Thrive Partners Ltd
Account Director and Business Development
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Senior Account Director
80% Account Growth | 20% New Business
Location: UK-based, predominantly remote, with occasional travel to client meetings, networking events and a monthly team meeting
Reporting to: Head of Growth
Before You Apply
This is primarily an account growth role. It is not a high-volume sales role or a traditional customer service position.
- Around 80% of your time will be spent retaining and growing important existing accounts.
- The remaining 20% will focus on new business through referrals, networks, partnerships, events, and marketing-generated opportunities.
You will need to demonstrate that you have personally:
- Grown the revenue and scope of complex accounts.
- Built relationships beyond a single customer contact.
- Identified, shaped, and closed expansion opportunities.
- Led commercial conversations with senior decision-makers.
- Managed proposals, renewals, negotiations, and revenue targets.
This role will not suit someone whose experience is mainly responding to inbound enquiries, servicing accounts without a growth target, managing high volumes of smaller customers, or passing opportunities to another team to close.
We want someone with drive, charisma, energy, grit, and passion. Our team is bright, bold, fast-paced, and fun, so how you contribute as a teammate matters.
About Thrive
At Thrive, we believe better conversations build better leaders, stronger teams, and healthier organisations.
We combine expert coaching, leadership development, and technology to help organisations improve leadership, culture, and performance. Our platform enables organisations to deliver coaching, mentoring, and leadership development at scale while measuring engagement, impact, and emerging organisational insight.
We are looking for an experienced Senior Account Director who can deepen our most important customer relationships and turn excellent delivery into long-term, commercially valuable partnerships.
The Role
Reporting to the Head of Growth, you will own a portfolio of strategic customer accounts.
Your priority will be to retain, delight, develop, and grow those relationships. You will understand each customer’s organisation, strategy, people priorities, and decision-making environment, then identify where Thrive can add further value.
These will not be gentle account check-ins. You will lead inspiring, commercially purposeful conversations about the human agenda, leadership, and the future of work.
You will create account plans, build relationships across each organisation, lead strategic reviews, identify opportunities, shape solutions, develop proposals, and take commercial conversations through to agreement.
You will also contribute to new business by converting referrals, using your network, attending relevant events, and progressing selected prospects.
This is a commercially accountable role. Being well liked is important, but it is not enough. Success will be measured through retention, account growth, revenue, quality of relationships, opportunities created, and accurate forecasting.
You will work closely with Customer Success, Marketing, Operations, Product, and our Coaching Faculty. Customer Success will support delivery, engagement, and utilisation. You will remain accountable for the strategic relationship and commercial growth of each account.
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Strategic Account Growth — 80%
You will:
- Own the commercial performance of a portfolio of strategic accounts.
- Build account plans covering revenue, stakeholders, priorities, risks, and opportunities.
- Develop credible relationships with senior HR, Learning and Development, Talent, Procurement, and business leaders.
- Build relationships across multiple functions and levels rather than relying on one contact.
- Lead strategic reviews focused on outcomes, future priorities, and growth.
- Identify opportunities to expand coaching, leadership development, mentoring, and platform adoption.
- Turn customer needs into relevant, commercially viable solutions.
- Prepare and present proposals and recommendations.
- Lead renewal, expansion, and contract conversations.
- Work with Customer Success to improve adoption, demonstrate impact, and manage risk.
- Use data, insight, and outcomes to strengthen the case for continued investment.
- Create customer advocates, referrals, case studies, and recommendations.
- Maintain accurate account plans, opportunities, and forecasts in Zoho.
- Act early when an account or opportunity is at risk.
New Business Development — 20%
You will:
- Convert referrals, introductions, event contacts, and marketing-generated opportunities.
- Use your existing relationships and network to create relevant conversations.
- Represent Thrive at selected events, roundtables, podcasts, and industry activities.
- Lead discovery conversations with senior HR, Learning and Development, and business leaders.
- Shape tailored coaching, leadership development, and technology solutions.
- Prepare proposals and manage suitable opportunities through to contract signature.
- Contribute to agreed new-business targets.
- Maintain accurate pipeline and forecasting information.
This is not a cold-calling role, but you will be expected to create opportunities rather than wait for leads to arrive.
Thought Leadership and Collaboration
You will help strengthen Thrive’s position as a trusted voice in leadership and coaching by sharing ideas with customers, delivering briefings and webinars, contributing to podcasts and events, and building relationships across the HR and Learning community.
As part of a small, ambitious business, you will work closely with Marketing, Customer Success, Operations, Product, and our Coaching Faculty. You will share customer insight, support case studies, and take responsibility for moving work forward without needing a large corporate infrastructure around you.
What Success Looks Like
You will be succeeding when:
- Accounts achieve agreed growth and retention targets.
- Account plans create tangible opportunities and revenue.
- Thrive has strong relationships with several stakeholders in each key account.
- Customers involve us early in conversations about leadership and people priorities.
- Renewals are planned well in advance.
- Expansion opportunities are identified and progressed consistently.
- Customers see Thrive as a strategic partner rather than a supplier.
- Advocates generate referrals, references, and case studies.
- Forecasts are accurate, and CRM records are current.
- Risks and difficult conversations are addressed early.
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About You
You are commercially ambitious, curious, and credible. You enjoy understanding how organisations work, asking thoughtful questions, and helping senior leaders think differently.
You do not confuse account management with simply being helpful and responsive. You understand that great account leadership requires strategy, influence, commercial judgement, disciplined follow-through, and the confidence to ask for a decision.
You are proactive, organised, and resilient. You are comfortable in a growing business where priorities move quickly, and everyone contributes.
Essential Experience
You will need:
- Significant experience in strategic account management, account growth, or consultative sales.
- A clear record of personally growing the value and scope of existing accounts.
- Experience carrying and achieving account growth, renewal, or revenue targets.
- Evidence of building relationships across complex customer organisations.
- Experience engaging and influencing senior decision-makers.
- Experience shaping solutions, writing proposals, negotiating, and closing agreements.
- Experience selling coaching, leadership development, HR, or learning technology, SaaS, or professional services.
- Strong commercial judgement, communication, presentation, and negotiation skills.
- Excellent organisation, CRM discipline, and forecasting capability.
Applications are unlikely to progress without clear evidence of personally growing existing accounts and converting that growth into revenue.
Technology
You should be comfortable using CRM platforms such as Zoho or HubSpot, Microsoft 365, Teams, PowerPoint, Excel, Power BI, and video-conferencing tools.
Experience with LinkedIn Sales Navigator, AI productivity tools, and marketing automation would be useful.
Desirable
Experience in coaching, leadership development, HR, or learning technology, SaaS, professional services, organisational development, or talent consultancy would be valuable.
Existing relationships within senior HR, Talent, Learning and Development, or People communities would be beneficial. A coaching qualification is useful but not essential.
Why Thrive?
We are a small, ambitious team with a big vision: making coaching and meaningful conversations accessible to everyone.
You will work closely with our Head of Growth, Founder, and leadership team, work with leading organisations, and have a visible impact on both customer partnerships and Thrive’s growth.
This role offers meaningful responsibility, commercial accountability, and the freedom to make things happen.
How to Apply
Please apply with your CV and a brief covering note answering:
- Tell us about an existing account you personally grew. What was its starting value, what did you grow it to, and how?
- How have you built relationships beyond your original contact and turned them into opportunities?
- What experience do you have selling coaching, leadership development, HR, or learning technology, SaaS, or professional services?
Applications that do not answer these questions may not be progressed.
Salary
£60-£70k plus bonus and benefits
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