Director Business Development

Position General Summary:

In partnership with the Senior Director, Product Strategy and Delivery, the Director, Business Development leads the identification and analysis of new business growth opportunities based on industry trends, competitive intelligence, and the viability of prospective partners. This forward-looking strategic role is responsible for ensuring smart, measurable growth within the national education space by maintaining a visionary outlook to anticipate emerging market dynamics and determine the feasibility of expansion into new territories and markets. The Director serves as a critical bridge between product strategy and sales execution, overseeing a team of Product Managers and collaborating cross-functionally with Sales, Marketing, and Operational teams to synthesize customer and prospect feedback with national market demands. By aligning product roadmaps with these real-world insights, this role defines the comprehensive market-entry strategy and ensures the organization’s products and services are perfectly positioned for immediate conversion and long-term success.

Essential Position Functions:

• Serves as the primary lead for identifying and analyzing new business growth opportunities based on industry trends, utilizing raw market data, funding cycles (e.g., TEFA, ESA), and competitive intelligence to pinpoint high-intent regions.
• Transitions organizational growth from speculative to precision-based by defining the specific product and service configurations required to meet the needs of targeted geographical and demographic segments, ensuring a competitive presence before market saturation.
• Architects the sequence and priority of market entry, determining which product bundles and service models are most likely to convert within specific demographics.
• Identifies market voids and validates the product mix to ensure internal resources are invested in building assets with a high statistical probability of immediate market conversion.
• Develops and maintains comprehensive forecasts to project the future value and long-term health of products and services, providing senior leadership with data-backed insights into revenue sustainability and the projected financial viability of national expansion initiatives.
• Leads a team of Product Managers to develop and maintain a national growth roadmap that reflects market requirements, research-driven insights, and identified buyer needs.
• Acts as a liaison to the Marketing team to translate entry strategies into actionable demand generation, ensuring brand messaging and collateral are synchronized with product rollouts.
• Establishes the strategic framework and commercial toolkit for new products and services for the sales team, providing the market requirements and product vision necessary for successful customer acquisition and national expansion.
• Establishes a feedback loop between Sales execution and Product Strategy to analyze the efficacy of market-entry playbooks, refining data models and product-market fit strategies based on real-world adoption.
• Conducts comprehensive opportunity cost analyses and holistic portfolio assessments to prioritize internal business decisions, including consultation with the Sales team on RFP alignment to ensure selected bids leverage the products and services that offer the highest probability of success and strategic fit.
• Partners with Product Strategy and Operational teams to ensure alignment on operational needs, feasibility, and the effective execution of strategic initiatives.
• Participates in and supports the organization’s engagement at industry events, national conferences, and high-level meetings to stay abreast of the evolving educational and policy landscape.
• Lead and manage assigned direct reports for continual improvement in efficiency and effectiveness of the group, as well as ensuring team members have access to professional growth within the organization
• Meet professional obligations through efficient work habits such as, meeting deadlines, honoring schedules, coordinating resources and meetings in an effective and timely manner, and demonstrating respect for others
• All work responsibilities are subject to having performance goals and/or targets established

 (These essential functions are not to be construed as a complete statement of all duties performed. Employees will be required to perform other job related duties as required.)

Minimum Requirements:

Education/Licensure/Certification:

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Analytics, Economics, Marketing, or equivalent work experience.
• Master’s degree preferred.

Experience:

• 8 years of progressive high-level experience in product development and/or business development.
• 5 years of organizational leadership experience managing teams.
• Experience in K-12 distance learning or EdTech industry (preferred).

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs):

• Market Intelligence Synthesis: Expert knowledge of business development strategies and competitive analysis; ability to transform raw market data and legislative funding signals into actionable business intelligence and geographical target maps.
• Strategic Decision-Making: Ability to interpret complex market research, financial reports, and industry trends to make informed, objective recommendations for organizational strategy and expansion.
• Strategic Synchronization: Skill in aligning disparate functions—including Innovation, Research, Marketing, and Sales—around a unified market-entry timeline, vision, and commercial rollout.
• Financial Modeling & ROI Analysis: Proficiency in using financial models and business frameworks to calculate opportunity costs and projected ROI when evaluating expansion into new national or international territories.
• Portfolio Management: Expert knowledge of aligning product development pipelines with pre-identified market requirements, buyer personas, and identified gaps in the educational landscape.
• Operational Agility: Ability to synthesize field-level sales feedback into high-level strategic pivots, ensuring roadmaps remain responsive to real-time market friction.
• Adaptive Leadership: Strong ability to manage ambiguity and apply innovative thinking to generate growth solutions in a rapidly changing market and policy environment.
• Executive Communication: Excellent presentation and communication skills for effectively engaging and influencing executive leadership, boards, and external stakeholders.
• Excellent leadership capabilities, including the ability to work effectively with and influence team members, management, clients and other external groups

Physical Requirements and Environmental Conditions:

• Frequency of travel: Frequent travel is required for meetings, trainings, and conferences; location may vary and may require overnight stays
• Light physical activities and efforts required working in an office environment