Vice President, Business Development
Burford Capital is the leading global finance and asset management firm focused on law. Its businesses include litigation finance and risk management, asset recovery and a wide range of legal finance and advisory activities. Burford is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: BUR) and the London Stock Exchange (LSE: BUR), and it works with companies and law firms around the world from its principal offices in New York, London, Chicago, Washington, Singapore, Sydney, Hong Kong and Dubai.
The Firm is adding a Vice President, Business Development position who will be responsible for interacting with lawyers and other influencers in our target markets to build relationships and identify cases and portfolios of cases and other opportunities in which Burford may be willing to provide financing solutions. We are seeking a creative lawyer or former lawyer, with an agile mind and experience with the business of law, particularly litigation, and previous experience and demonstrated success in business development.
The Vice President, Business Development will be a valued contributor to the business development team, both identifying qualified opportunities and building and managing relationships with prospective clients and existing clients. This position requires a unique blend of strong relationship management and business development skills combined with a collaborative and team focused professional outlook. You will bring a track record of strong business development performance and ability to evangelize a complex, nuanced, professional offering to lawyers.
The Vice President, Business Development will be a team player who is focused on overall results and teamwork. S/he will possess the credibility, commercial savvy, and persuasive conviction to identify and advance qualified legal finance opportunities at law firms and corporations. S/he will understand the cadence of client relationship building and will eagerly attend to Burford’s clients and prospects and will favor action over inaction. S/he will always adhere to Burford’s reputation for professionalism, trust, and excellence. Given that Burford’s business is located at the unique intersection of finance and law, it is an excellent opportunity for a multi-talented, curious professional seeking an “outside the box” position to enjoy applying his/her ingenuity and creativity to solving business growth challenges.
The role will report to the Managing Director of the domestic business development team (NY based manager) and may be based in one of multiple locations across the U.S.
COMPANY OVERVIEW
Burford Capital is the largest and most experienced provider of commercial finance to the legal sector in the world, with a core expertise in identifying and optimizing the value of legal assets for companies and law firms. Since its founding in 2009, Burford has worked with hundreds of law firms and corporations, including 93 of the AmLaw 100 and 90 of the Global 100 largest law firms. Our team has grown from five people at the end of 2009 to over 160 people today, including over 65 lawyers.
Burford possesses the resources and expertise of a large company while retaining the flexibility and creativity of a startup. Team members are smart, creative, collaborative, curious, and confident. Everyone rolls up their sleeves to perform and engage collectively for the overall success of the business. Burford values rigorous thinking, clear communication, and efficient execution. Burford is an “always on” environment in which everyone needs to be accessible by email when outside the office, including during evenings and weekends.
Burford pays base salaries consistent with the financial services industry and favors incentive compensation to reward performance. Burford provides competitive health care benefits and a 401k matching program. Burford Capital is committed to increasing diversity and maintaining an inclusive workplace culture. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of their ethnicity, race, gender, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, age, marital status, whether or not they have a disability.
POSITION REQUIREMENTS
Identify and Build Relationship with Prospective Clients and Clients
Based upon firm’s strategic growth and expansion goals, drive growth in financing and capital deployment opportunities via identifying and developing relationships with lawyers at law firms and corporations within our target markets. The successful candidate will evangelize Burford’s offering and value proposition and represent Burford in the market at networking and marketing events, conferences and via outbound outreach to lawyers in our target markets. You will be responsible for building and maintaining relationships with clients and prospective clients, and for facilitating relationships between them and internal stakeholders. Your mission is to drive litigation finance opportunities and deliver ROI from your targeted activity with clients and prospective clients. Success will be measured in opportunities identified, closed financing transactions, and growing client relationships.
• Drive qualified litigation finance and other legal finance opportunity creation
• Identify financing opportunities with law firms and corporations within a loosely defined geographic area.
• Outreach to law firms, in-house corporate counsel and corporate finance professionals, and other executive contacts at corporations to develop relationships and drive business origination.
• Work collaboratively with the business development, underwriting, and other teams throughout Burford’s business to identify and build client relationships and originate legal finance opportunities.
• Represent Burford at marketing events, third party conferences, and professional networking events.
• Record and log all business development activity in Burford’s CRM system (salesforce.com).
SKILLS DESIRED
Qualifications & Experience
• Bachelor’s degree required, JD and/or MBA a plus.
• 10+ years of combined experience in business development or sales in a professional services industry, preferable legal or finance related.
• Deep understanding of litigation, legal markets and the legal industry; legal experience required.
• Understanding of complex commercial financial products and services.
• Familiarity with marketing and business development objectives and techniques.
• Working knowledge of Salesforce.com.
Core Competencies & Skills / Personal Attributes & Fit
• Demonstrated ingenuity and ability to collaborate and contribute to a team-based effort to develop innovative business growth ideas
• Strong analytical acumen with a supple and creative mind able to see connections others would miss
• Self-starter able to generate his/her own research leads and hypotheses in a unique industry where there is no playbook
• A thoughtful problem solver able to make smart simplifying assumptions and evolve thinking and strategy iteratively based upon research, data, and feedback.
• Exceptional verbal and written communication and presentation skills with the ability to tell a compelling story from qualitative insights
• Ability to build consensus and work across functions and with executives.
• Sound business judgment and the ability to align recommendations to business strategy
Other Requirements
• Global outlook or experience in multiple markets or industries a plus
• Flexible travel schedule
• Superior detail orientation and organization
Nearest Major Market: Chicago