Description

The City of Norfolk's Department of Economic Development is seeking a Business Development Manager to join the Business Retention & Expansion (BRE) team. This position supports the Lead Business Development Manager in advancing BRE initiatives and helps protect and grow Norfolk’s employment and business tax base by addressing the needs of the city’s existing business community, with a particular focus on traded-sector companies. Key responsibilities include cultivating and assisting in maintaining relationships with existing businesses, identifying growth needs and challenges, assessing the local business climate, solving problems, and promoting new capital investment and job creation that benefit Norfolk residents.

Essential Functions

Essential functions include but are not limited to:

• Interacts with City departments, external economic development organizations, and business leaders to support the Lead Business Development Manager for BRE in addressing the needs of Norfolk’s existing business community.
• Meets with businesses, actively listens to understand their needs, and assists in solving a variety of problems in support of their retention and growth in the City of Norfolk.
• Ensure the City of Norfolk remains a place of choice for its existing business community.
• Assists in the maintenance of business relationships by serving as business case manager to provide expertise in city process, incentives, economic zones, resolving problems, and forming long-lasting professional relationships
• Serves as a liaison with city staff, the state, and regional groups, and other stakeholders to assist businesses in their expansion and hiring plans
• Identifies opportunities for existing business expansions by researching the industry, locating market information, preparing joint local-state proposals and letters of support/documents for the public and stakeholders to inform them of the need for new jobs and revenue generation, and develops relationships with business prospects through conversation, correspondence, and marketing activities
• Assists existing business by exploring opportunities, marketing, and participating in negotiations to implement new initiatives related to the stated goals of the BRE program
• Facilitate expansion and/or retention projects to retain/increase available job opportunities and tax revenue
• Establish proactive, direct engagements with existing businesses and provide relevant services to support growth and/or retain operations in the City of Norfolk
• Foster economic competitiveness through the promotion of our local economic zones and proactively soliciting business community feedback
• Administer and/or assist with local/state economic zones to assist with business attraction, retention and expansion efforts
• Regularly solicit business community feedback to support a business-friendly climate, systematically maintaining notes, records and compiling feedback via the use of survey tools and CRM software
• Perform other duties as assigned

Education/Experience