The
Senior Director, Proposal Management leads enterprise proposal management function and oversees the development of compliant, compelling, and competitive proposals supporting growth across Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and other federal government markets.
Reporting to the Vice President of Business Development and Corporate Strategy, this position establishes proposal strategy, governance, processes, and quality standards while leading a multidisciplinary team of Proposal Managers, Proposal Coordinators, Proposal Writers, and Graphic Designers. The Senior Director works closely with Capture Managers, Business Development, Operations, Pricing, Contracts, Talent Acquisition, and executive leadership to translate capture strategies and customer requirements into persuasive, executable proposals.
This is a hands-on leadership role. The Senior Director provides portfolio-level oversight while directly managing selected strategic, complex, or high-priority bids when business needs require.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:- Lead the enterprise proposal management function and establish consistent standards for proposal planning, development, review, production, submission, and post-submission activities.
- Supervise, mentor, and develop Proposal Managers, Proposal Coordinators, Proposal Writers, and Graphic Designers, including assigning work and balancing resources across concurrent pursuits.
- Partner closely with Capture Managers to translate customer intelligence, win themes, discriminators, competitive positioning, and solution strategies into compelling proposal content.
- Evaluate proposal requirements and develop execution plans addressing schedules, assignments, reviews, production requirements, dependencies, and submission milestones.
- Lead proposal kickoff meetings, daily stand-ups, solution and strategy sessions, content reviews, and other proposal development activities.
- Plan and facilitate structured color-team reviews, including Pink, Red, Gold, and other reviews appropriate to the size, maturity, and complexity of the pursuit.
- Ensure proposals are compliant, responsive, persuasive, visually effective, and aligned with solicitation requirements, evaluation criteria, capture strategy, and approved business commitments.
- Maintain and enforce compliance tools, proposal outlines, annotated templates, compliance matrices, schedules, review protocols, and quality-control processes.
- Directly manage selected strategic, complex, high-value, or time-sensitive proposals from pre-solicitation planning through final submission.
- Coordinate closely with subject matter experts and functional stakeholders to develop accurate and compelling technical, management, staffing, transition, past-performance, and corporate-experience content.
- Integrate proposal development with pricing, contracts, legal, finance, operations, security, talent acquisition, and executive review requirements.
- Identify proposal risks, resource constraints, content gaps, and schedule concerns early and escalate issues requiring leadership attention or resolution.
- Ensure proposal commitments, representations, assumptions, and supporting information are appropriately reviewed and authorized before submission.
- Oversee proposal production and submission activities, including document configuration, graphics, editing, formatting, version control, quality assurance, and delivery.
- Develop and maintain proposal libraries, reusable content, templates, past-performance materials, resumes, graphics, lessons learned, and other proposal resources.
- Conduct post-submission reviews and proposal debrief analyses to identify lessons learned and improve future performance.
- Establish and monitor proposal metrics, including workload, schedule performance, review outcomes, submission quality, win rates, resource utilization, and process effectiveness.
- Assess internal capacity and recommend the use of consultants, subcontractors, writers, editors, or other external proposal resources when appropriate.
- Support pipeline planning and bid decisions by providing informed assessments of proposal complexity, timing, resource requirements, and execution risk.
- Promote collaboration, accountability, disciplined execution, and continuous improvement throughout the proposal development lifecycle.
- Perform other duties and support related growth initiatives as assigned.
EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE:- Bachelor's degree in business, communications, English, marketing, management, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and directly relevant experience.
- Typically, 12 or more years of progressively responsible experience in federal proposal development, including significant experience leading complex competitive proposals.
- At least five years of experience supervising or leading proposal professionals and multidisciplinary proposal teams.
- Demonstrated experience supporting Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and other federal government procurements.
- Extensive experience managing the full proposal lifecycle, from pre-solicitation planning and kickoff through review, production, and submission.
- Demonstrated experience developing proposal strategies and facilitating formal color-team reviews.
- Experience managing multiple concurrent pursuits with competing deadlines and resource requirements.
- Strong working knowledge of federal acquisition processes, solicitation structures, evaluation criteria, and proposal compliance requirements.
- Demonstrated ability to develop and refine technical, management, staffing, transition, past-performance, and corporate-experience proposal content.
- Advanced proficiency with Microsoft Office applications and proposal collaboration, document-management, and production tools.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:- Experience leading proposals for large, complex, or strategically significant federal opportunities.
- Experience with Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contracts, task-order proposals, best-in-class contract vehicles, and rapid-response procurements.
- Experience supporting classified proposals and working within restricted or secure proposal environments.
- Experience with Shipley or another recognized proposal-development methodology.
- Association of Proposal Management Professionals certification or comparable proposal-management training.
- Experience developing and implementing enterprise proposal processes, templates, content libraries, metrics, and quality standards.
- Experience supporting international, deployed, logistics, facilities management, engineering, construction, security, or mission-support programs.
KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS:- Expert knowledge of federal proposal development, management, compliance, and review practices.
- Strong understanding of the relationship among business development, capture, solutioning, pricing, and proposal execution.
- Ability to translate complex technical and operational solutions into clear, persuasive, evaluator-focused content.
- Exceptional leadership, coaching, collaboration, facilitation, and team-development skills.
- Excellent writing, editing, communication, and presentation skills.
- Strong strategic judgment with the willingness and ability to remain actively involved in proposal execution.
- Ability to establish priorities, allocate resources, and maintain quality across multiple high-pressure deadlines.
- Exceptional attention to detail and commitment to accuracy, consistency, compliance, and document quality.
- Ability to challenge assumptions constructively, resolve competing viewpoints, and drive timely decisions.
- Ability to collaborate effectively with executives, Capture Managers, operational leaders, subject matter experts, and technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Ability to exercise discretion and protect sensitive, proprietary, classified, and procurement-related information.
SECURITY CLEARANCE: Must possess and maintain a Top-Secret security clearance and be eligible to obtain and maintain the required clearance within 90 days.
