and running.

This role sits closer to enterprise/key-account sales than only SMB prospecting: you’ll be structuring agreements with multiple buying influencers inside one prospect account – and, in parallel, running a persistent, high-volume outreach motion across your market so that depth on the big pursuits never comes at the cost of breadth of contact. Both are core to the role, not one in service of the other.

What You’ll Do

• Own a new business target, building and executing your own business development plan
• Originate new-logo opportunities yourself – researching targets and forming a hypothesis before outreach – rather than relying mainly on inbound leads or introductions
• Develop and execute relationship management plans for complex accounts – mapping decision-makers and influencers across multiple stakeholders, business units, or geographies
• Build relationships with senior stakeholders (C-suite, department heads, or equivalent), tailoring the value proposition to each buying influence
• Run a consultative, multi-threaded sales process: clarify customer needs, tailor proposals, handle objections, and close durable commercial agreements
• Sustain a consistent, high-volume outreach cadence – scaled through smart segmentation so it lands as relevant with minimal tailoring – to keep a healthy top of funnel alongside the longer enterprise pursuits
• Qualify out weak opportunities early and confidently, concentrating time only where there’s a realistic path to a significant outcome
• Implement and apply structured sales methodology (e.g. MEDDPICC, Sandler, or similar) to improve qualification, forecasting accuracy, and win rates
• Maintain full pipeline visibility and forecasting discipline via CRM (e.g. Salesforce, Gong, Salesloft, or equivalent)
• Act as a customer champion internally, working cross-functionally with Marketing, Customer Success, and Product on go-to-market execution
• Represent the organisation externally (trade shows, events, personal network) to generate new opportunities

What We’re Looking For

Experience

• 5–10+ years in B2B sales, ideally selling into HR, with over 3 years‘ experience able to operate independently and advise others
• A demonstrated, verifiable track record – not just narrative claims – of quota/target attainment, deal sizes, and revenue contribution over the last 2–3 years, including outreach/prospecting volume (e.g. new organisations engaged, meetings booked)
• Evidence of self-generating pipeline through your own prospecting – not solely inbound or channel-sourced – across both large strategic pursuits and shorter, higher-velocity wins
• Experience with complex, multi-stakeholder deals: navigating multiple buying influences (e.g. senior leaders, procurement, other departments) to reach agreement
• Experience selling into SaaS, Tech, HR, L&D, or similar B2B services sectors (industry-adjacent experience considered)
• A track record of staying in role long enough to build, close, and repeat success within a longer or more complex sales cycle
• Evidence of operating with high autonomy and limited day-to-day oversight

Skills & Approach

• AI-augmented prospecting — uses AI tools to research target accounts and sharpen the hypothesis behind outreach, while critically evaluating AI-generated output rather than acting on it uncritically
• Trained in a structured sales methodology (MEDDPICC, Sandler, Challenger, etc.)
• Confident using modern sales tooling (CRM, sales engagement platforms) to manage relationships and forecast accurately
• Strong stakeholder management and negotiation skills, comfortable engaging senior/C-level contacts
• Skilled in value selling: needs analysis, tailored presentations, objection handling
• Treats the pipeline as a numbers game: comfortable disqualifying weak opportunities early, and sustains outreach volume even while a long deal cycle is running
• Self-motivated, comfortable with ambiguity, and able to work autonomously against targets
• Sociable and open to differing perspectives, with the confidence to navigate organisational complexity and build networks both inside and outside the business

Nice to Have

• Experience launching or selling an AI-enabled product
• Existing network of relevant senior decision-makers from previous roles
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience
• Additional languages beyond English and Dutch

What Success Looks Like in Year One

• Consistently hitting or exceeding revenue targets against a qualified, well-forecasted pipeline
• A sales methodology applied consistently, evidenced by improved personal win rates and pipeline coverage
• A sustained outreach/prospecting cadence maintained across the year – not concentrated only around the big pursuits – evidenced by volume of new organisations engaged and meetings booked
• Measurable growth in existing account base alongside new business wins
• At least one complex, multi-stakeholder deal taken end-to-end from prospecting to close, alongside a repeatable pattern of shorter, higher-velocity new-logo wins

What Top Employers Institute Offers

Purposeful Impact. Global Connections. Versatile Working Environment.

At Top Employers Institute, we believe in:

• Living our human-centric approach (flexible working conditions, including the flexibility to work from home or the office)
• Thriving in a multicultural environment
• Growing meaningfully
• Leadership culture based on trust
• Plenty of room for initiatives and own responsibility
• We pay you to pay it forward: we grant you 2 days of paid time off for volunteering for causes you care about
• We want you to stay with us: you will enjoy a 4-week sabbatical leave paid by the company after 5 years
• Dynamic and strong international culture (more than 30 nationalities spread over 12 offices all around the world)
• Fast growing (20% YoY revenue growth) and sustainable company (founded 30 years ago)
• Be part of a globally recognised leader shaping the future of HR and employer branding.
• Be part of a motivated and fun team in a high-growth environment where every day brings new challenges, opportunities and rewards
• Collaborate with industry experts and thought leaders to drive meaningful impact
• Competitive compensation, benefits, and career development opportunities

Top Employers Institute

Top Employers Institute is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We respect and celebrate each other’s differences. We know that a diverse workforce enhances our success. We are conscious that having the freedom to be yourself is the basis of sustainable growth. To us, it doesn’t matter where you were born, what you believe in, how old you are, what you look like, or who you love. We actively promote and depend on the diversity of thought, skills, and capabilities in our project teams to serve our international consumer base in the best way possible. We believe that different perspectives and backgrounds actually lift Top Employers Institute to new heights and increase our way of thinking for a better world of work. Join us, as there is a place for you here!

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