Marketing & Business Development Executive

The department

HFW’s Marketing & Business Development Department is comprised of teams that look after the regional offices, industry groups, and marketing operations (including communications, events, graphic design and the CRM system).

Our shipping lawyers provide a comprehensive service to the global maritime business community.  We have over 200 lawyers and 13 ex-mariners (of whom eight are master mariners) worldwide, specialising in maritime law, reflecting our long involvement in this field.  We represent the full spectrum of those involved in the industry, including shipowners and charterers, P&I clubs, banks, international agencies, shipyards, marine insurance underwriters, government and brokers.

Our Shipping industry group focuses on 11 market sub-sectors, including Offshore, Logistics, Ports & Terminals, Yachts, Cruise and Ferry, and a number of key service lines, including Admiralty and Crisis Management, Disputes, Ship Building, Insurance, Ship Finance, and Corporate Shipping.

The role

The Marketing & BD Executive will assist the Marketing & BD Manager with business development and marketing activities to promote HFW’s profile in the Shipping sector and sub-sectors, develop client opportunities, key account relationships and help drive revenue growth. 

Key responsibilities

• It will be expected that the Marketing & BD Executive will:
  • Assist with the development and implementation of international business development and marketing plans, including activity and budget recommendations.
  • Supports/leads on the co-ordination and delivery of client-focused proposals in response to client RFPs, RFIs, bids and tenders, sometimes to tight deadlines.
  • Develop effective relationships with specialist in-house resources.
  • Ensure that internal systems (such as InterAction, Holmanet (HFW’s intranet), Vuture and Teams) are used to full effect.
  • Build broad understanding of the Shipping group and the firm’s competitive positioning in its six core industry sectors.
  • Work collaboratively with the central marketing team to maintain and develop best practice processes and knowledge sharing, including regular reporting of business development activities and ROI.
  • Support on the delivery of marketing materials and activities in support of the business development programmes for Shipping, including (but not limited to) the creation and delivery of brochures, client/market research, website content, client bulletins/briefings, webinars/seminars, and conferences.
  • Support the planning and delivery of events (which may be outside of normal working hours, ie. evening and breakfast and may be in support of our international offices, clients and contacts).
  • Assist the Marketing & BD Manager with the management of the firm’s client development programme, including the continued development and implementation of key client account plans relevant to the practice.
  • Support Partners in the co-ordination and delivery of directory (Chambers and Legal 500) and awards submissions.
  • Ensure that we maximise opportunities to promote the shipping sector internally and externally, including by
    • Sharing shipping collateral on Holmanet;
    • Providing team cover for the production and delivery of the monthly internal shipping update to share knowledge and raise awareness of our capabilities internally worldwide.
• Any other ad hoc duties as may be required.

Key skills & experience required

• Degree educated and relevant sector experience, with ideally at least a years’ experience in a professional services organisation.
• Ideally, some experience of the Shipping sector.
• Strong interpersonal skills, with the ability to communicate effectively at all levels of the organisation, including the Shipping support team, central Marketing, other sector teams, Finance, Library, Knowledge Management, Facilities, Catering and IT.
• Team player, with proven ability of working across all levels of business, preferably within a multi-jurisdictional environment.
• Experience of implementing successful business development and marketing communications activities, including events (including webinars), pitches, legal directory submissions and marketing collateral.
• Persistence and tenacity, coupled with the ability to communicate and persuade individuals, orally and in writing, internally and externally.
• Confident at meeting, greeting and networking.
• Proactive with excellent organisational and project management skills, able to manage multiple tasks to deadlines.
• Ability to work on own initiative, show innovation and develop projects.
• Strong IT skills including PowerPoint, Excel, Word, InterAction (or similar CRM database).  Knowledge of campaign systems (Vuture) and content management/web publishing helpful.

Additional information

Please note that this job description is not contractual, and may be amended periodically to meet the changing needs of the firm.

HFW aims to ensure equality of opportunity and we are actively working towards improving the diversity of our staff.  All applications will be considered only on merit and the applicant’s suitability to meet the requirements of the role.

HFW collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants to manage its recruitment process.  The firm is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.  For information on how the firm will process your data, please see our Privacy Notice, in the section “What we collect and how we use it”.