Business Development Manager – Strategic Partnerships

DNV Germany Holding GmbH; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job description

About Maritime

We help enhance the safety, efficiency, and sustainability of our customers in the global shipping industry, covering all vessel types and mobile offshore units. As a partner to industry, we offer services in testing, certification, training, and technical advisory through the energy value chain. That means we’re continually investing heavily into R&D for new services and solutions while proactively assessing what the industry needs today and tomorrow.

Position Description:

The Business Development & Marketing unit in DNV – Maritime Region Greater China seeks a strategic, results-driven, and dynamic Business Development Manager – Strategic Partnerships. This role aims to drive sustainable business growth and position DNV as the preferred strategic business partner and market leader among local market pioneers.

This role focuses on leveraging the strategically important topics and initiatives that align with global priorities while developing region-specific strategies to address market trends, strategic customer needs, and joint growth opportunities. Additionally, the position involves forging strategic partnerships, enabling the strategic business development with providing added value to client’s strategic agendas, addressing the emerging needs of new stakeholder groups in customer organizations, evolving sales processes fitting to industry transformations, enriching the business development toolbox, and empowering the regional sales team to adopt best practices for sustained business growth and establishing lasting trust with strategic customers in region. You will act as the main bridge to transfer DNV's industry leadership into business advantages for selected strategic customers in the region, by closely working with regional and global units, as part of the key account management team.

You will be reporting to the Regional Business Development Manager.

Key Accountabilities:

1. Strategic Initiative Management:

• Support the global strategic initiatives tailored to maritime markets and customers in Region Greater China, ensuring alignment with global objectives.
• Initiate, develop, and lead region-specific strategic initiatives, identifying opportunities to address market dynamics, emerging technologies, strategic customer needs, and new stakeholders in existing and new customer groups.
• Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to ensure successful implementation of initiatives, delivering measurable business results.
• Work with global and regional business development teams, and Technical Centre China/Smart Centre to incubate and cascade strategic initiatives into daily business development for scale-up.
• Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of strategic initiatives, refining approaches based on result-driven insights and feedback.

Strategic Partnerships Development:

• Identify, establish, and nurture strategic partnerships with key maritime stakeholders to support and drive the success of DNV's global strategy and strategic initiatives in the regional market.
• Negotiate and structure strategic alliances and other business collaborations that create value for both the company and partners, ensuring the shared success and alignment with strategic agendas with local pioneers.
• Enhance relationships with strategic customers to drive shared value and long-term joint success, together with account team.
• Collaborate with relevant regional and global stakeholders to ensure seamless integration of partnership strategies into overall business development and sales plans.
• Track the progress of the established strategic partnerships, ensuring that objectives are met and providing regular updates to senior leadership on partnership performance and sales outcomes.
• Oversee and guide the execution and progress of established strategic cooperation initiatives and joint development projects in region, executed e.g. by Technical Centre China/Smart Centre and other technical units in regional and global networks.
• Act as Key Account Manager or part of the key account team to develop the designated strategic customer(s), including value-based key account planning to address the strategic agenda and support mid-to-long-term customer business development, with a focus on new stakeholder groups, while collaborating closely with the existing KAM and stakeholders network.

Sales Process Development and Sales Team Upskilling:

• Collaborate with the sales leadership team to integrate learnings from strategic initiatives into sales operations. Develop differentiating offerings, effective strategies, actionable tools, and refine processes to enhance customer centricity, business success, and sales effectiveness.
• Explore and develop the business development approach towards new stakeholders in existing and new customer groups, e.g., executive levels, beyond technical, and beyond shipbuilding and shipping to the wide value chain.
• Utilize best practices from strategic initiatives to develop and deliver training and coaching programs that upskill the regional sales team, equipping them with knowledge, skills, and strategies to drive successful sales outcomes.
• Act as a subject matter expert and resource for the regional sales teams, supporting them in closing high-value deals and pursuing strategic business opportunities.

*Benefits may vary based on position, tenure/contract/grade level*

DNV is an Equal Opportunity Employer and gives consideration for employment to qualified applicants without regard to gender, religion, race, national or ethnic origin, cultural background, social group, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, age or political opinion. Diversity is fundamental to our culture and we invite you to be part of this diversity.

Minimum Requirements:

• Minimum a Bachelor's degree in Naval Architecture, Marine Engineering, Business Management, or related field. An MBA or relevant advanced degree is preferred.
• 10+ years of experience in business development, strategic initiatives, or sales strategy within a maritime B2B environment.
• Proven track record of managing and executing complex, high-impact strategic initiatives that drive business growth.
• Exceptional ability to build and manage strategic partnerships and foster collaborative relationships.
• Strong understanding of maritime market dynamics, including regulatory trends, technology adoption, and customer behavior, and profound knowledge of the ship classification industry.
• Strong business development project management skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities and stakeholders.
• Experience in sales process optimization and developing tools, methodologies, and training programs to enhance sales effectiveness.
• Excellent negotiation, communication, and relationship-building skills, with the ability to influence senior to top-level stakeholders and key partners.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities, with a results-oriented approach.
• Experience working cross-functionally with sales leaders and sales teams, technical and product departments, marketing, and other departments to align strategies and ensure effective execution.
• Self-motivated, adaptable, and results-oriented, with a passion for driving strategic initiatives in a fast-paced environment.
• Fluent in Mandarin and business-level English (written and verbal).
• Excellent presentation skills and sales material preparation.
• Willingness to travel as needed to support DNV's operations.

If you are passionate about shaping DNV’s strategic direction, driving future growth and performance through impactful initiatives and partnerships, and thrive in a dynamic, collaborative environment, we encourage you to apply!