Business Development Manager

Job Description

Overview

Position

Manager, Business Development

Job Code

Reports to

Executive Director, Business Development and Partnerships, Media

Direct Reports

Division/Section

Department

Media

Sector

Media, Entertainment, Culture

Job Family

Role Purpose

Provide strategic and executional support in business development for NEOM Media sector as defined by the Media industries strategic plan and from guidance provided by the sector’s Executive Director for Business Development and Partnerships

Enable the Media sector to engage and attract leading industry and adjacent businesses from across the region and beyond with a focus on Screen Production, Gaming and Digital publishing to support sector strategies to develop sustainable regional industry ecosystem. Encouraging businesses to invest and develop assets and services across the value chain.

Support Executive Director with all strategic and operational plans and actions to secure partnerships in the Media Industries that support sector’s strategic and visionary plans.

Support the Executive Director with all that is required with other activities within the media industries sector

Key Accountabilities & Activities

Planning & Strategy

Operations

• Support NEOM’s Media Industries business development activities and support Executive Director and other team members with their strategic relationships.
• Ensure thorough understanding knowledge market trends/ emerging technologies in media and share with the department and sector teams
• Be fully knowledgeable on the regional market dynamics (MENA/GCC) to ensure NEOM offering and approach to market are relevant and compelling
• Produce quarterly sales forecasts and associated data to provide actionable insights to the wider team and enable informed business decisions and predict short- and long-term performance.
• Ensure relevant team members are kept abreast of these developments.
• Work closely with the sector team members to ensure alignment with sector objectives and ensure relevant knowledge transfer within the sector
• Provide relevant market, industry and business analysis as required by Executive Director and other stakeholders
• Implement strategies and recommend plans to secure regional industry commitment across priority verticals to commence business and production operations at NEOM media hub
• Maintain Full market SWOT analysis of competing regional hubs to inform Business development plans and share with team and identify best practice globally and share with the team.
• Understand and champion NEOM’s defined and distinctive value proposition & offering in the marketplace
• Research and evaluate structured incentive programs in the market and calibrate NEOM’s offering to attract and secure business commitment to NEOM Media Hub
• Keep Executive Director, BD and Partnerships in Media fully updated on key initiatives, business development outreach and emerging critical relationships and key engagement with prioritized targets and activities and status ongoing business development activity
• Utilize and fine tune sector’s current CRM system, Salesforce, to support Business Development
• Work closely with sector and NEOM counterparts (eg gaming) to provide a pipeline of companies to be activated as part of gaming cluster.
• Adopt and refine sector narrative based on industry concerns/challenges/competitors for business development in conjunction with Director Industry Engagement
• Support regional clients and strategic partners in the achievement of their objectives and business success in NEOM Media Hub with thorough knowledge and understanding of their operations and requirements.

People Management

Project Management

• Support Executive Director in developing inclusive/collaborative performance culture that embraces NEOM’s values
• Support the Business Development organizational structure to ensure execution of Media industries strategic plan
• Set deliverable performance objectives for self and team members and ensure alignment with Media industries strategic plan
• Liaise with stakeholders at all levels within sector, NEOM, and the Industry at large.
• Be instrumental in shaping the sector’s team culture
• Stay fully updated on the status of all pending projects and negotiations
• Manage interactions with clients/tenants and provide opinions and direction
• Proactively suggest areas for improvement which may benefit all projects’ performance for all stakeholders
• Create and keep updated trackers for all discussions/projects using multiple tools such as Excel/PowerPoint/CRM etc

Background, Skills & Qualifications

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• 5 plus years’ experience in media industries with focus on content creation, preferably in the MENA region
• Intimate knowledge and demonstrable experience across the value chain in content creation, especially in screen productions.
• Required knowledge of the region’s media content industries, with full understanding of what it takes, operationally, to produce content from script writing and distribution, and everything in between.
• Exposure to and established working relationship with production support services providers in the MENA region and beyond.
• Proven business development skills and demonstrable record of securing new business
• Strong Leadership and stakeholder management experience
• Ability to work in a demanding environment with multiple projects and activities simultaneously.
• Project management skills
• Proven professional who works harmoniously with other high performance team members
• Strong commercial acumen to develop strategic and commercial relationships
• Strong knowledge of basic software such as Excel, PowerPoint, etc…
• Past experience with the CRM platform Salesforce a big plus
• Multiple language skills a plus

Qualifications

Bachelor’s Degree in business from a reputable university. Post graduate degree such as an MBA a plus.

COMMUNICATION – MAIN STAKEHOLDERS

Internal

External

Managing Director Media, Entertainment, Culture

Executive Director, BD and Partnerships

Sector Executive Directors and other senior management

Media Industries team

Other teams across NEOM

Government Affairs, HR, Shared Services etc….

Regional and global industry

• Screen Production ecosystem players
• Gaming (in association with gaming cluster team)
• Digital Publishing
• Ancillary regional media content businesses

Third party suppliers

• Market monitoring/research
• CRM