Do “Business development professionals“ find their route to this area by climbing the corporate ladder in functions such as operations management?

I agree with answers given by colleagues.

It's not a must or condition, but for sure those who goes through the corporate ladder will have better understanding of the processes and operations  

I believe moving from operations management to business development is a clear path and good career growth. 

The reason why I say this is in my experience as an entrepreneur with my first startup. I learned that operations is absolutely a key component and plays an important role in defining the growth strategy for all facets of a business, which are based on industry standard project management tiers (PMP).

A shout-out to my mentor and great inspiration Patrick Le Gentil.

Yes, it's suppose to be the route, but there are many cases of jumping rather climbing the ladder for some valid and invalid reasons.

Understanding the business and climbing the ladder gets you great learning, being with Operations give a clear understanding on what you need to change, but it’s not all who are built for Business Development, the ones with better execution will obviously jump me and be on the top of the ladder, for me its not a must to climb the ladder of Operation Management, but just take a few jumps to reach the top, that should be only with my hard work and dedication.

Agreed with Answer of Mr. Alex.

Agreed with Mr. Usman............ usually in smaller businesses or new startups, the CEO of the company also plays the role of BDM.

Otherwise in large scale businesses, i agreed to your statement.

Agreed with the answer by Mr. Alex Al Yazouri-- Thanks for his expertise in many fields.

agree with all expert answer