Head of Pitches and Pursuits

Keen to become part of a truly global, collaborative team of professionals? Your journey begins here.

Job Title

Head of Pitches & Pursuits

Department

Marketing & Business Development (M&BD)

Location

London

Reports To

Global Head of Business Development and Sales Transformation

Working Hours

35 hours per week, 9:30am to 5:30pm but additional hours may be required. Our approach to hybrid working allows for up to 40% of time working from home and 60% working in the office.  We are happy to consider agile and flexible working patterns, please contact a member of the recruitment team to discuss further.

Firm Description

Hogan Lovells is one of the leading global law firms.  Our distinctive market position is founded on our exceptional breadth of our practice, on deep industry knowledge, and on our 'one team' global approach.  Formed through the combination of two top international law firms, Hogan Lovells has over 40 offices in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. 

With a presence in the world's major financial and commercial markets, we are well placed to provide excellent business-oriented advice to our clients locally and internationally.  Our people are the key to our success, which is why we seek to recruit and retain the most talented individuals in all regions of our global practice.

Department Description

Hogan Lovells is at an exciting point in its development. The firm and its management team are actively pursuing a clear vision and strategy designed to take full advantage of Hogan Lovells' distinctive strengths to create valuable solutions for our clients. Marketing and Business Development is at the forefront of many aspects of the strategy, taking the requisite steps to globalise the department and executing an ambitious programme of activity. The M&BD team in the London office is well established and highly regarded both internally and in the market, and is a great place for ambitious BD professionals to develop their skills and experience.

We have a well-established global Marketing & BD team, which supports the firm on a wide range of business development, marketing and client relationship management activities. The team is divided into a number of key areas: Clients & Markets, covering Industry M&BD and Client Development; Practice M&BD; Pitches and Pursuits; Campaigns & Projects; and Corporate Communications, which comprises PR, Brand, Design, Events, InterAction and Digital. 

Role Overview

We are seeking a Head of Pitches and Pursuits to lead the firm’s global Pitches and Pursuits team, future proofing the function to address the changing needs of the firm and the market. The Head of Pitches and Pursuits will also be responsible for driving forward the “Pitch to Win” framework of the firm’s multi-award winning Sales Transformation Program.

Key Responsibilities / Accountabilities

Global Pitches and Pursuits Team Leadership

The Head of Pitches and Pursuits is responsible for leading a team of ten pitch specialists in a global, fast-paced/results-oriented environment. This includes developing the vision and aligning the team behind common goals and a clear strategic direction, ensuring the definition of clear roles and responsibilities in a multi-level hierarchy. Key responsibilities include:

• Leading a “best-in-class” Pitches and Pursuits team in the completion of strategic, complex pitches. Ensuring pitch materials are consistently client-focused, compliant, and easy to evaluate, and ensuring the team continues to work to capacity by managing competing priorities in a matrix environment.
• Encouraging a high performance culture across the global pitches and pursuits team, by creating an inclusive environment where integrity and collegiality are encouraged to thrive.
• Building strong and effective working relationships across the M&BD and lawyer communities, enabling exceptional service delivery on pitches and pursuits.
• Providing leadership on some of the firm’s most strategic panel and matter opportunities on a global basis.
• Coaching pitch teams on presentation techniques and handling Q&As, with a focus on creating connections with our clients to drive maximum value from our appointments.
• Proactively identifying and mitigating business and reputational risks relating to pitches (such as conflicts of interest, secondment requests etc), working with other firm functions as required.
• Working closely with other firm business teams, e.g., Finance, IT and Conflicts, HR and the broader M&BD team in designing and delivering global solutions.

Sales Transformation – Pitch to Win

The Head of Pitches is responsible for driving forward and continuously improving the firm’s Pitch to Win approach, aligned with the firm’s Sales Transformation Program goals. This includes:

• Ensuring all opportunities globally follow a consistent framework, with a laser focus on maintaining and improving the firmwide pitch win rate.
• Researching and reviewing relevant market, industry, competitive, and business information relating to the pitch market. Sharing that information with relevant stakeholders to shape current and future strategy.
• Driving innovation in firmwide pitch strategies, by investigating and implementing new technologies and techniques, where applicable.
• Delivering pitch training and coaching to both lawyers and our business teams, encompassing all aspects of the Pitch to Win process, ensuring best practice is adopted and followed across the globe.
• Working with offices and practices that need to improve their win rate to tailor our Pitch to Win approach to meet their needs.
• Engaging the firm’s Strategic Sales Group, to ensure the firm’s key rainmakers are leveraged both as advocates for the Pitch to Win approach, and as mentors on strategic opportunities.
• Taking ownership for our Pitch and Opportunity tracking database, working with the M&BD Systems team, internal IT, and our external vendor, to ensure optimal system functionality and continuous improvements are realised.
• Providing quarterly pitch reporting, leveraging the firm’s pitch tracking database, and participate in leadership meetings to present results and recommendations as appropriate.
• Managing the Pitch to Win budget, ensuring prudent spend management by negotiating with preferred suppliers. Contributing to the annual budgeting review process, to ensure all key projects are accounted for.
• Taking responsibility for ensuring standard pitch content in our pitch database is maintained.
• Ensuring post-pitch client debriefs are undertaken, to continuously refine and improve pitch strategies. Provide periodic reporting to firm leadership, in line with the firmwide client listening program.

All members of the firm participate in our Responsible Business programme requiring 25 hours annually to be spent supporting the firm’s RB projects.

Specific duties or responsibilities may be reviewed from time to time to reflect changes in personnel and management structure, staff location and services.

Person Specification

Skills & Experience

• Seven years+ of senior pitching experience in a professional services, corporate or agency environment.
• Experience in working within a multicultural and international environment
• Strong management, leadership and coaching skills
• Strong operational and project / programme management skills
• Ability to solve problems and successfully engage with appropriate technical and internal resources
• Ability to juggle multiple projects through highly effective organisational skills
• Ability to make sound decisions quickly and efficiently
• Ability to think strategically and commercially, and demonstrate a high level of initiative
• Highly motivated and enthusiastic self-starter with a can-do attitude
• Robust, resourceful and resilient, with the ability to adapt quickly to different situations and personalities
• Able to gain the respect and trust of senior partners and senior colleagues within M&BD alike
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with an excellent eye for detail
• Ability to tailor oral and written communication style to gain the desired impact from a particular situation

Qualifications & Training

• Relevant post-graduate management or marketing qualification, with an APMP certification a plus

Agile Working Statement

Our goal is to embed flexibility across our business by giving everyone the opportunity to work in an agile way, whether as a regular pattern or on an ad hoc basis, and we will be happy to discuss this further.

Equal Opportunities Employment Statement

It is the policy of Hogan Lovells to provide equal opportunities for all employees in relation to recruitment, training and promotion.  Decisions in these areas will be made only by reference to the requirements of the job and shall not be influenced by any consideration of age, disability, ethnic origin, gender identity, religion, sex or sexual orientation.

#LI-WS