Director, Business Development

Firm Overview

NextGen Growth Partners (NGP) is a Chicago-based private equity firm focused on lower middle market essential services businesses. Founded in 2016, NGP operates a distinctive talent-first model that pairs exceptional CEOs-in-Residence (CIRs) with a disciplined investment process to identify, acquire, and grow enduring companies.

Now investing from Fund III ($165M hard cap), NGP continues to build a repeatable proprietary sourcing engine to support its expanding platform.

NGP Core Values

Our values guide how every part of how we operate and work together:

• Relationships - Care and communication over egos and siloes.
• Rigor - Experimentation and feedback over hesitation and defensiveness.
• Results - Value creation and winning outcomes over status quo and stagnation.

Position Overview

NGP is seeking a Business Development professional to strengthen and scale the firm's proprietary sourcing engine.

NGP has already built the foundation of its sourcing model - including a strong CIR program, CRM infrastructure, weekly cadences, performance metrics, and ongoing outreach experimentation. This role exists to organize, amplify, and institutionalize that work across the platform.

Each CEO-in-Residence leads an individual search. This position improves consistency, rigor, and throughput across those searches by enhancing systems, data intelligence, outreach execution, and accountability. This is not a traditional intermediary coverage role. We are a proprietary-first platform.

This role must be comfortable engaging directly with business owners and founders - building early trust, representing the firm professionally, and helping advance opportunities through assembling the right people from across the firm. The ideal candidate will build strong relationships with and between CIRs, investments team and business owners that result in actionable proprietary deal flow.

Core Responsibilities

Proprietary Sourcing Execution

• Partner with CIRs and the Investments team to translate industry theses into targeted outreach campaigns
• Build and refine dynamic prospect lists, segmentation criteria, and scoring methodologies
• Drive outbound strategy across email, phone, and other channels
• Track and improve funnel conversion metrics at each stage
• Ensure consistent messaging aligned with NGP's value proposition

Systems & Infrastructure

• Own CRM (Salesforce) hygiene, reporting accuracy, and dashboard visibility
• Build repeatable playbooks for outreach, follow-up, and pipeline management
• Manage external research, data, and outreach resources supporting market mapping and campaign execution
• Serve as liaison to third-party data providers and sourcing support partners, ensuring quality output and alignment with NGP standards
• Leverage automation, AI tools, and analytics to improve efficiency

CIR Enablement

• Coach and support CIRs in outreach strategy, cadence design, and pipeline prioritization
• Lead weekly funnel reviews and hold teams accountable to activity and conversion metrics
• Identify patterns and best practices across searches and institutionalize them

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Coordinate closely with the Investments team to ensure smooth handoffs from outreach to diligence
• Support Portfolio Operations with add-on sourcing efforts as needed
• Provide regular reporting to senior leadership on funnel health and sourcing performance

Qualifications

• 4-8 years of experience in private equity, corporate development, investment banking, or high-performance outbound sales / business development
• Demonstrated success executing outbound campaigns or supporting proprietary sourcing efforts
• Strong command of CRM systems and sourcing tools (Salesforce, Grata, SourceScrub, etc.)
• Experience managing external vendors, research providers, or outsourced support resources
• Data-oriented mindset with ability to interpret KPIs and drive process improvements
• Highly organized, disciplined, and execution-focused
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Chicago-based strongly preferred. For exceptional candidates outside the area, regular and meaningful in-office presence in Chicago is expected.

What Success Looks Like

• Increased consistency and discipline across CIR searches
• Improved conversion rates throughout the funnel
• Strong CRM ownership and actionable reporting
• A more repeatable and scalable proprietary sourcing engine that leads to consistent pipeline activity across thesis areas

Compensation

This role offers a competitive base salary complemented by a performance-based bonus tied to pipeline activity and closed transactions. In addition, the position includes eligibility for participation in fund-level carry, aligning long-term incentives with firm performance. A comprehensive benefits package is also provided.