Senior Director of Business Development, Kantar
Sector Focussed
2-3 days a week in office (South Bank Central, London)
Data, insights and consulting company
Be an early applicant
Data, insights and consulting company
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
2-3 days a week in office (South Bank Central, London)
1001+ employees
Company mission
To inspire success in its clients' businesses, by bringing consumer and shopper insights to the heart of their decision-making process.
Role
Who you are
- You bring a black book of senior contacts, energy, pace, and the hunger to make things happen
- A proven track record of landing new logos, levering cross-sell opportunities and building multi‑million‑pound pipelines in B2B services (insights, consulting, data, tech, media or related)
- Strong understanding of at least one sector, with the agility to work agnostically across all
- Experience navigating complex organisations, buying groups and commercial processes
- You are hungry — motivated by outcomes, winning and pace
- You are curious — obsessed with learning clients’ worlds and uncovering problems
- You are fearlessly client‑facing — happiest when in conversation, not behind a laptop
- You are tenacious — never shy about outreach, follow‑up, and maintaining contact momentum
- You are approachable – never afraid to approach prospects at events, conferences and networking opportunities
- Strong storytelling and value‑proposition crafting abilities
- Ability to quickly understand and translate Kantar’s solutions for new audiences
- Excellent collaboration and influencing across BD, CPs, Domains, Strategy, and Marketing
- Strong organisational discipline in CRM, pipeline hygiene, and reporting
- Purposeful Collaboration — partnering across teams to win
- Growth Mindset — continually improving outreach, sector knowledge and hit‑rate
- Flourish — bringing energy, positivity and pace to Business Development and to the wider business
What the job involves
- Team: Business Development (Insights UK)
- Location: London (Hybrid), 50-60% of time spent with prospects
- Reports to: Head of Business Development
- This role exists to unlock new revenue growth by opening doors, creating new conversations, and landing high‑value opportunities across priority sectors. You will be our frontline T-shaped deal‑maker, a commercially sharp, endlessly curious hunter who thrives on time with clients and converting conversations into pipeline
- Your mission is simple: Find opportunity >> create opportunity >> win opportunity
- Kantar’s growth depends on high‑impact hunters who can:
- Spot whitespace before the market does
- Build relationships that create multi‑year value
- Bring Kantar’s full suite of capabilities into new buying points
- Ignite commercial momentum sector‑by‑sector
- This role is pivotal in net‑new revenue generation and sector penetration
- Build and execute a clear sector‑specific hunting plan (e.g. Retail, Tech, FMCG, FS, Media, etc. – Sectors are TBC, dependent upon experience in these sectors)
- Identify, map and target high‑value accounts, using your black book and deep network
- Convert cold relationships into warm conversations through outreach, networking, events and referrals
- Reactivate dormant or lapsed accounts with strong revenue potential
- Stay ahead of sector dynamics, identifying early signals that open new buying points
- Spend extensive time in‑market, meeting senior decision‑makers, immersing yourself in client challenges through face to face and online meetings
- Lead discovery conversations to uncover tensions, opportunities and growth barriers
- Bring back sharp, actionable intel to the Business Development team, marketing, domains and leadership
- Represent Kantar with credibility, energy and authentic enthusiasm
- Own your pipeline end‑to‑end — opportunity creation, qualification, sales strategy and progression
- Partner with Orchestration Team (Converters/Programme Design) and Big Pitch (where necessary) on proposals and pitches; hand over warm opportunities smoothly, following our Business Development sales process best practice guidelines
- Maintain forecasting accuracy and CRM discipline
- Track outreach activity, conversion rates, and lead‑gen performance
- Work with Domain, Marketing, Thought Leadership and Business Development colleagues to shape compelling sector‑relevant narratives
- Drive participation in sector events, campaigns and growth initiatives
- Collaborate closely with SDRs and other hunters to maximise speed‑to‑market
- Contribute to a high‑performance, supportive Business Development culture
- A meaningful black book of senior‑level relationships that can open doors quickly
- Gravitas and credibility to influence C‑suite and senior buyers
- What This Role Is Not:
- Not project delivery or ongoing client management
- Not proposal ownership (sits with Orchestration Team - Converters / Programme Design)
- Not solution development or operational oversight
Application process
- End Date: March 31, 2026
Salary benchmarks
Our take
Since its founding in 1992, Kantar has grown into the world's leading data insights company, specialising in data analysis and brand consulting. It is operating in 90 markets and manages over 2 billion data profiles in almost every industry, from automotive to telecoms. The company is trusted by numerous governments and major brands such as Google, Facebook and Alibaba to provide deep insights into the data they hold.
Kantar's size and reach has so far protected it from competition in the market research space. However, in recent years its capabilities has come under increasing pressure from more agile tech companies like ProQuo AI. Kantar has responded with a shakeup of its leadership team and refocused its future investment priorities, aiming to develop its technology base to compete with newer rivals.
This approach has so far worked well for Kantar. Its link AI tool, developed as part of this move, is able to predict a video's market success using an AI model based on millions of human interactions. This has been rolled out globally to over 100 of Kantar's clients, leading to a 30% rise in return on investment. Moving forward Kantar will continue to adopt new technology and consolidate its business activities to further increase its share of an extremely competitive market.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
1% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Company HQ
London, UK
Leadership
Paul Zwillenberg
(CEO)Former CEO of Daily Mail and General Trust, Vice Chair of the Reinvention Executive Advisory at Accenture, and Senior Partner & Managing Director at BCG.
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