Seeking an experienced Business Development Manager to build agency partnerships for an AI-powered film and content studio. Based in Mumbai, this role involves developing relationships with advertising agencies, pitching AI production capabilities, and managing the full sales cycle from lead to project closure.

About the Company

SKD Insurance Broking & Services Pvt. Ltd. operates a forward-thinking AI film and content studio that sits at the intersection of advertising, filmmaking, and artificial intelligence. While the parent company is an established insurance broker, this studio is a new-generation production unit focused on leveraging generative AI to create brand films, commercials, social content, micro-dramas, and other visual storytelling formats. The studio is built to serve advertising agencies, creative agencies, digital agencies, brand marketing teams, and D2C brands across India.

Role Overview

We are hiring a Business Development Manager – Agency Partnerships to drive growth for our studio. You will be responsible for building and nurturing long-term relationships with advertising and creative agencies across Mumbai and India. Your primary mission is to position the studio as a preferred production partner for projects that benefit from AI-assisted or AI-driven workflows. This is not a telesales role; it is a high-touch, relationship-based business development position that requires deep understanding of the advertising ecosystem, creative production, and the emerging capabilities of generative AI.

Key Responsibilities

• Agency Relationship Building: Develop and maintain relationships with Creative Directors, Agency Producers, Account Directors, Account Managers, Creatives Producers, Innovation/AI teams, and Agency Founders. Understand agency needs and identify where our AI studio can add value.
• Business Development: Prospect and approach new agencies, brands, and production opportunities. Build a structured pipeline of advertising agencies, creative agencies, digital agencies, brand marketing teams, D2C brands, production companies, startups with significant marketing activity, and entertainment/content companies.
• Pitch Our Capabilities: Clearly communicate how AI can enhance production – from AI-generated advertisements and brand films to product films, AI-assisted commercials, social content, micro-dramas, concept films, pre-visualisation, difficult-to-shoot visual sequences, and AI + live-action production. Understand enough to identify where our studio fits.
• Understand the Brief: When an opportunity arises, analyse the client’s objectives, target audience, creative idea, deliverables, timeline, and budget. Determine whether AI is useful and relay the brief to the creative/production team.
• Manage Opportunities: Coordinate the full sales cycle: Lead → Introduction → Meeting → Brief → Internal Discussion → Proposal → Pitch → Negotiation → Closure → Handover to Production. Maintain follow-ups and prevent deals from stalling.
• Build a Strong Agency Network: Leverage existing relationships (if any) with agencies like DDB, Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, McCann, VML, Publicis, TBWA, Wunderman Thompson, Schbang, Social Panga, White Rivers Media, and independent agencies. Continuously expand the network.
• AI & New-Age Advertising: Stay curious about generative AI tools and workflows such as text-to-video, image-to-video, character consistency, AI VFX, AI editing, and AI filmmaking. Converse intelligently with clients about where AI can and cannot add value.

Tech Stack

The studio works with a range of generative AI technologies and traditional production tools. Key areas include:

• Generative AI video (e.g., Runway, Pika, Sora)
• AI image generation (e.g., Midjourney, DALL·E, Stable Diffusion)
• AI filmmaking workflows (concept to final edit)
• AI VFX and editing tools
• Text-to-video and image-to-video platforms
• Character consistency tools
• AI-assisted production pipelines (pre-visualisation, storyboarding)
• Traditional production equipment (cameras, lighting, sound – for live-action integration)
• Collaboration tools for remote review and versioning

2-5 years of experience in business development, client servicing, account management, agency partnerships, production or advertising. Strong relationship-building ability, comfortable with in-person meetings, understanding of advertising and creative briefs, and a proven track record of generating pipeline.

Competitive fixed salary (₹30,000 - ₹80,000 per month) plus strong performance-based incentives. Exposure to advertising, AI filmmaking, and creative production. Significant growth potential to senior BD or business head roles.