Business Development Executive - Southern EU

Key Objectives of the Role

Yugo is the trusted name for student housing, globally. Every day we connect young people to opportunities and students to amazing spaces. Here at Yugo, we like to do things differently. It's about people, planet, and passion.

As a Business Development Executive, you will be Yugo’s on-the-ground presence across Southern Europe, with an immediate focus on Iberia (Spain and Portugal), alongside Italy, generating and nurturing leads, and supporting underwriting and tender processes with local market insight. You will act as a cultural and language reference point for the region, building relationships and representing Yugo in-market. Reporting to the Head of Business Development, Europe, with a dotted line to the Senior Business Development Manager – Southern Europe, you will play a key role in building Yugo’s presence in Iberia and supporting growth across the wider region. Commercial structuring and negotiation for opportunities you generate is currently led by the Senior Business Development Manager while the team scales. This is a fantastic opportunity for an ambitious, culturally fluent self-starter to build a career in commercial business development.

Key Responsibilities

• Help consolidate existing activity across Spain and Portugal, and support the assessment of the Iberian opportunity, including market sizing, target counterparties and priority cities.
• Prospect and qualify new opportunities with investors, developers, owners and operators across Southern Europe through research, outreach and market mapping, progressing them alongside the Senior Business Development Manager.
• Act as Yugo’s on-the-ground presence in-market, building relationships with developers, agents and local stakeholders.
• Serve as a cultural and language reference point for the region, helping the wider team navigate local nuance and relationships.
• Qualify and nurture leads through the early stages of the pipeline, maintaining regular contact until opportunities are ready for commercial engagement.
• Prepare inputs for the underwriting model, business cases and proposals, drawing on local market insight, site data and market comparables.
• Maintain accurate and up-to-date records of all deals, contacts, leads and company information in HubSpot as the single source of truth, with SharePoint project folders as the central location for each opportunity.
• Conduct market and competitor research that reflects each market’s maturity, regulatory and planning environment, and local operator landscape, to identify new opportunities across the region.
• Organise and support local meetings, site visits and introductions, building Yugo’s profile in-market.
• Support tenders, RFP responses and proposal development with local market knowledge and language support.
• Help build Yugo’s profile at regional events and conferences and across agent and advisor networks, supporting lead generation and brand visibility.
• Support due diligence and mobilisation alongside legal, finance, operations and local advisors, ensuring the smooth progression of opportunities from initial enquiry to handover.
• Share local market intelligence with the Head of Business Development, Europe, the Senior Business Development Manager – Southern Europe and the wider European Business Development team to inform commercial strategy.
• Support post-deal handover to the operations team, helping ensure a smooth transition from signed agreement to mobilisation.
• Monitor industry trends and market activity across the region to help identify new business opportunities.

Additional Responsibilities

• Support the Head of Business Development in maintaining relationships with existing introducers, agents and partners across the region.
• Help monitor and track the performance of live opportunities, flagging risks or delays to the wider team.
• Assist with onboarding new opportunities into operational delivery once contracts are signed.
• Support continuous improvement of business development processes, tools and reporting.
• Build a strong working knowledge of Yugo’s existing continental European accounts to support the wider team where needed.

Requirements

• Some experience in business development, real estate, investment or advisory is essential; PBSA or residential experience is a plus but not essential.
• Some knowledge of the Iberian real estate market, with an existing network or the drive to build one.
• Strong organisational skills with excellent attention to detail.
• Confident communicator, comfortable engaging with prospective clients and internal stakeholders across different cultures and languages.
• Confident in building, nurturing and progressing relationships, across both short-term and long-term deal generation.
• Strong research, analysis and financial modelling skills, with an interest in developing commercial and underwriting expertise.
• Common sense in commercial negotiations.
• A proactive self-starter, comfortable managing multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Fluent in English and Spanish (essential); Portuguese and/or Italian advantageous — genuine local and cultural fluency is central to this role.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office (particularly Excel and PowerPoint) and comfortable learning CRM systems.
• A genuine interest in the student housing / PBSA sector and a desire to build a career in commercial business development.
• Willingness to travel regularly across Southern Europe, with time in the London office as required.
• An aptitude for AI as we continue to bring efficiencies to our business, freeing up more time to build relationships.