The Female Lead
Business Development Manager
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The Role
As our Business Development Manager, you will be the engine of revenue growth for our business. Your mission is to build a robust pipeline of new business opportunities by putting The Female Lead’s proprietary audience insights, custom surveys, and cultural research front-of-mind for brands and media agencies alike. This is a high-impact, consultative sales role for an intelligent, curious, and well-connected professional who loves data and culture. You have likely cut your teeth at a culturally relevant publisher, research agency, or media brand (think Stylist, LAD Bible, or similar) where you learned how to use deep audience data to solve brand problems.
You possess the strategic gravitas to sell custom research to insight and strategy leads, and the commercial acumen to upsell the media and creative packages that bring those insights to life.
You thrive in an entrepreneurial environment. While you will be an individual contributor driving your own pipeline, you are a team player who works seamlessly with our creative, research, editorial, and community team members.
Full-time position based in W. London. Hybrid working (2 days in the office).
What You’re Here to Do
Marketers often struggle to connect authentically with women without falling back on stereotypes. The Female Lead bridges this gap by offering deep audience insights, custom research, and high-impact creative campaigns and media packages.
Your job is to build a high-quality, consistent pipeline of brand and agency partnerships. You will position The Female Lead not just as a standard media buy, but as a strategic insight, culture, and community partner that helps brands truly resonate with women.
Key Responsibilities
Agency & Brand Outreach
- Leverage and expand your relationships across UK holding groups, independent agencies, and direct brands to drive revenue across our research, insights, and media portfolio.
- Build a consistent, healthy pipeline of new business opportunities by autonomously prospecting and pitching to media planners, social leads, partnership teams, and brand insights & marketing teams to ensure The Female Lead’s research is utilised at the very start of the planning cycle.
- Target progressive brands directly, demonstrating how our custom survey capabilities and audience data transform their engagement with female-first audiences.
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Culture & Insight Selling
- Confidently pitch and sell our primary research suite, including custom surveys, audience insights, and cultural data reports.
- Seamlessly package our secondary media offerings - including social amplification, creative content, events, and community experiences - as the activation layer for those insights.
- Translate client briefs into compelling commercial proposals by working with internal teams to package up our audience insights into actionable insights.
- Pitch the unique benefits of running custom surveys through our massive, engaged community to help brands uncover proprietary data on women's behaviours and preferences.
Pipeline & Relationship Management
- Manage the full sales cycle from initial outreach and pitch creation to closing the deal and handing over to execution teams.
- Keep an accurate pulse on market trends, ensuring our commercial offerings remain competitive and highly relevant to current brand budgets.
- Secure long-term, repeatable partnerships by delivering exceptional client service during the sales process.
What You Need to Know
Required Skills & Experience
- A proven track record of selling data, audience research, SaaS insights, or strategic media solutions into London’s media agency networks and direct brands.
- Prior experience working within a fast-paced publisher, research company, or media owner (e.g., Stylist, LAD Bible, or similar) with a focus on data-led pitching.
- Proven ability to manage consultative sales cycles, moving clients from tactical research projects to long-term, enterprise-level insight partnerships.
- Complete comfort with the concepts of quantitative/qualitative data, consumer behaviour, surveys, and research methodologies.
- The drive to build a pipeline autonomously, combined with a collaborative, team-first mindset.
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Nice-to-Have Skills
- Existing deep relationships with lifestyle, FMCG, health, or finance brands that heavily invest in understanding female consumer behaviour.
- Experience working on events or community-led commercial partnerships.
Our Benefits
- Holiday: 25 days annual leave
- Work-Life Balance: Early Friday finishes (4 pm)
- Hybrid Working: 2-3 days in our West London office or client site
- Financial: Competitive base salary + commission structure
About The Female Lead
The Female Lead is a high-profile, data-driven media platform and community dedicated to female empowerment and gender equality. We give brands a unique advantage: unparalleled access to women’s voices, behaviours, and hidden motivations. TANDEM is the commercial brand consultancy of The Female Lead. Fearlessly female-focused and driven by the highest quality data, we provide a range of insight, media and marketing services that help organisations better understand, reach and engage women. In a crowded media landscape, we stand out by combining creative storytelling of lived experience with deep audience insights from quantitative and qualitative research. We don't just reach women; we understand them, engaging millions daily through powerful social content, custom surveys, and impactful community experiences. We are an independent challenger business, quickly scaling our commercial partnerships across major media agencies and brands directly.
As Business Development Manager, you will represent the full TANDEM proposition selling insight-led partnerships that begin with research and audience intelligence, then grow into creative activation, media, content and events. You'll help organisations unlock the commercial potential of the female economy through data, strategy and storytelling that drives measurable business impact.
We are an expert, growing team working with top brands and great agencies/media companies. We are based in West London, working together to shape how the world listens to women.
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