Senior Bids Manager

Purpose of the Job

The role leads complex, high-value or strategically important pursuit activity and defined bid-related workstreams, applying strong judgement, delegation, insight-led content development, workshop leadership, external insight capture and constructive challenge to improve pursuit outcomes. 

Key Responsibilities 

• Defined workstream leadership: Lead significant bid, proposal or pursuit-related workstreams, ensuring clear scope, ownership, timelines, risks and outputs, while delegating appropriate activity to contributors or support teams to remain focused on higher-value judgement and pursuit impact 

• Insight-led narrative and content development: Proactively and independently generate and shape content based on client, market, competitor or opportunity insight, strengthening win themes, pursuit narratives, messaging and differentiated value articulation 

• Message translation and format innovation: Translate pursuit themes, messages and strategies into appropriate formats that demonstrate innovation beyond compliant requirements, including executive summaries, pitch storyboards, presentation flows, workshop outputs, value propositions and client-facing talk tracks 

• Workshop leadership and alignment: Lead structured in-person and virtual workshops with opportunity teams, Solutions and subject-matter experts to align on strategy, messaging, solution articulation and outputs 

• External engagement and insight capture: Participate actively in external client meetings, discovery sessions or workshops where appropriate, using first-hand insight to directly improve proposal content, pitch narratives and pursuit recommendations 

• Constructive challenge and consensus-building: Instigate and drive internal dialogue with opportunity teams and subject-matter experts, using constructive challenge to resolve ambiguity, identify and refine right to win, reach consensus and improve the quality and impact of final outputs 

• Capability uplift and pursuit improvement: Provide coaching, guidance and quality assurance to bid team members and contributors, and support targeted bid management improvement initiatives agreed by Sales Enablement leadership 

Knowledge, Skills & Experience 

• All Bid Manager knowledge, skills and experience, with proven ability to operate at Senior Manager level on complex, high-value or strategically important pursuits 

• Strong pursuit judgement, with the ability to shape win themes, narrative direction, messaging and differentiated value articulation based on client, market, competitor or opportunity insight 

• Experience leading defined bid, proposal, pursuit or improvement workstreams, including scope, ownership, timelines, risks, delegation and output quality 

• Confident facilitation skills, including the ability to lead structured workshops, align stakeholders, resolve ambiguity and move teams from broad input to clear decisions 

• Ability to participate actively in external client meetings, discovery sessions or workshops, capturing insight and translating it into stronger proposal, pitch or pursuit recommendations 

• Strong ability to translate messages and themes into alternative formats, including executive summaries, pitch storyboards, presentation flows, value propositions and client-facing talk tracks 

• Confidence constructively challenging opportunity teams, Solutions and SMEs to improve clarity, coherence, client relevance and commercial impact 

• Experience coaching contributors or bid team members, providing quality assurance and helping raise the standard, consistency and effectiveness of pursuit outputs 

• Ability to support targeted bid management improvement initiatives while staying within defined role boundaries and agreed Sales Enablement leadership direction 

For Illinois applicants: The salary range for this position is $90,000 to $100,000 annually. Actual compensation packages are based on a variety of factors that are unique to each candidate, including skill set, experience, certifications and work location. This range may be different in other locations due to differences in the cost of labor.  

The total compensation package for this position may also include annual performance bonus targets, benefits and/or other applicable incentives.  

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