Business Development Strategist

About Pursuit

Our mission is to create economic transformation. By training low-income adults to launch and advance careers as software engineers, we help our Fellows earn from eighteen thousand dollars a year to over ninety thousand starting salary on average, adding an estimated $2M in lifetime earnings. Pursuit partners with leading companies like Blackstone, USV, Citi, Peloton, and Uber to employ Fellows in career-defining engineering roles and supports them with on-the-job training to ensure potential translates to performance. Since 2013, Pursuit has created ~$1B in total lifetime wage gains, creating lasting economic mobility that spans generations. 

Pursuit’s proven solution is built on two interconnected components: training (which includes community development, Core pre-job training, and Commit on-the-job training) and a financial product (known as Bond). However, growing training alone will not meet the magnitude of need nor solve new societal challenges ahead. The typical expectation is to expand our training to other cities, but this will not come anywhere close to creating good jobs for millions of low-income Americans. Instead, our strategy for scaled impact is to evolve our financial product and create tools for other organizations, jobs, and places. We believe that this will not only create good jobs for millions of low-income Americans but will also generate a new trillion-dollar market directly tied to results in the long term.

We are One Big Team

The passionate and collaborative team at Pursuit gives its all to achieve our mission. And it’s not just staff. We work with employer partners that love hiring our Fellows because they are so well prepared, ranging from big financial firms to scrappy startups, and everything in between. We also activate and engage hundreds of volunteers that come from all areas of the tech industry. These experts and professionals help keep our curriculum fresh and our standards for achievement high by participating in our admissions process, as well as program-specific activities such as interview training, DemoDays, Hackathons, and Capstone projects. 

About the Role

We are in search of a driven and focused Business Development Strategist who will support the research, promotion, and execution of new Pursuit partnerships across multiple revenue streams. Distinct from most Business Development positions, this role will aid in identifying and securing new partners, customers, and investors to further scale Pursuit’s entire business, through multiple revenue models. The right candidate must be comfortable identifying and engaging new potential business partners, supporting sales and investor campaigns with thoroughly researched and well articulated, compelling financial data and analysis, and working across a variety of potential partnership infrastructures. This experience will enable someone to develop deep and broad expertise in the end-to-end process of securing multi-million dollar deals with customers, investors, and donors. The candidate will work closely with the VP of Employer Partnerships, VP of Impact Investment, and VP of Philanthropy and be part of a high-performance team that will scale Pursuit’s fundraising and sales capabilities to meet our revenue goals over the next 3 years. 

As a Business Development Strategist you will:

• Develop a deep industry expertise and understanding of Pursuit’s market, business model, mission, value proposition, and goals
• Support mission-critical campaigns across a spectrum of capital such as a +$10 million venture philanthropy campaign, Bond 3.0 impact investment campaign, and enterprise sales to industry-specific verticals such as cybersecurity and web3. 
• Promote and describe Pursuit’s long-term vision and strategy, core mission, and value proposition to all stakeholders and potential customers
• Create and manage detailed financial analysis to support investment opportunities and close transactions 
• Create and leverage visually engaging and compelling presentations, bespoke to multiple audiences, clearly articulating Pursuit’s unique value propositions
• Work closely with the partnership teams to formulate and execute enterprise sales, marketing, and product marketing strategies
• Conduct in-depth landscape analysis, customer segmentation, and develop meaningful insights for existing and new partners 
• Work effectively across cross-functional teams and with key partners to assess overall satisfaction and align business requirements and objectives
• Research market dynamics and players and identify new strategic partners and attractive new business ventures
• Assist the business development managers in driving opportunities through the sales cycle and successfully closing and finalizing deals  
• Build and maintain client databases, ensuring a high level of data integrity, using CRM (Salesforce) tools

What you need to be considered for the Business Development Strategist role:

• 8+ years of professional experience in the fields of investment banking, business strategy/development, management consulting, sales enablement, etc. 
• A sincere interest in venture philanthropy, impact investment, economic mobility, and technology innovation
• Bachelor’s degree, MBA, JD, or related advanced degrees are welcomed but not required 
• A Commitment to Pursuit’s mission to help underserved and underrepresented communities achieve financial independence 
• Familiar with CRM tools including Salesforce
• Interest in venture philanthropy, impact investment, economic mobility, and technology innovation
• Highly organized, strong project management skills
• Excellent oral and written communication skills
• A demonstrated, comfort, poise, and efficiency in developing new relationships
• Relentlessly meticulous, driven and outcomes-driven
• Data-driven and results-focused
• An exhibited history of identifying unique or creative solutions to difficult business challenges. 
• A comfort and ease with ambiguity, displaying the ability to seamlessly navigate between competing priorities.

Where you’ll work:

• Hybrid/Long Island City, NY
• Staff will be working on site in our Long Island City Office 3-4 days/week

Pursuit offers: 

• Great culture where transparency, respect, teamwork, and kindness are valued
• Competitive compensation in base, plus bonus and a full benefits package
• Unlimited PTO and a week-long Summer break and holiday during the summer and the last week of December

Salary and Benefits: 

The salary for this role is $170,000-$200,000 annually with additional performance-based incentive compensation. 

The compensation range above is for the expectations as laid out in the job description, however, we are often open to a wide variety of profiles and recognize that the person we hire may be less experienced (or more senior) than this job description as posted.  If that ends up being the case, the updated salary range will be communicated to you as a candidate.

Pursuit values diversity: 

Our team has a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, and we value the richness that diversity brings to our organization. We welcome new perspectives and affirm that all employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, national origin, age, familial or marital status, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy, gender identity or expression, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other classification protected by federal, state, or local law. Pursuit is an equal opportunity employer.