TALENT OPPORTUNITIES

Senior Bid Manager

"Having influence is not about elevating yourself, it is about lifting others!"

Position Overview

The Senior Bid Manager will be a key member of the Strategy & Pitch team. You will lead, co-lead or support as required on proposal preparation for major tenders and pitches, ensuring high quality, compelling bids are submitted on time and in the specified format. You will be required to understand the client brief, objectives and vision and develop a strategic and tactical response to each brief, providing clear direction to all contributors throughout the tender process. You will play a key role in supporting in the management of strategy and the tender process from inception to completion.

Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities

• Pitch lead, co-lead or support for major tenders and pitches including:

• Fully dissecting the client brief, objectives and vision, then translating this into tender-winning responses

• Defining the core roles required to support the tender

• Defining the tender deliverables

• Identifying areas in client briefs which require further information to then issue questions directly to the client to facilitate additional clarity to bolster our response

• Setting timelines

• Collaborating with and coordinating the key contributors allocated to a tender

• Setting a pitch budget and managing this to avoid overspend

• Leading resourcing, kickoff and pitch meetings to support pitch process

• Implementing and supporting the development of the Identity Commercial Strategy for winning major pitches

• Leading on planning and strategy for integrated programmes including the development of strategic and tactical plans

• Adopting a senior role within the Strategy & Pitch team to support in the delivery of tender winning responses

• Support in the development of our tender strategy, to ensure we keep current, including insight tools, methodologies, keeping on top of B2B strategy and thinking

• Development of presentations to support client pitch meetings and attendance at these meetings to present our solution

• Leading or providing support to pitch lead for major special project tenders, including responsibility and accountability for key sections of the tender response

• Client research to support tender responses including previous events and vision, values, and objectives

• Review potential tenders and make recommendations on suitability based on pre-agreed criteria including:

• Budget

• Timeframe

• Previous client history

• Match to Identity capabilities

• Incumbent strengths/ability to win

• Existing pitch workload

• Help identify ways to increase pitch conversion rates and define KPIs to track performance

• Support in the development of Strategy & Pitch team processes to deliver efficiencies and increased productivity

• Qualify tenders

• Permission to proceed process

• Pitch library, ensuring newly created tender sections are placed in the library for future use

• Development of robust QA processes to ensure there are no typographical or financial errors in tenders submitted

• Encourage and mentor junior team members to learn and grow

Other Duties

This list of duties is not exhaustive and other tasks and responsibilities of a reasonable nature may be required of the post holder.

Skills and Experience

Essential

• Significant agency experience in live events, predominately in a senior role, ideally working in pitches/bids as part of a team for a minimum of 2-3 years

• Extensive experience and a proven, demonstrable track record in winning multi-million pound pitches and tenders for government, public sector and/or corporate clients.

• A developed and proven strategic mind – strives to understand the brief, objectives and vision, translating this into tender winning responses

• Shows a strong understanding of strategy development for event programmes

• Proficient at synthesizing large amounts of ideas, data and information into simple, but powerful, strategic ideas

• Ability to develop and recommend strong, impactful KPIs and measurement frameworks

• Excellence in presenting insights, strategy and ideas to senior colleagues and clients

• Owns the responsibility for the quality of briefing, the insight that underpins it and being able to elicit creative potential via smart strategy

• Possesses the sufficient strength of character to manage multiple voices from senior staff, colleagues, clients and suppliers, collating feedback and providing one cohesive response

• Thrives in a highly collaborative cross-functional team, establishing and maintaining effective communication and liaison between the pitch team and key stakeholders

• Used to working across disciplines with Creative, Accounts, Production, Projects and Digital

• Open-minded, flexible and adaptable – is prepared to challenge ideas to achieve the best response whilst retaining control on the process

• Highly organised, scheduling and managing timelines and milestones

• Excellent verbal and written communications

• Self-motivated with a strong desire to succeed

• Ability to remain calm under pressure

Desirable

• Experience of managing and developing a pitch team

We are urgently recruiting for this need and would love to hear from you ASAP.

This position would suit

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