Business Development Manager – Latin America

Business Development Manager – Latin America and Mining & Metals

New York, NY

Summary

Primary responsibility for driving the strategy of the Latin America Practice Group (“LatAm”) and Mining & Metals (“M&M”) across all practices, countries and industries with a key focus on the following practices: Project Development and Finance, M&A, Banking, Capital Markets and Disputes. The Business Development Manager, Latin America and Mining & Metals will work closely with respective partners to develop and implement the business development and marketing strategies for the LatAm and M&M groups.

This global law firm has been a leading international law firm in Latin America for more than a century with a dedicated team of partners and associates, many fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, covering a large number of practice area needs of our clients.

The firm is also one of the few prominent international law firms focused on the mining industry handling groundbreaking matters across most of the firm’s practice areas.

Key objectives are to generate revenues through strategic business development activities; managing operational aspects of the LatAm group; enhance market profile of the partners and the practices; and coordinating efforts with international colleagues and other marketing team members on global cross-selling efforts, including support for client teams, industry groups and other firm-wide BD efforts.

Responsibilities

• Develop each Group’s business development plan for key markets and clients and ensure alignment of each Group’s business development plan with the Firm strategy.
• Support partners in building and maintaining relationships with local counsels and ensure that strategic relationships with local counsel are managed in a robust way to maximize benefits to the Firm.
• Work with professional development and HR to support the International Associates Program, including (i) managing logistics for the selection process, (ii) providing support in mentoring the lawyers, (iii) helping plan events (and execute such events in coordination with our events team), (iv) assisting in creating and updating curriculum for practice group training for such associates, among other related tasks.
• Respond to client secondments and reverse secondments. Work with practice management to ensure a high rate of return on these investments.
• Oversee and conduct client feedback from priority clients of each Group. Work closely with Firm management to identify regular client feedback meetings with the Firm’s top strategic relationships.
• Identify new business opportunities and work with the relevant partners and associates to convert these opportunities into new business for the Firm, including identifying these opportunities through news spotting, research, speaking with local counsel, etc.
• Work in close coordination with the Head of the Metals & Mining practice group and the Head of the Latin American practice group in a holistic manner to support the Metals & Mining Industry group and the LatAm practice, including organizing meetings to discuss their ongoing BD strategy; draft agendas and lead in discussions.
• Brainstorm ideas for events and work closely with the events team to host LatAm group’s and Metals & Mining’s meetings, including strategy meetings, annual summer client events, etc.
• Liaise with GTS and Knowledge Management to aid in keeping the LatAm and Metals & Mining groups apprised of any new legal technology.
• Conduct regular reviews of the LatAm group’s financials and monitor LatAm revenue generating matters, interfacing with treasury, conflicts and other administrative departments for such purposes.
• Provide concrete, actionable ideas and robust advice and opinions to the Groups regarding business development efforts, including providing business development mentoring to junior and senior associates.
• Support and offer strategic guidance on major pitches and proposals (primarily cross-practice pitches, pitches requiring specific market and/or technical knowledge and “must win” pitches) for each Group’s key clients, practices and markets, including, where appropriate, drafting and revising pitches and proposals as needed.
• Track the success of proposals, pitches and bids, and communicating wins via the client relationship management database and tracker documents.
• Support practice group business development colleagues on practice-specific pitches.
• Strengthen our ties to alumni in the Latin America region and help maintain existing relationships, through planning events in specific jurisdictions, keeping in touch with alumni. Lead or work with alumni and events team to organize annual alumni events in each key jurisdiction, and other events in accordance with the firm’s alumni strategy.
• Lead client-facing strategic research projects as appropriate.
• Work with Group partners and BD colleagues to identify and pursue cross-selling opportunities including industries and practices.
• Assist in the development and tracking of marketing plans and marketing budgets, individual partner plans and targeted business development initiatives.
• Work with relevant industry area BD professionals to ensure all pitches for both practices are appropriately tailored to the client’s business and preferences.
• Liaise and exchange information with other offices, practices and industries targeting the same clients and following up on cross-selling opportunities.
• Draft, update, organize and maintain marketing materials and experience on the external and internal websites and/or various databases as required.
• Draft submissions for directory and research guides and identification and tracking awards and practice group specific directory submissions
• Identify, client events, external speaking engagements, events and conferences, and webinars; work with the events team to execute on the logistics.
• Work with the firm’s Communications team to develop and implement external communications and media opportunities including recommended speaking and by-lined article opportunities and thought leadership opportunities and, where relevant, enlist the support of the Communications team with respect to the foregoing.
• Coordinate the drafting and publication of any thought leadership pieces, including articles.
• Coordinate with Marketing & BD team and other administrative departments on cross-selling opportunities and initiatives relevant to the Group.
• Work with Knowledge Management to define and implement industry requirements for market data capture.
• Other projects and duties as assigned.

Requirements

• Credible understanding of business and legal landscape and how it impacts the firm’s client base
• Demonstrated understanding of Latin American markets and cultures
• Basic understanding of the mining industry
• Exceptional and creative problem-solving skills; superior analytical skills, attention to detail and accuracy
• Outstanding interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to establish alignment between the expectations and strategies of different stakeholder groups
• Superior ability to prioritize and manage multiple, concurrent projects
• Ability to develop and deliver executive-level presentations
• Strong oral and written communication skills
• Strong team-building, people development, motivational and managerial capabilities
• Confident, flexible and resilient team player
• Manages risk effectively
• Communicates complex ideas effectively
• Strong attention to detail and excellent organizational skills
• Prioritizes work effectively
• Self-starter who is able to work in an ambiguous environment
• Strong negotiation and conflict resolution skills
• Adapts style to build relationships across all levels
• Works effectively under the pressure of deadlines with little supervision
• Minimum of 5 years of frontline work experience in industry-specific business development and marketing, preferably in an international law firm or professional services environment
• Fluent Spanish speaker
• Equivalent of 4-year college degree required
• Law degree and experience practicing law a plus
• Experience with planning and preparing pitches, presentations and other marketing materials required
• Experience planning events, including client events and conferences
• Experience working across variety of office locations, cultures and time zones
• Advanced knowledge of MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel, InterAction; familiarity in working with any desktop publishing software would be a plus