Business development manager

About Koala

Koala is a tech-led legal startup with a clear aim: to make the legal process of buying and selling a home effortless. If you'd like to join us on this mission, you're in the right place.

About the role

We're building our partner channel from scratch, and this is the role that makes it happen. You'll own the relationship side of our business — identifying, winning, and growing a network of estate agent and mortgage broker referral partners across your territory. This isn't a script-and-dial role. It's a genuine commercial leadership position at an early-stage business, where your work directly shapes our growth.

• Identifying, approaching, and onboarding estate agents and mortgage brokers as referral partners across your territory
• Building and maintaining strong day-to-day relationships with branch managers, partners, and advisers — becoming their go-to conveyancing contact
• Managing a pipeline of prospective partners from first contact through to consistent referral activity
• Working closely with the founders to shape our partner proposition, pricing, and service commitments
• Feeding intelligence from the market back into the business — what partners care about, where competitors are winning or losing, what’s stopping people switching
• Representing Koala at industry events, networking evenings, and agency meetings
• Hitting and reporting against clear KPIs: active partners, instruction volumes, referral conversion rates

How we work

Traditional conveyancing remains weighed down by outdated processes and unnecessary friction. We’re building something different — streamlined, digital-first, and designed around how people actually want to work and transact. You’ll have real commercial ownership, direct access to the founders, and a technology platform that actually makes your job easier: faster updates, better tracking, and a client experience worth selling.

Who we’re looking for

Essential

• Proven track record in a B2B sales or business development role — you’ve opened doors, built relationships, and hit targets
• Experience in the property or conveyancing sector — estate agency, lender, surveying, or conveyancing sales all relevant
• Self-starter who can operate without structure and create it where none exists
• Confident communicator — comfortable presenting to branch networks or one-to-one with a senior partner
• Commercially sharp: you understand how referral businesses work and can speak the language of volume, conversion, and fallthrough

Nice to have

• Existing network of estate agent or mortgage broker contacts you can activate quickly
• Experience at a challenger brand or high-growth business where you had to earn trust without the weight of an established name
• Familiarity with conveyancing metrics and what makes a good panel offering

What we’re offering

• Base salary of £40,000 depending on experience, with uncapped commission based on instruction volumes from referred partners
• 25 days annual leave + bank holidays. Emergency, compassionate and parental leave
• Agile working arrangements
• Westfield health insurance
• Monthly socials, free lunch Fridays, snacks, and quality drinks
• Parking or subsidised travel, and a Cycle to Work Scheme
• Financial support for training and professional development

Notice to recruiters: Koala works exclusively with a single preferred recruitment partner. We do not accept unsolicited CVs from other agencies. Any speculative applications sent to us will be considered direct applications, and no placement fees will be paid.