Description

How You'll Contribute

Reporting to the President and serving on the senior leadership team, the Senior Vice President of Business Development owns Russell's business development engine - pipeline, pursuits, and revenue accountability across all markets - in close partnership with Marketing and Preconstruction. This role is accountable for profitable revenue growth, sharpening our forecasting, pursuit selection, and pipeline discipline while strengthening the relationship-driven, seller-doer culture that already wins.

Roles & Responsibilities

Business Development

Own enterprise business development goal attainment; set company, market, and individual business development goals with the executive team.

Lead the business development team with coaching, measurables, and accountability; lead Market Presidents on business development scorecards, pursuit collaboration, and client relations in their geographies.

Lead sales processes for seller-doers in collaboration with the Chief Operating Officer.

Own sales forecasting and pipeline planning as inputs to business planning and resource decisions.

Champion go/no-go discipline and pursuit selection criteria.

Drive CRM utilization and data integrity across all client-facing roles; manage the business development budget.

Personally engage key clients and participate in pursuits - client calls, proposals, and interviews.

Marketing Partnership

Partner with the VP of Marketing & Client Relations to align pursuit strategy, proposals, and interview preparation with business development priorities.

Provide business development input to brand positioning, market research, and client experience initiatives; share pipeline data to inform marketing investment.

Preconstruction Partnership

Collaborate with the COO and VP of Preconstruction covering pursuit selection, estimate responsiveness, and interview performance.

Ensure a clean handoff from pursuit strategy into preconstruction and from award into operations.

Leadership

Coach and develop direct reports; drive accountability for outcomes and build succession depth.

Contribute as a member of the leadership team to strategic planning and enterprise decisions.

Requirements

• 10+ years of progressive revenue, business development, or client-facing leadership in construction, AEC, or a closely adjacent B2B relationship-sales environment (development, engineering, design-build, commercial real estate services).
• Experience leading a business development team with goals, scorecards, and accountability - and evidence of growing revenue through others, not only personal production.
• Working fluency in how construction work is won: qualifications-based selection, RFP/RFQ pursuits, interviews, and relationship-driven negotiated work.
• Comfort with CRM-driven pipeline management and sales forecasting.
• Executive presence with clients, boards, and civic leadership; willingness to travel regularly across Russell's four markets.
• Direct experience with preconstruction or estimating environments preferred.
• Experience partnering closely with a marketing function on pursuits and brand strategy is a plus.
• Existing client relationships in the Midwest and in Russell's core sectors.