The role
OakNorth's lending business is scaling across the UK and US, and we need a Business Development Representative to join our growing Commercial Strategy team.
Our next good deal should not depend on who happens to find us.
As a Business Development Representative, you own the front end of our lending pipeline. That means two things.
Generating new opportunities. You work hand in hand with Marketing, turning campaign themes, target segments and ideal customer profiles into live outreach: multi-touch sequences across email, phone and LinkedIn, follow-up on the demand our campaigns generate, and the account research that makes it land. The output is qualified meetings with the right people.
Qualifying inbound leads. You own inbound enquiries end to end: researching them, screening them, and routing them, within SLA, to the right Originator.
What you’ll do
Outbound
Run marketing-led outbound campaigns. Take the segments, messaging and campaign themes Marketing develops and put them into market as multi-touch, multi-channel sequences, run at a consistent cadence.
Research accounts and personalise. Understand a business and its situation well enough to earn a first conversation.
Feed back on what is working. You are closest to the response (which messages land, which segments go quiet, which objections keep recurring). Campaign design gets better because you tell Marketing what you are seeing.
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Inbound
Work the demand Marketing generates. Content downloads, webinar and event registrations, website enquiries. You pick these up quickly, research them properly, and convert those that meet our criteria.
Own the inbound queue. Qualify and route every inbound lead within SLA, with the research already done before it reaches an Originator.
Across both
Qualify with rigour. Screen against our policies and credit appetite. Saying “this is not a good fit, and here is why” is as valuable here as saying yes.
Nurture over time. Most businesses worth lending to are not ready today. Keep warm, useful relationships with prospects and referrers until they are.
Keep the data clean. Accurate CRM records and weekly pipeline reporting. What you build gets reused in outreach across the bank.
Work shoulder to shoulder with Originators. Take their feedback on lead quality seriously, and adjust how you work.
What this role is not
It is not a closing role. You will not negotiate or sign facilities. You hand over to an Originator once a prospect is properly qualified.
It is not a volume-dialling role. Hard-selling outreach damages our standing within the market.
It is not a role that pays for activity. Booking a meeting is not the finish line.
The Profile
You are likely to be early in your career with some exposure to lending, credit or financial services. How you work matters more than the exact shape of your CV.
You will bring
Overall 1-4 years of experience in Sales/Business Development with prior experience working in a banking/fintech industry.
Enough finance grounding to qualify a lead properly: you can hold a sensible conversation about how a business loan is structured and assessed, or you can learn that quickly and want to.
Experience working to targets in an outbound role, and the resilience that takes. Outbound means hearing “no” far more often than yes, and we need you as sharp at the end of a campaign as at the start.
Credibility with senior people. Originators need to take your leads seriously from early on, and prospects and advisers need to find you worth their time.
Real organisational discipline. You keep records accurate and current without being chased.
Clear, concise written English. Most of the first impressions you make will be in writing.
