Studio Lotus
Website:
studiolotus.in
Job details:
Role | Head of Business Development
Years of Experience: 10-15 years
Relevant Industry: Client-facing / Relationship-led roles / Architecture / Interior Design / Project-based Service Industry
Employment Status: Permanent
Job Location: Lado Sarai, New Delhi
About the practice
Studio Lotus’ work is grounded on the principles of Conscious design, an approach that celebrates local resources, cultural influences, a keen attention to detail and an inclusive process. Our design process includes everyone, from the principals to the interns, fostering a culture centred on a high degree of individual ownership.
Our team of 100+ people come from varied backgrounds—architects, interior designers, engineers, even graphic and textile designers. Working in a highly collaborative setting, teams operate as mini-studios within the larger studio. Democracy and transparency are key to our design process. Together, we aim to craft benchmark solutions that address society's changing ways of living and working.
Role Description
The Head of Business Development will lead the end-to-end management of inbound business inquiries at Studio Lotus—from qualification and relationship-building to proposal stage. The role requires an ability to assess opportunities with sound judgement, represent the studio credibly with senior client stakeholders, and align new business with the studio’s capacity, values and strategic priorities.
This is a relationship-led role rather than a conventional sales function. The individual will work closely with Principals and Group Leaders, develop a strong understanding of architecture and interior design delivery, and build long-term relationships with promoters, CEOs and other decision-makers while ensuring rigour and consistency across the business development pipeline.
Key Deliverables
- Manage and track inbound business inquiries through a structured pipeline from first contact to proposal stage.
- Qualify opportunities based on client readiness, financial capacity, decision-making maturity and the strategic value and portfolio strengthening ability of the project.
- Represent Studio Lotus confidently in conversations with promoters, CEOs and senior client stakeholders, communicating the studio’s capabilities and design philosophy without adopting a hard-sell approach.
- Build and sustain long-term client relationships, including opportunities with extended decision and conversion timelines.
- Exercise judgement on the pacing of inquiries, balancing business opportunities with studio capacity, project load and strategic priorities.
- In alignment with Partners and Group Leaders develop sufficient technical fluency in architecture and interior design project delivery to independently engage with clients.
- Track business development data and use insights from inquiry volumes, conversion patterns and lead quality to continuously refine the studio’s approach.
- Assess qualitative aspects of potential projects, including visibility, design complexity and benchmark potential, and prepare clear summaries for Partner-level review.
- Be comfortable working within a partnership-led, collaborative decision-making structure.
- Lead the preparation of complex proposals, submissions and documentation-heavy responses for institutional and public-sector opportunities.
- Manage multiple concurrent relationships and opportunities with strong process discipline, follow-through and attention to detail.
- Navigate ambiguity, complex stakeholder dynamics and shifting priorities with confidence and sound judgement.
- Lead and coordinate a small business development team, drawing on cross-functional support from the communications team where required.
- Remain curious and committed to building a deeper understanding of the design industry, the studio’s work and its evolving business context.
Requirements – Skill-sets and Knowledge
- Genuine interest in relationship-building and long-horizon trust development, not transactional selling.
- Energised by ambiguity and complex, multi-stakeholder negotiation rather than routine target-chasing.
- Demonstrated drive, resilience and an appetite for continued professional growth.
- Capacity to build technical fluency in architecture and design delivery within a 12-18 month runway, without becoming dependent on partners for basic client conversations.
- Comfortable balancing relationship-building with commercial and technical judgement. Confident and composed in high-stakes conversations with senior decision-makers.Highly process-driven; comfortable running a structured pipeline across many concurrent leads at different stages.
- Skilled at reading data (conversion rates, junk-lead ratios) to inform strategy, rather than rigidly chasing fixed KPIs.
- Demonstrated ability to run a structured, multi-stage lead pipeline using tools such as a CRM, Trello or Sheets
- Strong verbal and written communication skills, with the composure to engage promoters and CEOs of large, reputed organisations
- Track record of long-cycle relationship management (six to nine months or longer per engagement)
- Demonstrate high personal integrity and authenticity, particularly in evaluating and communicating the suitability of opportunities.
Good-to-have:
- Prior experience in architecture, interior design or another technically complex, project-based service industry.
- Direct experience in a dedicated Business Development role, as opposed to an adjacent client-facing role.
- Prior exposure engaging with promoter-level and C-suite stakeholders at large business houses.
- Experience in preparing complex, documentation-heavy submissions, e.g. for public or institutional tenders.
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