Director of Business Development
About The Position
The Director of Business Development leads the company's new business strategy, owning the production pipeline, market intelligence, and key client relationships that drive growth across studio, location, and production services. The role works across Sales, Operations, and Executive Leadership to identify and pursue revenue opportunities, build sales infrastructure and reporting, and represent the company with studios, production companies, and industry partners. It combines strategic leadership with direct accountability for pipeline growth and revenue results. The Director develops and executes growth strategies, personally leads high-value pursuits, and builds senior-level industry relationships. The role owns CRM and pipeline systems, sales forecasting, and market intelligence, while establishing practices that improve follow-up, efficiency, and win rates. It also aligns cross-functional teams around growth and client experience, leads business development and sales operations staff, partners with Marketing, and prepares materials for senior leadership.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business Administration, Communications, Entertainment Management, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
- At least 10 years of progressive experience in business development, sales, sales strategy, or entertainment industry operations, including at least 3 years in a leadership role.
- Proven record of generating new business and meeting or exceeding revenue and pipeline targets.
- Established relationships with studios, production companies, producers, or production services providers.
- Deep experience with CRM systems, pipeline management, sales forecasting, and market analytics, including leading CRM adoption across teams.
- Experience leading or managing staff and driving accountability across departments.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication, negotiation, and presentation skills, including experience presenting to senior executives.
- Strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
Nice To Haves
- Experience in film, television, media, studio, stage, location, or production services businesses.
- Knowledge of production incentive programs and regional production markets.
- Experience supporting multi-region or multi-location sales organizations.
- Experience structuring partnerships, multi-project agreements, or long-term client contracts.
Responsibilities
- Develop and execute business development strategies to win new productions, studio clients, and strategic partnerships across all regions.
- Identify, evaluate, and prioritize new markets, services, and partnership opportunities, and build business cases for executive review.
- Lead high-value opportunities, including major studio, series, and multi-project relationships, from first contact through close.
- Build and maintain senior-level relationships with studio executives, producers, production companies, content creators, and industry partners.
- Represent the company at industry events, markets, and association activities to strengthen visibility and generate new business.
- Own the CRM platform and production pipeline tracking system across all regions, ensuring data integrity, adoption, and timely follow-up.
- Lead the production leads desk, ensuring current production opportunities are qualified and routed to regional and national sales teams.
- Set best practices and accountability standards for CRM use, pipeline management, and client engagement across departments.
- Improve business development, sales support, and marketing processes to increase efficiency and win rates.
- Own monthly, quarterly, and annual sales forecasting by region, compare performance against budgets and targets, and recommend corrective action.
- Track production announcements, greenlights, cancellations, tax incentive changes, and competitive activity through industry sources.
- Direct market intelligence reporting on competitive landscape and market share, studio occupancy, studio versus location production trends, project type and regional production activity, emerging production markets, and industry trends and forecasting.
- Align Sales, Operations, Marketing, and Executive Leadership around shared growth goals and the client experience.
- Lead and develop business development, sales operations, and pipeline staff, setting clear goals and performance expectations.
- Partner with Marketing on integrated campaigns promoting studio facilities, production locations, services, and strategic partnerships.
- Prepare and present executive presentations, strategic proposals, business plans, and briefing materials to senior leadership.
Stand Out From the Crowd
Upload your resume and get instant feedback on how well it matches this job.
What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Director
