Senior Business Development Manager - Asset Management M&A and Sponsor Solutions

About Ropes & Gray

Ropes & Gray is a preeminent global law firm. The firm has been ranked in the top three on The American Lawyer's prestigious A-List for eight consecutive years and #1 on Law.com's UK A-List twice in the past three years - rankings that honor the "best of the best" law firms.The firm has approximately 2,500 lawyers and professionals serving clients in major centers of business, finance, technology, and government in Boston, Chicago, Dublin, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Milan, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul, Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Singapore, Tokyo and Washington, D.C.The firm has consistently been recognized for its leading practices in many areas, including asset management, private equity, M&A, finance, real estate, tax, antitrust, life sciences, health care, intellectual property, litigation & enforcement, privacy & cybersecurity, and business restructuring.Ropes & Gray is an equal opportunity employer.

Overview

About Business Development at Ropes & Gray: 

The Business Development department’s commercial objective is to increase firm revenue and market share by strengthening existing client relationships and developing new ones, aligned with firm, practice, industry, and client team goals.

Business development works in collaboration with partners, other attorneys and business support colleagues to achieve these objectives and is part of a broader business support organization in a collaborative work environment. The business development team is a specialist business support function with a range of offerings focused on business development in the firm’s practice groups.

The Senior Business Development Manager (SBDM) is a strategic and tactical role created to drive business development alignment between the firm’s Asset Management M&A and Sponsor Solutions groups, in the pursuit of parallel initiatives to build brand, influence decision makers, and grow revenue. The BDM will serve as a trusted advisor to the co-leaders of both practices, and to partners and business development colleagues, providing strategic, commercial, and practical support on the implementation of business and client development priorities.

The SBDM will act as the connective bridge and central point of coordination and communication between the two groups, enabling them to work in tandem by coordinating pitch efforts, client events, and brand-building initiatives while ensuring consistent marketing materials and messaging across both practices. The SBDM is responsible for initiating and executing integrated marketing and business development plans that increase the firm’s brand visibility, attract new clients, and drive client satisfaction and loyalty.

Responsibilities

• Lead and execute business development and marketing efforts designed to generate new business and improve market visibility for Asset Management M&A and Sponsor Solutions.
• Serve as the central point of coordination between Asset Management M&A and Sponsor Solutions, ensuring strategic alignment of business development priorities, go-to-market efforts, and client-facing initiatives across both groups.
• Collaborate with practice co-lead partners and global teams to develop and implement business and client development plans for target clients, including budget planning, expense monitoring, and identifying joint initiatives to grow revenue and relationships.
• Coordinate with asset management and private equity practices and colleagues across the organization to identify cross-practice opportunities, share market intelligence, and support firm-wide client development efforts.
• Drive the development and implementation of AI-enabled business development practices—particularly around pitch and RFP response workflows, prospecting, industry research, and events—contributing to workflows and processes that can be scaled across the firm.
• Build practice-specific AI successes and support innovation across BD and ensure their team is proficient in and regularly using AI tools in traditional BD activities, particularly pitches and RFP responses.
• Establish and maintain effective internal reporting and communication frameworks to track progress, share outcomes, and support management reporting across practice groups and affiliated teams.
• Manage and drive the development of existing client relationships and the pursuit of new engagements in collaboration with other relevant business support colleagues including the following:
• Organizing, participating in, and maintaining internal business development meetings – be responsible for all aspects of client and target development efforts, including creating agendas, capturing, and circulating action steps, and proactively driving follow-up and making connections to other global business development and practice development colleagues.
• Develop expertise in the asset management and private equity industries, including by commissioning and conducting business research to keep abreast of industry/market intelligence and to support the business development strategy.
• Project manage the delivery of client, market and competitor research, and tailor the data for partner or client consumption and share insights from other practice groups and offices for collaborative initiatives.
• Monitor and identify market opportunities and asset management and private equity driven trends and themes for client engagement.
• Drive pitching and new business generation by:

• • Project managing and executing large pitches, proposals, and RFPs, including leading a team to develop a winning strategy, identifying ways to differentiate from the competition, and helping to write aspects of the pitch.
  • Working with finance to develop compelling fee arrangements.
  • Maintaining accountability for the timely and accurate completion and submission of the RFPs or pitches, ensure proper document storage and tracking, and establishing and executing appropriate follow-up action steps post-submission.
  • Developing and maintaining up-to-date pitch content, practice materials, client information and experience tracking.
  • Promoting best practices and knowledge sharing across global business development and marketing teams.
  • Acting as trusted advisor to attorney teams to scope, prepare for both in-person meetings and pitches, and provide post-pitch client and target feedback.
  • Building a strong working knowledge of adjacent practice and industry group services and a clear understanding of the relevant group's strategy, priorities, and clients.

• Work with the marketing team and business support colleagues to:
• Strategically identify opportunities to create and implement integrated branding and profile-raising campaigns.
• Assess market conference opportunities, advise the lawyers on selection, participation in and execution.
• Identify the appropriate client and market targets for the delivery of knowledge marketing.
• Support the development of attorney-facing BD training.
• Manage and develop junior members of the business development team, fostering a culture of teamwork, accountability, continuous improvement, professionalism, and integrity.

Qualifications

This position requires a professional, highly motivated individual capable of functioning in an international, fast-paced legal environment:

• Superior client service skills.
• Able to quickly establish credibility with lead partners and key stakeholders by balancing a confident, measured, and persistent approach.
• Work effectively and efficiently as a team player with enthusiasm for developing relationships. Able to engage with and support colleagues and stakeholders across all aspects of the business.
• A confident leader and self-starter in a dynamic environment.
• Commercially minded and solutions orientated.
• Excellent organization, communication, and project management skills.
• Attention to detail and accuracy in all aspects of the role and responsibilities.
• Communicate effectively, both orally and in writing, with all levels of attorneys and business professionals.
• Experience writing in a professional services environment.
• Able to set clear goals and priorities, multi-task and meet multiple deadlines.
• Creative and flexible when managing individual as well as team workloads and priorities, taking colleagues’ time into account, to respond quickly and positively to shifting demands and opportunities.
• Able to demonstrate creativity and initiative by continuously looking for areas to improve and ways to implement positive changes to all aspects of the role and responsibilities.
• Ability to thrive in a challenging and dynamic environment.

Education and Experience Required:

• Bachelor's degree.
• MBA or JD is helpful but not required.
• Professional experience, including management of direct reports.
• Minimum of ten years of experience in business development within a professional services firm or corporate environment.
• Demonstrated knowledge of asset management, private equity, M&A or related financial services sectors is preferred.

Compensation and Total Rewards Package

Ropes & Gray is proud to offer a comprehensive Total Rewards package to our business support team members. The firm also offers comprehensive health and well-being benefits, personal and professional development, career growth opportunities and a collegial and supportive culture. The anticipated pay range for this role is listed below and represents our good faith and reasonable estimate of the starting salary range at the time of posting. In addition, this role is eligible for a discretionary bonus based on performance. The actual offered rate for this position will be determined based on job-related, non-discriminatory factors, including qualifications and experience, geographic location, education, external market data and consideration of internal equity.

Boston:$180,700 - $289,150

New York: $192,200 - $307,550

Working Conditions

This position requires hybrid on-site presence as an essential function of the role. Consistent and predictable on-site presence is required for ongoing business continuity, professional development and effective collaboration with colleagues and management.