Operations Development Manager Jobs in Athens, GA

About Wathco

Wathco LLC is a national general contractor specializing in fast-paced restaurant renovations, remodels, tenant improvements, and build-outs. For more than 30 years, we have built our reputation around executing complex projects on aggressive timelines while maintaining strong relationships with our clients and partners.

Our primary market is restaurant construction, including work for national restaurant chains and multi-location operators. We also have experience in medical office renovations and other commercial tenant improvement projects, and we are looking to intentionally expand into additional markets.

As Wathco continues to grow, we are creating our first dedicated Business Development position. This is an opportunity for the right person to help shape what business development looks like at Wathco and build a strategy that can support our next phase of growth.

The Opportunity

We are looking for an experienced Business Development Manager who understands commercial construction and knows how to build relationships that turn into real project opportunities.

This is not simply a lead-generation position. We are looking for someone who can identify opportunities, develop relationships with decision-makers, create a strong pipeline, and ultimately help Wathco win profitable work.

Because this is a newly created position, the successful candidate will have significant input into developing our BD strategy, target markets, outreach process, relationship-building approach, and overall sales pipeline.

The ideal candidate will already have relationships within the commercial construction, restaurant, retail, medical, development, brokerage, or related industries and understand how construction projects are sourced and awarded.

What You'll Do

• Develop and execute a business development strategy aligned with Wathco's growth goals.
• Identify and pursue new clients, markets, and project opportunities.
• Build relationships with owners, developers, franchise groups, facilities leaders, brokers, architects, construction managers, and other industry decision-makers.
• Develop and maintain a healthy pipeline of qualified opportunities.
• Leverage existing industry relationships while continuously building new ones.
• Research target companies and identify upcoming renovation, rollout, expansion, and tenant improvement opportunities.
• Introduce Wathco's capabilities to prospective clients and partners.
• Track opportunities from initial contact through pursuit, proposal, and award.
• Work closely with accounting, project management, operations, and leadership to develop competitive strategies for pursuing work.
• Help determine which opportunities align with Wathco's capabilities, capacity, geographic reach, and profitability goals.
• Represent Wathco at industry events, conferences, networking opportunities, and client meetings.
• Maintain accurate pipeline and relationship information.
• Monitor market trends, competitors, and upcoming development activity.
• Help establish repeatable processes and best practices for Wathco's future BD efforts.
• Provide leadership with regular updates on pipeline activity, opportunities, relationships, and market conditions.

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years of business development, sales, estimating, project management, or related experience within commercial construction or a closely related industry.
• Demonstrated ability to develop relationships and generate new business.
• Strong understanding of commercial construction, tenant improvements, renovations, or multi-location construction.
• Experience working with restaurant commercial clients is highly valued.
• An established network within the construction, development, real estate, facilities, or related industries.
• Strong communication, presentation, negotiation, and relationship-building skills.
• Ability to identify opportunities before they become widely marketed.
• Comfortable with both relationship-based selling and proactive prospecting.
• Strong business judgment and the ability to recognize opportunities that are a good fit for Wathco.
• Highly self-motivated and comfortable working independently.
• Organized and capable of managing multiple prospects and opportunities simultaneously.
• Willingness to travel nationally as business development needs require.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with operations and leadership teams.

What Will Make You Successful

The right person for this role is someone who can walk into a room and build a relationship—but also knows how to turn that relationship into an opportunity. You don't need to have every answer on day one. In fact, we're looking for someone who is excited by the opportunity to help build the playbook.

You should be comfortable asking:

Who should Wathco be talking to?
What markets should we pursue?
How do we get in the door?
How do we turn relationships into opportunities?
How do we build a pipeline that produces consistent, profitable work?

If you already have a strong network and know how to create opportunities within commercial construction, we want to talk to you.

Why Wathco?

• Opportunity to build and own a new business development function.
• Direct visibility and collaboration with company leadership.
• National footprint and the ability to pursue opportunities across multiple markets.
• Established reputation and more than 30 years of construction experience.
• Opportunity to expand beyond our traditional market.
• Entrepreneurial environment where your ideas can directly influence the direction of the role.
• Collaborative team across estimating, project management, and field operations.
• Opportunity to grow with the company as the BD function develops.

Compensation & Benefits

Base Salary: Starting at $100,000 annually

In addition to a competitive base salary, Wathco is developing a performance-based commission and incentive structure for this newly created position. The goal is to reward successful business development, profitable project opportunities, new client relationships, and long-term growth.

The final commission structure will be established based on the scope of the role, experience of the selected candidate, and Wathco's overall business development strategy.

Benefits Include:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan with company matching
• Paid time off (PTO)
• Performance-based bonus opportunities
• Opportunities for professional growth and advancement

We are open to discussing compensation expectations and what an effective incentive structure looks like for experienced business development professionals in the construction industry.

Our Culture

At Wathco, our core values guide how we work:

Make it Fun
Prioritizing People
Crushing the Date
Growing Intentionally

We work hard, move quickly, and take pride in what we build—but we also believe in building a company where people want to work and relationships matter.

Ready to Build Something?

If you're an experienced construction business development professional who wants more than a traditional sales role—and you're excited by the opportunity to help build a BD function from the ground up—we'd love to hear from you.

Apply today to start a conversation with Wathco LLC.