Senior Proposal Lead

JOB SUMMARY

Champion of the proposal effort and primary decision maker responsible for leading priority bids for the organization, including proposals for global awards and multisectoral bids. The Senior Proposal Lead will be ultimately responsible and accountable for high quality and fully compliant bids, from capture to submission. They will be responsible for developing and implementing proposal capture plans, including analyzing opportunities, customers, and competition. They will lead the development of a win strategy, technical solution, management and staffing, and partner and key personnel selection with support and collaboration from other key proposal team members. The Senior Proposal Lead will facilitate design sessions, contribute written inputs to proposal drafts, provide quality assurance of the bid, oversee key personnel selection and partnerships, support the finalization of proposal monitoring and evaluation plans, and work to ensure budgets are aligned with the technical design and are costed appropriately. S/he may also serve in other line proposal roles, as needed.

This individual will also contribute to capacity development initiatives for FHI 360 staff, including mentoring staff on business development skills/roles; designing and facilitating training workshops; and/or developing tools or other resources to support proposal development efforts and staff skills development.

RESPONSIBILITIES / DUTIES

Complexity & Problem Solving:

• Demonstrates ability to determine unique client problems and key stakeholders who will inform outcomes.
• Identifies technical specialists and reviewers with appropriate expertise
• Leads team to design the technical solution, create specific bid strategy, prepare competitor analysis, and lead decisions on partnering, personnel, and past performance references
• Accountable for decisions on proposal content, including conceptual framework and other key graphics,
• overall quality and content, and for control of costs of bid spend.
• Contributes to creation and implementation of strategies for success in proposal design.
• Identifies gaps in knowledge and processes and recommends and/or leads improvements.

Expertise & Influence:

• Senior business development subject matter expert who has expertise and ability to influence at all levels.
• Strong ability to describe and sell organizational technical expertise, country capacity, and institutional capacity.
• Experienced in leading global, or integrated bids, which are complex, dynamic, and highly visible
• Highly skilled at project management, staff management, and/or business development management with a vision to understand and present the best FHI has to offer.
• Ability to indirectly manage people and operate within the bidding process, lead multi-dimensional teams in securing wins, and influencing to ensure timely decisions and enforcement of timelines.
• Mentors staff both within the Business Development and Partnerships team and across the organization to standardize and institutionalize best practices for proposal design.

Collaboration & Interaction:

• Collaborate closely with a variety of staff profiles across the organization
• Liaise expertly with technical specialists, proposal writers and editors, proposal managers, finance experts, contractual specialists, security specialists, and various business teams to effectively coordinate proposal needs to drive the win strategy
• Partner with department director to select priority bids to be led, along with partner on level and needs of capacity strengthening activities for the organization.
• Involves extensive interaction with technical, regional, and country office staff to gather actionable business intelligence to apply to bid strategy.
• Effectively negotiate significant matters with senior management, executives, and key stakeholders, ensuring that all collaborative efforts are aligned with organizational goals.

Task Management & Efficiency:

• Team leader, ultimately responsible and accountable for bid; primary decision maker.
• This individual will also contribute to capacity development initiatives for FHI 360 staff, including mentoring staff on business development skills/roles; designing and facilitating training workshops; and/or developing tools or other resources to support proposal development efforts and staff skills development.
• Lead the development and implementation of the most complex proposal capture plans, including conducting desk research; planning and facilitating proposal strategy workshops; con