The Business Development and Capture Manager helps drive strategic growth across federal defense and civilian agencies. The position serves as the accountable lead for assigned opportunities from qualification through capture, proposal transition, award decision, debrief, and follow-on growth planning. Coordinates with Operations, Recruiting, Pricing, and the Proposal Team to develop compliant, competitive, and executable solutions that improve probability of win. This role bridges the gap between market intelligence and winning proposals, applying competitive insights to position the company for success well before RFPs are released.
The ideal candidate brings demonstrated federal business development and capture experience with the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Veterans Affairs or comparable civilian agencies, and is comfortable operating in labor-intensive professional services and rapid-response staffing environments.
Essential Duties and ResponsibilitiesStrategic Market Development and Account Growth- Develop and execute agency and account growth plans aligned with company's strategic objectives, core capabilities, target markets, and revenue goals.
- Analyze federal budgets, procurement forecasts, expiring contracts, incumbent positions, acquisition trends, contract vehicles, set-aside strategies, and customer mission priorities.
- Identify adjacent markets, customer organizations, mission areas, and acquisition pathways that expand Patriot's addressable market.
Opportunity Identification and Qualification- Identify opportunities through customer engagement, market intelligence, RFIs, Sources Sought notices, procurement forecasts, industry events, partner referrals, and federal opportunity platforms.
- Identify organic growth, recompete, follow-on, and adjacent opportunities associated with assigned accounts and contracts.
- Lead documented opportunity shreds, qualification reviews, and business-fit assessments using company's opportunity criteria.
- Evaluate customer access, strategic fit, competitive position, contract vehicle access, past performance, staffing feasibility, pricing risk, timing, and likely return on pursuit investment.
- Prepare and present interest, pursuit, and bid/no-bid recommendations to leadership.
- Recommend no-bid, hold, or removal when evidence does not support continued investment.
Capture Strategy and Execution- Serve as Capture Manager for assigned pursuits and maintain an actionable capture plan from qualification through proposal transition.
- Develop the opportunity Capture Plan to include customer engagement plan, customer and stakeholder map, opportunity roadmap, competitive assessment, solution strategy, teaming strategy, contract vehicle strategy, price-to-win assumptions, risk register, and action plan.
- Define the actions, owners, milestones, and resources required to improve probability of win before solicitation release.
- Conduct recurring capture status reviews and formal gate reviews; document decisions, risks, assumptions, and next steps.
- Ensure capture intelligence and artifacts are current, evidence-based, and available to authorized pursuit stakeholders.
Customer and Partner Engagement- Build and maintain professional relationships with program, mission, acquisition, and contracting stakeholders through lawful and ethical market-research and industry-engagement channels.
- Plan, conduct, and document meaningful customer engagements to understand mission needs, acquisition strategy, funding, evaluation priorities, procurement timing, workforce requirements, and performance risks.
- Represent Company at customer meetings, industry days, conferences, outreach sessions, and partner events.
- Identify, assess, and cultivate prime contractors, subcontractors, small businesses, and strategic partners that improve capability, past performance, customer access, geographic reach, vehicle access, or staffing capacity.
- Develop recommended prime/subcontract roles and workshare positions and coordinate NDAs, teaming agreements, subcontracts, and partner data calls with Contracts.
Solution, Staffing, and Price-to-Win Development- Lead integration of operational, technical, staffing, recruiting, transition, quality, and management approaches into a coherent capture solution.
- Partner with Pricing and HR to establish price-to-win ranges, labor assumptions, compensation inputs, incumbent considerations, geographic factors, subcontractor strategies, and execution risks.
- Assess labor availability, wage determinations, collective bargaining requirements when applicable, recruiting timelines, key personnel needs, and transition constraints.
- Ensure proposed approaches are differentiated, compliant, executable, and aligned with the customer's stated and validated priorities.
Proposal Transition and Bid Support- Lead a formal capture-to-proposal transition that provides the Proposal Manager and proposal team with validated customer, competitor, solution, teaming, pricing, staffing, past-performance, and risk information.
- Support development of the proposal strategy, executive messaging, win themes, and discriminators,
- Participate in kickoff meetings, solution reviews, and proposal status reviews.
Pipeline Governance, Forecasting, and Reporting- Maintain complete, accurate, and timely records for assigned accounts and opportunities.
- Maintain opportunity value, stage, gate status, acquisition path, contract vehicle, competition, customer-contact status, teaming status, key dates, probability of win, risks, next action, action owner, and forecast assumptions.
- Provide leadership with candid, evidence-based assessments of portfolio health, opportunity status, revenue outlook, pursuit risk, resource requirements, and corrective actions.
- Prepare regular pipeline, capture, and account-growth reports and support annual strategic planning.
Post-Submission Activities- Maintain appropriate customer and partner engagement after submission and through award decision.
- Support award transition planning, customer communications, staffing readiness, and contract-start activities when requested.
- Lead or support debrief analysis to include win/loss analysis and documented lessons-learned reviews for significant opportunities
- Convert lessons learned into specific process, positioning, solution, teaming, pricing, or proposal improvements.
Required Qualifications- Bachelor's degree in business, public administration, management, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and directly relevant experience.
- Minimum of seven (7) years of federal business development, capture management, account management, federal sales, or related growth experience.
- Demonstrated experience leading federal pursuits from qualification through capture, proposal transition, and award decision.
- Demonstrated ability to develop capture plans, customer engagement strategies, opportunity assessments, competitive analyses, teaming strategies, gate reviews, and proposal transition packages.
- Working knowledge and understanding of federal acquisition processes, FAR/DFARS concepts, competitive procurement methods, contract vehicles, and source-selection practices.
- Experience and networking using federal market-intelligence, procurement, spending, and CRM platforms such as SAM.gov, USASpending, FPDS, GovWin, GovTribe, Salesforce, or comparable systems.
- Ability to lead cross-functional teams without relying solely on direct supervisory authority.
- Excellent executive communication, presentation, negotiation, analytical, organizational, and relationship-management skills.
- Ability to travel and attend customer or industry engagements as business needs require.
Preferred Qualifications- Master's degree in business, public administration, management, or a related discipline.
- Established relationships and demonstrated success within DHS, VA, and/or DOW.
- Experience capturing labor-intensive professional services, workforce, training, human capital, administrative support, or rapid-response staffing requirements.
- Experience with Price-to-Win modeling and competitive analysis techniques
- Experience supporting oral presentations, competitive range discussions, evaluation notices, and final proposal revisions.
