Director of Proposals

Why do you need to choose between doing important work and having a fulfilling life? At Ardent, we have both. Ardent employees are committed to solving our customers’ most difficult problems—and we are committed to the well-being, personal goals, and professional development of our employee. We are “All In.” We put forth our strongest effort possible to get the mission accomplished and we do it together. We respect the skills and experience you bring to the Ardent team. And we provide a rewarding environment to help you succeed. 

We offer highly competitive benefits, professional development opportunities, and an exceptional culture that embraces flexibility, innovation, collaboration, and career growth. A collective service mindset underpins our work, and a shared camaraderie to serve clients, colleagues and our communities set us apart. Our full commitment to being "All In" for our employees and our clients is not just our approach, it is our standard. If this sounds like the perfect fit for you, choose Ardent and make a difference with us. 

Ardent is seeking an experienced Proposal Director to join our expanding growth team. The Proposal Director will bring a proven track record of successfully leading proposal teams to submit compliant, compelling and winning proposals that enable Ardent to support challenging missions across the Federal government. This role will lead the full lifecycle of proposal activities from pre-RFP preparation, capture, solutioning, proposal development, multi-phased reviews, and submission. Working closely with internal business development, practice area, delivery SMEs, and external stakeholders, this role drive proposal process and maintain overall leadership the company’s proposal efforts.

The Proposal Director is a player/coach, a hands-on leader providing thought leadership resulting in innovative and winning proposals. The right candidate will bring a diverse understanding and capability to lead technical writing teams, proposal coordination, integrated reviews, Sharepoint/TEAMS proposal infrastructure, multi-functional review teams, and executive stakeholders. The Proposal Leader ensures the development of easy-to-understand anchor graphics, supporting narrative and ConOps aligned with SOW/PWS requirements and customer/mission intelligence. The candidate should possess experience both writing and acting in a book boss capacity (Technical, Management and Past Performance), providing mentorship to less experienced and developing authors and SMEs. The right candidate will have a working understanding of Ardent's core capabilities of Digital Transformation, Data Science & Analytics and Location Intelligence. This role is critical to the organization’s ability to submit compelling, compliant and winning proposal responses to Federal RFPs, RFIs, Sources Sought, Unsolicited Proposals, OTAs, and white papers. The Proposal Director work collaboratively with the Business Development, Practice Leads, Delivery, Contracts, Pricing and Operations. 

Responsibilities:

• Drive the proposal process to meet milestones according to Ardent processes and Industry best practices
• Set schedules, lead efforts, guide writing, creating compliant and compelling proposals
• Engage with Business Development, Delivery, Solution Architects, and Practice Area SMEs to craft proposal strategy and develop compelling and winning messaging to show the strengths and discriminators
• Ensure proposal submissions are compliant with applicable solicitation instructions, engage compelling technical solutions, innovative management approaches, and relevant past performance
• Review solicitation requirements and develop proposal response strategy and outline
• Lead all volumes of proposals and work with SMEs to develop content in a graphics-driven and aesthetically appealing format
• Take ownership of our proposal management processes, systems and tools
• Lead technical solutions, management and staffing approaches, and associated proposal content for Ardent proposal responses
• Oversee facilitation of RFP solutioning, beginning with anchor graphics and proposal architecture aligned with solicitation requirements, applying Shipley-inspired color review process. Results should be differentiated, innovative solutions by working with SMEs from Ardent’s practice areas and delivery.
• Conduct iterative sessions with SMEs to address a wide range of delivery options and align frameworks, methodologies, and proof points to specific service delivery activities.
• Lead team to develop management methodologies for large scale programs, including comprehensive approaches to address cost, schedule, performance, risk mitigation, quality control, knowledge management, and transition efforts.
• Lead color tea