Client Engagement Lead - Business Development- Utility Programs and Services Div

Client Engagement Lead - Business Development, Utility Growth Team, EEI Business Development Team

We are looking for a Client Engagement Lead to join our Business Development Utility Growth Team and help drive coordinated, client-centered growth across ICF’s utility markets. ICF’s utility practice is poised for significant growth over the next five years, as utility clients navigate decarbonization, grid modernization, energy efficiency, electrification, and evolving regulatory and market dynamics.

Under ICF’s market-focused growth model, the Utility Growth Team works across divisions and service lines to pursue opportunities that reflect the full breadth of ICF’s utility capabilities. This role requires an energetic, strategic, and disciplined sales leader who can lead teams, own complex pursuits, and build trusted relationships with utility decision-makers across North America.

The Client Engagement Lead plays a pivotal role in leading sales execution, managing and mentoring Business Development Managers, and ensuring a robust, high-quality pipeline of opportunities from early identification through contract close. This role partners closely with Delivery, Market Development, Proposal, Marketing, and centralized services to drive consistent, accountable growth outcomes.

This position is a U.S.-based remote role.

Learn more about our Energy sector industry here. Energy Management Solutions and Strategy Consulting | ICF

Key Responsibilities

Team Leadership and Development

• Lead, manage, and mentor Business Development Managers through regular meetings, coaching, performance management, and feedback to drive individual and team effectiveness.
• Reinforce consistent application of ICF’s preferred sales, capture, and pursuit methodologies, including disciplined qualification, pipeline governance, and pursuit execution.
• Drive accountability for sales goals, pipeline quality, conversion, and pursuit outcomes.
• Foster a collaborative, results-oriented culture that supports cross-functional engagement across Delivery, Market Development, Sales Enablement, Proposal, Marketing, and other enterprise teams.
• Support overall BD team effectiveness and organizational health, including onboarding, enablement, and continuous improvement.

Pipeline Development and Management

• Oversee a pipeline of opportunities across geographies, buyer groups, and service offerings, ensuring focus on strategic fit, quality, and conversion.
• Drive early-stage, proactive opportunity identification and shaping, in partnership with Market Development and research resources.
• Provide strategic guidance on opportunity qualification, prioritization, and capture strategy.
• Ensure disciplined pipeline governance, including forecasting, reviews, and compliance with sales processes.
• Monitor pipeline performance against sales targets and adjust strategy to improve pursuit quality and win rates.

Client and Partner Relationship Management

• Develop strategic solutions for growing relationships with key utility accounts, buyers, and decision-makers, positioning ICF as a trusted advisor for emerging needs.
• Build and sustain strong internal partnerships across Delivery, Market Development, and operating groups to align client strategy and solutioning.
• Engage with external partners and stakeholders to support coordinated pursuits and long-term account growth strategies.
• Lead account-based and subregional sales strategy execution, ensuring consistent targeting, follow-up, and relationship development.

Strategy Development

• Support and contribute to client engagement, capture, and pursuit strategy, including value proposition development, and bid strategy.
• Ensure proposal strategy and execution consistency in partnership with Proposal, Marketing, and Delivery teams.
• Collaborate on regulatory, policy, and market intelligence initiatives to anticipate opportunities and inform pursuit prioritization.

Support sales enablement initiatives, including:

• Sales campaigns.
• Sales training, methodology enablement, and best-practice sharing.
• Effective use of AI and emerging technologies across BD, capture, and proposal development.

Focus on Execution:

• Orchestrate multiple complex pursuits simultaneously, applying disciplined qualification, pursuit governance, and close plans to hit growth targets.
• Build and run lightweight operating rhythms (cadence, dashboards, decision logs) that keep cross functional teams focused on the critical path.
• Inspect the details that matter—deal economics, compliance requirements, proposal artifacts—while maintaining momentum on strategy and client engagement.
• Convert market signals into prioritized action lists with owners, due dates, and measurable outcomes; escalate or reprioritize work as conditions change.
• Ensure CRM, forecast, and pipeline data are accurate, current, and decision-ready; drive accountability for follow through across the team.

Core Competencies

• Proven leadership experience with leading, coaching, and holding sales teams accountable for performance and outcomes.
• Deep expertise in managing complex, multi-stakeholder sales and capture processes.
• Strong client relationship and account leadership skills within the utility sector.
• Strong understanding of energy management markets, particularly within the utility sector.
• Strategic thinker with the ability to translate market, policy, and client intelligence into actionable pursuit and growth strategies.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively across functions and operating groups in a matrixed organization.
• Executive functioning & prioritization. Demonstrated ability to structure ambiguity, triage competing deadlines, and keep several high‑value initiatives moving in parallel without sacrificing quality.
• Attention to detail + altitude shifting. Moves fluidly between strategy and details—spotting risks/omissions in pipeline data, proposals, and client comms while keeping focus on the growth objective.
• Planning & follow‑through. Translates goals into clear plans, milestones, and owners; monitors progress rigorously and course‑corrects to meet commitments.
• Task initiation & completion discipline. Proactively starts the hard things, closes loops quickly, and upholds governance (CRM hygiene, forecast accuracy, qualification rigor).
• Cognitive flexibility. Re‑prioritizes in real time as markets, clients, and internal demands shift; makes sound tradeoffs and communicates them transparently.
• Working memory & information management. Synthesizes inputs across policy, regulatory, and technical domains to keep teams aligned on the next best action.

This role requires a proactive leader who can effectively balance strategic vision with operational execution to drive measurable results and elevate ICF’s impact in the energy management industry.

Required Qualifications and Experience:

• 7+ years of experience in the utility or energy sector and ability to demonstrate market and domain knowledge.
• 5+ years of experience managing teams, often with a background in solving complex, multi-faceted issues.
• Demonstrated track record of leading pursuits and winning new business of $20 million annually with a structured and disciplined process and mature pursuit methodologies, processes and artifacts.
• Experience working in the Utility or Energy sectors (Clean Energy, Energy Efficiency, DER, Electrification, Wind, and/or Oil and Gas.
• Proven ability to manage 6–10 concurrent pursuits or initiatives from shaping through close, with clear plans, owners, and checkpoints.
• Track record of error‑free deliverables (e.g., submissions, pricing files, client correspondence) and on‑time milestone delivery across distributed teams.
• Demonstrated operational discipline (forecast accuracy, stage hygiene, qualification rigor) that improves win rate and cycle time.
• Evidence of prioritization under pressure—rebalancing resources and scope to protect outcomes without degrading client experience.

Preferred skills/experience:

• Bachelor's degree.
• Willingness to travel to client sites, ICF offices and conferences as required.

Working at ICF

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