Freelance Business Development Manager Middle East (Saudi Arabia)

Freelance Business Development Manager – Middle East 

(Saudi Arabia based)

Top Employers Institute is the global authority recognising excellence in people practices. We assist companies to accelerate these practices and further enrich their worlds of work. Through the Top Employers programme, participants (e.g. Aramco, Roshn, ALJ, Puma, DHL, SwissRe, etc..) are audited, certified and recognised as employers of choice. Established more than 30 years ago, Top Employers Institute now certifies over 2,100 organisations in 121 countries. These certified companies positively impact the lives of over 9m employees globally. 

This role will be based in Saudi Arabia and will report to the Middle East and South Eastern Europe Regional Manager/Team Lead, based in Valencia, Spain.

 Purpose
and contribution to company strategy

Building upon the growth and impact of the Top Employer’s Certification Programme worldwide we are looking to recruit a new team member to support Middle East region Leaders in the development and branding of their organisations.

The Business Development Manager directly generates revenue by prospecting for, positioning and selling the HR Certification Programme to multinational companies headquartered across Middle East region, mainly in KSA and UAE.

Key responsibilities

• Responsible for new business development via prospecting, social selling, qualifying and consultative selling


• Drive sales growth and pipeline through the setting up of qualified meetings


• Be a subject matter expert and evangelist of Top Employers HR Certification


• Ability to connect and network with senior HR stakeholders and position the full value of the Programme across their areas of responsibility and areas of focus


• Work closely with Marketing to support events and follow up digital leads


• Achieve growth targets for new business acquisition


• Building a strong professional network by initiating contact with HR decision makers

Key Success Competencies

• Company wide competencies: Collaboration, customer focus, global perspective.


• Role-specific competencies: Communicates effectively, manages complexity, interpersonal savyy, business insight, directs work, builds networks, persuades, drives results

Qualification Criteria

• Bachelor degree (or equivalent)


• 3-5 years working experience in Sales, not mandatory but preferably in the field of HR Services


• Value Selling Skills: (meeting prep, conduct an effective needs analysis, deliver sales presentations, answer questions and handle objections)


• Negotiation skills: Knows how to prepare, how to make offers, how to respond to offers, how to respond to typical tactics, how to close, how to ensure the agreement lasts.


• Communication skills: Operate with confidence, can make formal persuasive presentations, can communicate 1-1 with confidence and discuss the company products/services and added value potential effectively.


• Native or fluent in Business Arabic (Middle East) and fluent in English in both writing and verbally. Any other language is a nice to have.


• Available to travel to conferences, client sites and company meetings


• Preferably residing in Riyad            

Top Employers Institute offers

• Competitive fixed & variable remuneration (freelance contract: fixed salary + bonus)


• Human centric way of working: Flexible working conditions, the job will be 100% remote.


• Regional and global sales team meetings twice a year


• Leadership culture based on trust


• We pay you to pay it forward. Two days company paid time off (VTO) for volunteering for causes you care about


• Dynamic and open business culture


• Plenty of room for initiatives and own responsibility


• Leader in HR, relied on by global clients such as DHL and PepsiCo


• Fast growing company (20% revenue growth in 2021 & 2022), enabled by owner HAL Investments, which is one of the largest, long-term, investment companies of the Netherlands


• International environment: colleagues from all over the world and offices in 12 countries, including The Netherlands, Spain, France, Germany, China, US, South Africa, the UK, Singapore and Brazil.