Business Development Director, Channel & Engagement Technology

Role Overview

CORA Loyalty is seeking an experienced Business Development Director to lead new‑business development across North America for its channel and engagement technology solutions, with primary responsibility for building a qualified pipeline, converting new opportunities, and establishing a repeatable commercial motion across the United States and Canada. This is a commercially substantive role for someone who can open relevant buyer relationships, shape incentive and engagement use cases, manage disciplined pursuit cycles, and convert opportunities in a focused way. The post is not a generic outbound role and it is not a channel co‑ordination role dressed up with a bigger title; it is a dedicated business development brief with meaningful new‑logo accountability. The successful candidate will be comfortable developing business in complex organisations, engaging stakeholders across sales, channel, HR, employee engagement, marketing, operations, procurement, and finance, and bringing together product, delivery, client services, finance, and leadership teams around a credible commercial approach.

Key Responsibilities

• Own and develop a defined portfolio of target prospects across North America, with clear accountability for pipeline creation, opportunity progression, proposal quality, and new‑logo conversion for channel and engagement technology solutions.
• Act as the commercial lead for named prospects, building trusted relationships with stakeholders across sales, channel, partner management, HR, employee engagement, marketing, customer engagement, operations, finance, procurement, and digital teams.
• Develop and lead robust opportunity plans covering client priorities, use case definition, stakeholder mapping, competitive positioning, commercial strategy, pilot structure, proposal approach, negotiation path, and close plan.
• Drive disciplined new‑business performance across the region, with clear accountability for qualified pipeline, forecast accuracy, commercial progression, and closed‑won outcomes.
• Lead discovery sessions, buyer meetings, solution discussions, proposal reviews, and commercial negotiations with prospects, ensuring CORA Loyalty is positioned as a credible partner in employee, channel, partner, and B2B engagement technology.
• Lead with the right use case for the right opportunity, whether employee rewards, channel incentives, partner engagement, dealer or distributor incentives, sales‑performance programmes, or a managed‑services‑led entry point.
• Partner closely with product, delivery, client services, analytics, support, finance, and leadership teams to ensure opportunities are shaped credibly, solutions are commercially sound, and commitments are aligned with operational reality.
• Identify and convert selected partner‑supported or introduction‑led opportunities, including those surfaced through existing relationships, channel specialists, alliances, and client referrals, without losing focus on the core North American new‑business development mandate.
• Dedicate a portion of role focus to market‑building activity, including target‑sector development, strategic introductions, partner support, use‑case refinement, and the creation of repeatable North American sales assets and commercial discipline.
• Help shape how CORA Loyalty approaches the North American market for channel and engagement technology, including target‑account selection, qualification discipline, proposal standards, forecast rigour, and business development process maturity.
• Support commercial negotiations, proposal development, pricing discussions, contract strategy, and close planning in conjunction with leadership and relevant functional teams.
• Maintain strong CRM discipline, ensuring every live opportunity is clearly documented with owner, stage, next step, commercial value, expected timing, and rationale for stage movement.
• Work closely with Client Services and implementation teams to ensure a clean and credible handoff from close into onboarding and mobilisation, without blurring accountability for post‑live account leadership.
• Represent market feedback internally, helping refine proposition, packaging, proof points, pricing logic, and go‑to‑market priorities based on what is landing with North American buyers.

What Success Looks Like

• North America has a credible and well‑managed pipeline for channel and engagement technology opportunities, with strong opportunity visibility, sound qualification discipline, and realistic forecasting.
• CORA Loyalty has stronger access and broader stakeholder coverage across target prospects in the United States and Canada, particularly among large employers, channel‑heavy businesses, and partner‑led organisations.
• Opportunities are shaped with commercial rigour, practical use‑case clarity, and clear close plans rather than hopeful activity without structure.
• New‑logo wins are secured in a disciplined way, with strong internal alignment and a clean transition into onboarding, delivery, and client services.
• Partner, referral, and introduction‑led activity contributes sensible additional access and optionality, without distracting from the direct North American business development mandate.
• The North American channel and engagement technology sales activity becomes more structured, commercially sharper, and more scalable over time.

Required Experience And Capabilities

• 7 to 10+ years of experience in business development, commercial growth, consulting, or related roles within loyalty, rewards, incentives, HR technology, employee engagement, SaaS, MarTech, payments, commerce, or adjacent technology‑enabled services.
• Strong experience originating, progressing, and closing new‑business opportunities involving multi‑stakeholder buying groups, ideally across both the United States and Canada or in one market with meaningful exposure to the other.
• Demonstrated ability to sell or shape solutions for employee engagement, channel incentives, partner engagement, sales‑performance, B2B rewards, or similar use cases.
• Experience engaging credibly with senior decision‑makers and functional buyers, with the judgement and presence to lead commercially important conversations.
• Demonstrated ability to lead opportunity strategy while coordinating product, delivery, finance, legal, support, and leadership teams in a matrixed environment.
• Experience working with commercial structures including MSAs, SOWs, pilots, pricing discussions, procurement processes, security review, and contract negotiations.
• Exposure to partner, reseller, channel, or alliance‑led growth models, with the judgement to know when those routes accelerate growth and when they merely create noise.
• High commercial acumen, strong written and verbal communication, and the executive presence to operate effectively in a demanding North American market.
• Ability to operate with autonomy, structure ambiguity, and maintain clear priorities across a broad territory and a relatively lean organisation.
• Strong command of CRM, pipeline discipline, forecasting, and pipeline reporting.
• Willingness and ability to travel across the United States and Canada as required.

Preferred Experience

• Experience in channel incentives, employee rewards, partner engagement, sales‑performance programmes, customer engagement, or loyalty technology.
• Experience developing business with large employers, financial services, retail, travel, hospitality, telecoms, manufacturing, distribution, automotive, or other channel‑heavy sectors.
• Experience in a platform‑plus‑services environment, where client value depends on both technology and ongoing strategic support.
• Experience in a North America‑based role, ideally with direct exposure to both US and Canadian buyers.
• French language capability would be an advantage, but is not essential.

Personal Attributes

• Commercially sharp, but not reckless.
• Strategic in outlook, but willing to get into the detail.
• Calm under pressure, with sound judgement in difficult commercial situations.
• Credible with executives, delivery teams, and client leaders alike.
• Naturally collaborative, but comfortable taking ownership and making decisions.
• Ambitious enough to build, not merely execute against an existing playbook.

Additional role details

Business Unit: Carlson Marketing Solutions - Canada

Scheduled Weekly Hours: 37.5

Number of Openings Available: 1

Worker Type: Regular

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