Director Bids & Proposals
ICF
- Brussel
- Training
- Voltijds
- Organise and chair pipeline review meetings with Division Leads, growth leaders, and other senior staff members to ensure early opportunity identification of must-win/must-have EC opportunities;
- Collaborate with BD leaders, bid managers, group leadership, and other staff to ensure appropriate resources are available & allocated to priority opportunities;
- Oversee the successful development of compliant, compelling, highly competitive & ultimately winning proposals through effective collaboration & leadership across bid project teams;
- Review critical proposals;
- When required, lead and manage strategic bids and proposals;
- Drive the development, maintenance, and implementation of standard bid management processes, templates, artifacts, and tools, coordinating and sharing best practices with other B&P teams across ICF, as well as analysing and drawing lessons learned from wins and losses;
- Manage, train & mentor a team of bid managers and bid coordinators, as well as full-time and on-call writers, editors, and graphic artists;
- Ensure standard processes are executed across all bids.
- Bachelor’s degree;
- Minimum 15+ years of proven successful experience managing proposal teams and leading them efficiently in a dynamic, multi-task, fast-paced (yet structured) environment, ideally from a strategic communications and marketing domain;
- Significant experience with all aspects of EC bid preparation, development, and production;
- Thorough understanding of how EC bids are evaluated, with a proven track record of leading the development of successful, winning proposals for EU institutions (e.g., significant, sustained contract win rates of 90%+ success on re-competes; 40+% on new bids or takeaways);
- Strong proficiency in the Microsoft Office Suite (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint);
- Proficiency in the use of SharePoint and Microsoft Teams, collaboration tools such as Mural, internal BD knowledge management systems/databases, and pipeline and customer relationship management (CRM) systems;
- Excellent verbal, interpersonal, and written communication skills: you must be fluent in written and spoken English; fluency in French would be a bonus;
- Experience developing and delivering training on proposal processes and procedures.
- Ability to manage geographically disparate teams, including both full-time and on-call staff;
- Ability to manage and work with all levels of internal staff, including not only direct reports but also technical subject matter/capability experts and staff from “corporate” (e.g., HR, Talent Acquisition, Operations, Contracts, Legal, Pricing, Marketing, Growth, etc.);
- Ability to lead successful bids that integrate policy/programme acumen with technology, stratcomm, etc.;
- Excellent negotiation skills, highly developed persuasiveness skills, and a positive, collaborative attitude, even when under pressure: ability to appropriately challenge the status quo and “hold one’s own” in internal BD discussions to ensure the best solution is developed in response to client requirements and the agreed bid strategy;
- Strong organisational skills, initiative, and commitment to high-quality work: commitment to process & efficiency (but adaptable to change via flexible, agile application of an “80/20” rule to adjust actions in response to changing priorities, etc.);
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making capabilities: ability to apply logic and reasoning to solve complex problems, identify potential issues, make sound recommendations for resolution, and drive implementation of final decisions (with an awareness of the impact of those decisions on other stakeholders);
- Sound business ethics, including the protection of personal, proprietary, and confidential information.
EuroBrussels