Director, New Business Development

Role: Director, New Business Development

Location: Chicago (Hybrid)

Reports To: Chief Customer Officer

About Orchard

Orchard is a behavioral consumer insights partner, helping the world’s largest brands shape winning messaging strategies and launch innovations with confidence by testing in the wild, aka running experiments in digital media feeds to uncover real consumer behavior. Our platform blends the speed and scale of ad-tech with the rigor of behavioral science, evaluating from ideation to commercialization–all without panels or claimed intent. 

We work with enterprises like Clorox, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Intuit, and more to simplify decision-making with fast, predictive, and actionable research.

We’re on a mission to disrupt the multi-billion-dollar market research industry by transforming how insights are delivered and scaled, and we’re looking for entrepreneurial talent to help us do it.

The Role

The Director, New Business Development role is responsible for winning net-new clients for Orchard. This is a high-ownership hunter role, focused on prospecting into a defined list of target accounts, generating interest, leading discovery, building proposals, and closing deals.

You’ll partner closely with our Chief Customer Officer and collaborate across marketing, product, and research to translate Orchard’s capabilities into compelling solutions for senior stakeholders at Fortune 100 companies and beyond.

This role is ideal for someone who loves creating pipelines, thrives in consultative selling, and can navigate multi-stakeholder buying groups to a close.

Key Responsibilities

1. Target Account Prospecting & Pipeline Creation

• Own outbound prospecting into a defined list of priority target accounts
• Build outreach plans that connect Orchard’s value to business priorities across client-side insight, marketing, innovation, and R&D functions
• Create and maintain a healthy pipeline through disciplined activity, account planning, and follow-up

2. Discovery & Consultative Selling

• Lead discovery to clarify goals, constraints, decision criteria, stakeholders, and timelines
• Develop point-of-view–led conversations that elevate the problem and create urgency
• Multi-thread relationships across functions to build consensus and reduce single-thread risk

3. Proposal Development & Deal Strategy

• Build clear business cases that link Orchard’s behavioral insights to outcomes (speed, confidence, reduced risk, improved launch performance)
• Own deal strategy: qualification, mutual close plan, competitive positioning, and risk management

4. Negotiation & Close

• Manage the full sales cycle from first meeting through signature, including pricing, negotiation, and procurement
• Drive momentum with clear next steps, strong meeting hygiene, and clear communication
• Consistent CRM management and accurate pipeline forecasting

5. Cross-Functional Collaboration & Market Feedback

• Partner with marketing to develop custom prospect-facing materials
• Share voice-of-market feedback to improve product, partnerships, and sales enablement

6. Performance & Reporting

• Track KPIs tied to new logo growth (opportunities, proposals sent, closed/won deals, win rate, etc.)
• Report on pipeline health, conversion, and deal risks with a consistent operating cadence

What You Bring

• 7 years in new business sales / business development within market research, consumer insights, or strategic consulting
• Proven track record prospecting into named accounts and closing net-new business
• Strong executive presence and ability to run insight-led, consultative conversations
• Experience navigating matrixed organizations and multi-stakeholder deal cycles
• Ability to translate ambiguous needs into a scoped approach, proposal, and close plan
• Highly organized, metric-driven, and motivated by outcomes over activity
• Proficiency with behavioral insights, message testing, innovation evaluation, or other marketing research frameworks is a plus

Why This Role Matters

Orchard is already trusted by some of the most sophisticated organizations in the world. This role accelerates our next phase of growth by expanding that trust to new client relationships, bringing a faster, more scalable approach to insights to teams that are ready to make decisions with more confidence and less delay.