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GHD · 20 hours ago

Business Development Lead

Houston, TX

Full-time

Hybrid

Senior Level, Lead/Staff

15+ years exp

GHD is a global professional services company focused on engineering and environmental solutions. They are seeking a motivated Business Development Lead to manage and expand their Water business in the Metropolitan Houston area, ensuring strong client relationships and driving strategic growth initiatives.

ArchitectureCivil EngineeringConstructionConsultingEnergyEnvironmental ConsultingEnvironmental EngineeringProfessional ServicesTransportationWater

Responsibilities

Lead Key Accounts: Manage and grow relationships with priority municipal and utility clients. Serve as a trusted advisor by understanding their strategic needs and connecting them to GHD’s full capabilities

Build Trusted Partnerships: Develop and implement account plans that strengthen long-term client relationships, ensure satisfaction, and align with GHD’s regional growth objectives

Shape Client Solutions: Engage directly with decision-makers to clarify needs, identify opportunities, and present tailored service offerings that deliver value and advance community outcomes

Champion Client Experience: Act as the client’s advocate across internal teams, ensuring seamless delivery, proactive communication, and a culture of responsiveness and accountability

Expand Market Presence: Network across the Houston metro water and infrastructure community, attend industry forums, lead proposal development, and contribute to pursuit strategies that enhance GHD’s visibility and market share

Leverage CRM Intelligence: Maintain accurate client and opportunity data in Salesforce (or equivalent system) to support transparent, data-driven business development

Invest in Growth: Pursue ongoing professional development—through training, mentorship, and industry engagement—to deepen your technical, commercial, and leadership capabilities

Personal Capability Building: Act as subject matter expert in an area of technology, policy, regulation, or operational management for the team. Maintain external accreditations and in-depth understanding of current and emerging external regulation and industry best practices through continuing professional development, attending conferences, and reading specialist media

Key Account Management: Ensure quality service and profitable business growth by managing a portfolio of complex customer relationships and/or a small team of account managers

Sell Customer Propositions: Configure a complex product-and-services solution and associated contractual terms that meet the customer's mid- to long-term needs, taking input from relevant internal specialists. Present the solution to customer representatives and negotiate agreement within a predefined range of commercial parameters, or, alternately, review sales proposals from team members and authorize those that deviate from standard terms, escalating issues to senior management where appropriate

Operational Compliance: Maintain and renew a deep knowledge and understanding of the organization's policies and procedures and of relevant regulatory codes and codes of conduct, and ensure own work adheres to required standards. Or identify, within the team, patterns of noncompliance with the organization's policies and procedures and with relevant regulatory codes and codes of conduct, taking appropriate action to report and resolve these and escalating issues as appropriate

Customer Relationship Management / Account Management: Develop and implement relationship management plans for complex existing customer accounts to identify and build relationships with relevant decision-makers and influencers within the customer organization and to enable effective two-way flow of information and resolution of issues. Manage ongoing relationships with identified customer segments to ensure their needs are met, providing themes, summary analyses, and recommendations for changes based on customer input

Qualification

Professional Engineer (PE) licenseWater/Wastewater expertiseClient relationship managementBusiness development skillsProposal preparationCommunication skillsTeam collaborationProblem-solving skills

Required

Bachelor's or Master's Degree in Civil or Environmental Engineering

Professional Engineer (PE) license in Texas

15 + years of experience in the water, wastewater process or conveyance infrastructure field along with strong experience working with municipal clients

Proven experience delivering water projects within the Houston Metro area

Strong client focus with at least 5 years serving municipal clients in Metro-Houston preferred (i.e. City of Houston, Harris County, Montgomery County, Galveston County, Waller County) and (Demonstrated experience with Houston Metropolitan area clients a plus)

A Seller/Doer with strong business development, proposal preparation and marketing skills