They earn respect from the masses:

You don’t have to vote for your pitch leader but if you did, one who earned the respect of the team would win hands down. Pitch teams inevitably expect members to give their all so a popular leader who can keep morale high, motivate and inspire will make the team more successful in all areas of the pitch.

They can take tough (sometimes unpopular) decisions:

“Are we likely to be working this weekend?” The question asked in dread on most pitch teams. The truth is if you’re asking the question, you probably already know the answer. A good pitch leader can make the tough and sometimes unpopular decisions in the interest of the pitch – not just about how long and hard a team has to work, but whether the creative work is right, who will be in the pitch itself, whether you spend £15,000 on research and everything in between.

They are expert in their field, but able to grasp new areas quickly:

Whilst typical pitch leaders have years of expertise working on client business, it’s rare that they have encountered the very same challenge on the same brand. Indeed, often the pitch brief calls for the expertise of specialists at some point: whether they’re retail consultants, reputation management experts, social media professionals, semiotics experts or anything else. A good pitch leader can gain an understanding in new areas quickly and talk confidently about them to their team (and indeed the clients).

They know that history has a tendency to repeat itself:

Learning lessons from the past is crucial when building a successful pitching machine: not just your past, but past pitches in your agency. A good pitch leader takes those lessons and combines them with their own vision and experience to drive the team to success.