Business Development and Studio Partnerships Associate

About Cogwheel Studios

Cogwheel Studios® is an integrated experience design practice creating meaningful impact, lasting value, and sustainable growth for modern organizations. Founded in 2010, we work at the intersection of strategy, design, and human insight, shaping experiences across brand, communication, space, product, and digital. Our multidisciplinary approach brings together diverse perspectives to solve complex business challenges and translate ideas into purposeful design outcomes. We partner with forward-thinking organizations, leaders, and institutions to build brands, products, spaces, and experiences that resonate, perform, and endure.

The Opportunity

We are looking for a Business Development & Studio Partnerships Associate who can help shape how Cogwheel Studios grows, builds relationships, and operates as a practice. This is not a conventional sales role. It calls for someone who can understand businesses, recognize opportunities, build meaningful relationships, and connect client needs with the right design capabilities. Working closely with the studio leadership, you will take ownership of business development, client relationships, proposals, partnerships, and project coordination. You will be involved from the first conversation with a prospective client through briefing, proposal development, project delivery, and opportunities for continued collaboration. We are looking for someone who combines commercial thinking with curiosity, initiative, and an appreciation for design.

Key Responsibilities

Business Development and Growth

• Identify prospective clients, emerging opportunities, and potential partnerships across relevant industries.
• Research markets, businesses, and sectors to identify opportunities aligned with the studio’s capabilities.
• Build and manage a pipeline of leads, inquiries, proposals, and prospective engagements.
• Develop relationships with decision-makers, collaborators, and strategic partners.
• Contribute to business development strategies, outreach initiatives, and studio growth plans.

Client Relationships and Account Management

• Understand client businesses, objectives, challenges, and expectations before translating them into meaningful project opportunities.
• Lead client conversations, coordinate briefings, and help define project scope.
• Prepare proposals, presentations, estimates, and commercial documents in collaboration with the studio team.
• Manage client relationships from initial inquiry through project completion, ensuring clarity, responsiveness, and continuity.
• Identify opportunities to deepen existing relationships and develop long-term partnerships.

Studio Operations and Project Coordination

• Coordinate across clients, designers, consultants, and external collaborators to keep projects organized and progressing.
• Track timelines, deliverables, budgets, and commercial commitments.
• Maintain clear documentation of leads, client conversations, proposals, project status, and follow-up actions.
• Work with studio leadership to improve internal processes, business development systems, and ways of working.
• Contribute to building a collaborative, accountable, and progressive studio culture.

Requirements & Tech Stack

What We Are Looking For

• Strong communication and relationship building skills, with the confidence to engage clients and senior stakeholders.
• Commercial awareness and the ability to understand business objectives, evaluate opportunities, and think beyond immediate requirements.
• Strong research and analytical skills, including market mapping, competitor analysis, and opportunity identification.
• Experience in lead generation, prospecting, pipeline management, account management, or partnerships.
• Excellent writing and presentation skills, with the ability to develop clear proposals and articulate the value of design.
• Strong organizational skills and the ability to manage multiple priorities independently.
• Comfort with spreadsheets, presentations, CRM tools, project management platforms, and basic business reporting.
• A proactive, self-directed approach, with the willingness to take ownership and follow through.
• An interest in design, branding, technology, innovation, and the role design plays in business and human experience.

Qualifications

• A degree in business, marketing, communications, design management, or a related field is welcome.
• Equivalent practical experience is equally valued.
• Experience in a design studio, creative agency, consulting practice, or other client-focused environment would be an advantage.

What Will Make You Stand Out

You are curious about how businesses work and how design creates value. You can hold a thoughtful conversation with a client, recognize the problem behind a brief, and bring structure to an opportunity. You are comfortable moving between strategy and execution, relationships and numbers, and independent work and collaboration. Most importantly, you take initiative. You do not wait for every next step to be defined. You identify what needs to happen, bring people together, and make it happen.

Why Cogwheel Studios

You will work closely with studio leadership and contribute directly to the direction, growth, and culture of an integrated design practice. The role offers exposure to diverse industries, strategic design engagements, multidisciplinary teams, and the commercial realities of building a design business. You will have the opportunity to shape not just how we find work, but how we build relationships, deliver value, and grow as a studio.