Account Executive

The role

We are looking for a Business Development Manager to join our talented Sales team based in either New York or Los Angeles.

Salary range - $80,000 - $87,000

This is an office-based role out of our New York / LA office

Working at WGSN

Together, we create tomorrow 

A career with WGSN is fast-paced, exciting and full of opportunities to grow and develop. We're a team of consumer and design trend forecasters, content creators, designers, data analysts, advisory consultants and much more, united by a common goal: to create tomorrow. WGSN's trusted consumer and design forecasts power outstanding product design, enabling our customers to create a better future. Our services cover consumer insights, beauty, consumer tech, fashion, interiors, lifestyle, food and drink forecasting, data analytics and expert advisory. If you are an expert in your field, we want to hear from you. 

Role overview 

WGSN has ambitious plans for 2025/26 and therefore, we are looking for a talented Business Development Manager to join our dynamic Sales team in North America.

What will you be doing?

You will identify business opportunities, build key prospect relationships, negotiate, and close business deals and maintain extensive knowledge of current market conditions. You will use a consultative sales style to create, implement and manage a strategy to help achieve aggressive sales goals.

This opportunity is ideal for an individual who has demonstrated success within previous sales positions, with a few years of solid experience.

Experience with consultative selling is a plus, as is sales in the SaaS space. Experience in the Consumer Tech and Food & Drinks space is also a huge bonus. We offer extensive training and clear career progression for successful individuals.

You will be interacting with small to enterprise size companies, focused on a variety of industries such as Fashion, Beauty, Food & Drink, Consumer Tech and Interiors.

This role does not involve line management but will involve managing the sales process for closing large and mid-size customer opportunities while achieving individual targets and KPI’s.

The team

You will be part of a dynamic and supportive new business sales team made up of Business Development Representatives, Business Development Managers and Strategic Business Development Managers, selling the world's leading consumer insight and trend forecasting suite of products. We have a great team spirit that promotes collaboration which leads to success.

Our teams are diverse, tenacious, resilient, and extremely dedicated because they wholeheartedly believe in the value WGSN services brings to our global clientele who operate in Fashion, Beauty, Interiors, Food & Drink, Insight, Consumer Tech and beyond. We never compromise on collaboration which allows us to have a strong team dynamic and we always achieve our sales goals.

• Identify and acquire new clients from North America - drive all aspects and stages of the sale including qualifying the viability of potential accounts, delivering winning presentations, contract negotiations, legal and procurement discussions and managing the sales process through to its close
• Pursue and close key sales prospects by managing a 90-day pipeline of opportunities
• Deliver virtual and in-person presentations that assist in telling our story and pitching our data products value as it relates to each prospect in all industry markets including; Fashion, Beauty, Food & Drink, Consumer Tech, Interiors and Consumer/Retail Insights
• Build strong relationships with prospects to foster multi-year and enterprise contract agreements
• Research prospects to get an understanding of their business needs and how our data can support and provide a solution
• Have an up-to-date knowledge of any product enhancements and how they best add value to client needs
• Manage a record of activity in company CRM (Salesforce.com)
• Work with the Account Management and Client Services team to help ensure seamless transition of accounts
• Manage to a 4-12-week sales cycle and follow a systematic approach to identify future opportunities, set expectations and plan for future resource needs

• Demonstrable, solid experience developing relationships with high-level executives within Fortune 500 organizations in an Outside Sales B2B capacity
• Experience selling into fashion / interiors / beauty / food & drink / consumer tech companies preferred
• A demonstrable track record of sales success (preferably selling subscription-based data/intelligence products)
• Proven ability to quickly gain entry to key pursuit accounts and articulate a proven value/ROI based sale
• Understanding of how to communicate a service offering through proposals, presentations, phone calls and case study development - excellent presentation and negotiation skills are a must
• Ability to manage Salesforce.com database (or similar CRM) opportunity pipeline and lead cultivation
• Strong computer skills (Knowledge of Google Suite applications, Excel)
• Fashion, retail and consumer industry knowledge is a plus
• A motivated, dynamic and self-driven attitude, you must be confident and professional in approach with a positive ‘can-do’ attitude
• A flair for strong relationship building on the telephone / experienced at cold outreach
• Possess strong interpersonal, organization and time management skills

What we offer

Our benefits and wellbeing package offers flexible benefits you can tailor to your own personal needs, including:  

- Paid Time Off – 15 days of vacation per year with an additional day for each year of service up to 20 days.  WGSN also observes the 12 Federal holidays.  We also offer 6 weeks of paid Parental Leave. 

- 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan – allows employees to save and invest for their own retirement on a tax deferred basis. WGSN matches 50% of the first 6% contributed by employees.   

- Dental and Vision plans with MetLife

- Health Care with Anthem & Blue Cross Blue Shield 

- Life Insurance, AD&D, Short and Long-Term Disability - all eligible employees receive coverage at no cost through Metlife

- Mental Health – WGSN provides many ways for employees to access mental health care including an Employee Assistance Program and inpatient, outpatient and virtual care if enrolled in an Anthem medical plan. Our EAP is available to all permanent staff, regardless of if you elect benefits.

More about WGSN

WGSN is the global authority on consumer trend forecasting.

We help brands around the world create the right products at the right time for tomorrow’s consumer.

Our values 

We Are Everywhere

The future is everything, it happens everywhere. WGSN is the world-leading forecaster because we track and analyse consumer behaviours, product innovation, design and creativity, everywhere.

We Are Future Focused

We utilise our global resources and intelligence to research, source and analyse quantitative and qualitative data to produce our forecasts. Everything we do is focused on working with our customers to create a successful and positive tomorrow.

We Are Rigorous

We source, review and assess quantitative and qualitative data to produce robust, actionable forecasts. To provide credible insights and design solutions for our clients, it is essential that rigour runs through everything we do.

Our culture 

An inclusive culture is one of our key priorities. We want our people to truly be themselves and thrive. We love having a diverse team of people who bring new ideas, different strengths and perspectives & reflect the global audience we work with.

Inclusive workforce 

We are committed to supporting the environment and sustainability, including ensuring our pension plan defaults to sustainable options and striving to be net zero by 2030.  

Recognising great performance is a key part of our culture. Our Awards schemes recognise and reward the brilliant achievements of our people.  

We offer a flexible working environment with a wide range of flexible, hybrid and agile working arrangements. Conversations about flexible working have always been—and will continue to be—actively encouraged here, but we do not offer full remote working. 

We want to ensure everyone has the opportunity to perform their best when interviewing, so if you require any reasonable adjustments that would make you more comfortable during the process, please let us know so that we can do our best to support you.

A Note for Applicants

We use AI to help our team screen applications and identify candidates whose skills and experience match the role. This technology removes personal information to promote a fair and unbiased process. We believe this tool helps us find the best talent while maintaining transparency and fairness.

A Note for Recruiters 

Thank you so much for your interest in working with us at  WGSN!   Our internal Talent Acquisition team takes care of all our recruitment efforts. When we need some extra help, we partner with agencies on our Preferred Supplier List (PSL) that truly understand our business, culture and ways of working together.  Since we focus on these established partnerships, we’re unable to respond to unsolicited contacts or CVs from outside our PSL. But don’t worry! If we decide to explore new partnerships, we’ll be sure to reach out.