Director of Financial Institutions – Business Development (Europe)

You won't be selling a service. You'll be selling banks a way to optimise their regulatory capital.

Since CRR3/CRD VI came into force, European banks can use ratings from ESMA-registered ECAIs to calculate risk weights under the standardised approach. Our client is exactly that: an independent European credit rating agency built specifically for SMEs and midcaps, authorised across all 27 EU member states. Your pitch is regulatory, financial and institutional at once — and right now, nobody else in the market is making it.

About the company

Our client is an ESMA-registered European credit rating agency specialised exclusively in SMEs and midcaps (revenues from €0 to €1.5bn), with a presence in two major European financial hubs. It is backed at board level by senior figures from European systemic banking and multilateral finance, and is on an ambitious multi-year growth path to become the reference rating agency for European midcaps.

This is a market-creating role inside a company in fast growth. There is no finished playbook. You'll build the route into European banking where one doesn't yet exist.

The mandate

Lead the company's commercial development with European financial institutions, positioning midcap credit ratings as a strategic tool for regulatory capital management under CRR3/CRD VI. You'll operate at C-suite level — CFOs, capital management teams, CROs and heads of models — owning the full cycle from first conversation to signed agreement.

What you'll own

• Design and run the bank-acquisition strategy across Europe, leading with the CRR3 capital-optimisation case. Initial focus: Poland, Germany, the Netherlands and the Nordics.

• Open and close agreements with financial institutions EU-wide, owning long, multi-stakeholder cycles (6–18 months) end to end.

• Build trusted C-suite relationships and become a credible counterpart to CFOs, CROs and capital-management directors — not a vendor, an advisor.

• Build bespoke business cases per institution with real data, connecting the company's offering to each bank's regulatory, capital and risk context.

• Represent the company where it matters — financial forums, regulatory committees and European bodies (ESMA, EBA, banking associations) — and feed market intelligence back into product.

• Own your pipeline, forecast and commercial KPIs, reporting directly to the CEO.

What you bring

• 5–8+ years in B2B business development — either in professional/tech services selling into banks, or inside a bank on the banking-coverage desk selling to other institutions.

• A real working grasp of European prudential regulation (CRR/CRD, Basel III+, ESMA, EBA) and how banks make decisions. You can hold a technical conversation with a CRO without losing credibility.

• A proven track record of consultative selling of high-value solutions to banking institutions.

• An existing network in European banking at CFO / CRO / capital-management level.

• Fluent English (C1/native) and Spanish, both at executive level. Comfortable with frequent travel across Europe.

• Degree in Business, Economics, Finance, Law or Engineering.

Nice to have

• Direct experience in bank capital-accuracy or capital-optimisation projects.

• MBA, CFA or a postgraduate qualification in finance, banking or financial regulation.

• Fluency with AI tools to dissect 250–1,000-page prudential reports and run the sales funnel.

Non-negotiable

In a rating agency, your personal credibility is part of the product. Independence, objectivity and transparency aren't decorative — they're regulated by law and existential to the business. We hire for integrity, systemic thinking, rigour and executive presence, and we don't compromise on them.

The process

Selection is run by Ethikos under its Conscious Selection Methodology™ — we assess not only what you've done, but how you decide and whether your way of operating is sustainable. Expect a competency-based interview, a values conversation, a live business case (pitching to a bank's capital-management team), an AI-skills exercise on a real Pilar 3 report, and a final interview with company leadership.