Marine Business Development Manager

Are you a maritime professional who thrives at the intersection of commercial ambition, operational delivery, and marine excellence? This is a regional role for someone who understands what it takes to win the right marine opportunities and turn them into safe, efficient, and high-performing operations. You will combine deep operational credibility with commercial insight to shape new business, lead complex mobilisations, and ensure every new operation is set up for long-term success.

If you enjoy working across functions and borders, influencing senior stakeholders, and being hands-on from bid stage through to operational delivery, this role offers both challenge and impact.

Location: This is a remote role, based in your country of residence, with travel across the AMEA region as required. Employment terms will follow the rules and regulations of your country of residence.

Why join us?

At Svitzer, you will be part of a global organisation with almost 200 years of maritime heritage, known for setting the standard in safety, reliability, and operational excellence. We operate in complex environments where expertise matters and where your contribution has a direct impact on customers, colleagues, and communities. You will join a business that values professionalism, collaboration, and accountability, while offering meaningful opportunities to grow your career across regions and disciplines.

You can expect:

• Industry leadership: Work with a global leader in marine services, trusted by customers worldwide to deliver safe and reliable operations in demanding environments.
• Career development: A role that offers breadth, visibility, and genuine development opportunities within an international organisation.
• Diversity and inclusion: We believe everyone belongs. Diverse perspectives strengthen our teams, and we are committed to creating an environment where you can bring your whole self to work.
• Purpose and impact: Your work will directly support port operations, offshore activities, and supply chains that keep economies and communities moving.
• A strong safety culture: Safety is not just a priority, it is how we work. You will operate within a culture that puts people, standards, and responsibility first.

How you will make a difference

You will be accountable for ensuring that Svitzer secures the right marine opportunities and delivers them as safe, efficient, and commercially sound operations. You will operate at the critical interface between commercial ambition and operational reality, shaping both how we win work and how we mobilise it successfully.

• Providing technical, operational, and implementation expertise during tenders and commercial pursuits: translating customer requirements, marine constraints, and operational risk into robust, deliverable proposals that balance competitiveness with long-term operational integrity.
• Leading the mobilisation and implementation of new contracts, transitions, and start-ups: providing clear leadership from contract award through mobilisation to ensure operations are ready, compliant, and fit for purpose from day one.
• Providing marine and operational assurance during bids and start-ups: applying deep operational judgement to vessel selection, fleet deployment, safety frameworks, and regulatory compliance in complex and often high-risk environments.
• Acting as a trusted partner to customers and external stakeholders: building strong relationships with customers, port authorities, partners, and regulators, and engaging early to address operational challenges, manage expectations, and build confidence in Svitzer’s delivery capability.
• Acting as a key regional interface between regional and global functions: working within a matrix structure to coordinate commercial, marine, safety, technical, finance, and people teams, ensuring timely decisions, managed risk, and clear accountability, while contributing to the development of standardised project and commercial governance practices..

Through this work, you will directly influence win quality, reduce delivery risk, and ensure new operations are established in line with Svitzer’s standards and customer expectations.

What you will bring

To succeed in this role, you combine strong maritime credibility with commercial awareness and project execution capability.

Essential qualifications and experience:

• University degree in Business, Maritime Studies, Engineering, or a related discipline
• Proven experience in project implementation, maritime operations, or commercial roles
• Minimum 5–10 years working in maritime, logistics, towage, offshore, or marine-based industries, including offshore or onboard vessel experience as Tug Master / Master with valid certifications
• Solid understanding of marine regulations, vessel operations, and HSSEQ principles
• Experience developing business cases, reviewing financial models, and supporting commercial negotiations
• Strong ability to influence senior stakeholders and communicate complex solutions
• Ability to communicate with external stakeholders, customers, and authorities professionally and able to discuss and develop joint solutions to address pain points
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office applications.
• Excellent verbal and written English communication skills
• Demonstrated ability to work independently and in cross-functional teams under pressure

Preferred qualifications and experience:

• PMP certification or formal project management training
• Experience in tendering, bidding, and contract negotiations
• Experience in multi-country marine operations or technical project delivery
• Familiarity with OCIMF, IMO, SOLAS, MARPOL, ISPS, and other maritime standards

As a person, you are recognised as someone who:

• Is customer-focused and commercially astute
• Demonstrates strong analytical thinking, sound financial and problem-solving skills, decision-making capability.
• Takes ownership and shows resilience in complex situations
• Plans effectively, pays attention to detail, and follows through
• Communicates clear and effectively, and comfortable managing stakeholder across all organisation levels
• Works collaboratively across functions
• Is flexible and able to travel across the region as required.

Building a Diverse Workplace

In Svitzer we value the diversity of our talent and will always strive to recruit the best person for the job – we value diversity in all its forms, including but not limited to gender, age, nationality, race, sexual orientation, disability, or religious beliefs. We are proud of our diversity and see it as a genuine source of strength for building high performing teams.

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that members from some under-represented groups are less likely to apply for jobs if they don’t meet every single qualification. At Svitzer we are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles, and we are excited about hearing from you!

How to Apply

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