Senior Proposal Manager

Leidos Energy is seeking an accomplished Senior Proposal Manager to lead complex, strategic, high-value, high-visibility, and high-risk commercial pursuits.

This individual will lead cross-functional proposal teams and serve as a strategic partner to Growth/Business Development, technical and operational leadership, pricing, contracts, and senior stakeholders.

The Senior Proposal Manager will drive teams toward cohesive, customer-focused winning strategies that differentiate Leidos while ensuring full compliance with customer requirements.

Primary Responsibilities

• Lead complex, strategic, high-value, high-visibility, and/or high-risk commercial pursuits from pre-proposal planning through submission and post-submittal activities.
• Lead cross-functional teams, establishing clear expectations, accountability, decision points, and momentum throughout the pursuit.
• Serve as proposal strategy lead and strategic partner to Growth/Business Development, senior engineers and technical leaders, operations, pricing, contracts, and leadership.
• Navigate differing perspectives, respectfully challenge assumptions, and drive timely decisions that strengthen the solution and Leidos' competitive position.
• Translate customer requirements, competitive intelligence, technical solutions, and business objectives into a cohesive, customer-focused proposal strategy.
• Lead development of compelling win themes, discriminators, value propositions, proof points, and messaging that clearly communicate why Leidos' solution is different and why that difference matters to the customer.
• Analyze RFPs, RFQs, RFIs, and other commercial solicitations to identify requirements, evaluation criteria, risks, gaps, dependencies, and strategic response considerations.
• Own proposal compliance and establish proposal structure, schedules, compliance matrices, content plans, author assignments, review plans, checkpoints, and decision points.
• Lead kickoffs, solutioning and strategy sessions, color/team reviews, recovery activities, senior-level reviews, and final quality reviews.
• Tailor proposal processes and governance based on opportunity value, complexity, competitive position, risk, schedule, and customer expectations while maintaining required compliance and quality.
• Provide clear, constructive guidance to authors, engineers, SMEs, and leaders to improve responsiveness, differentiation, customer focus, and proposal quality.
• Ensure technical, management, contractual, risk, and pricing strategies align with the overall proposal strategy.
• Identify execution, compliance, strategy, and schedule risks early; develop recovery plans; and elevate issues requiring leadership decisions.
• Maintain team focus and momentum through challenging schedules, competing priorities, ambiguity, and changing customer requirements.
• Mentor proposal contributors and support continuous improvement of proposal processes, governance, templates, tools, training, and best practices, including lessons learned.

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree with at least eight (8) years of relevant proposal, business development, or related experience, including significant experience leading complex commercial proposals.
• Demonstrated success leading complex, strategic, high-value, high-visibility, and/or high-risk pursuits through the complete proposal lifecycle.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and influence senior engineers, technical leaders, and business leaders; navigate competing viewpoints; facilitate difficult discussions; establish alignment; and drive timely decisions.
• Strong understanding of commercial procurement, competitive proposal development, customer evaluation processes, and proposal strategy.
• Demonstrated expertise translating customer requirements, competitive positioning, technical solutions, and business objectives into compelling, differentiated proposal strategies and content.
• Expert knowledge of proposal compliance, lifecycle processes, and governance, including compliance matrices, color/team reviews, risk and pricing reviews, review checkpoints, and final quality reviews.
• Ability to articulate the purpose and business value of proposal processes and gain team commitment to the appropriate level of rigor.
• Strong experience developing win themes, discriminators, value propositions, executive summaries, proof points, and customer-focused messaging.
• Strong leadership, facilitation, negotiation, and communication skills, with the ability to respectfully challenge senior stakeholders and drive accountability and results.
• Expert Microsoft Word skills and exceptional written, verbal, editing, and presentation preparation capabilities.
• Ability to synthesize complex technical and business information and communicate it clearly and persuasively.
• Demonstrated ability to lead geographically dispersed, cross-functional teams in a fast-paced commercial environment with rapid-turn pursuits and multiple concurrent priorities.
• Advanced proficiency with Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, and SharePoint.
• Due to the nature of the role, U.S. Citizenship is required.

Preferred Qualifications

• APMP, Shipley, SMPS, or other recognized proposal-management certification.
• Experience supporting engineering, energy, infrastructure, utilities, or other complex commercial/technical markets.
• Significant experience leading large or strategically important commercial pursuits.
• Experience in high-volume, fast-paced commercial proposal environments requiring speed, agility, customer focus, and disciplined decision-making.
• Experience leading senior-level proposal strategy sessions, color reviews, and recovery efforts.
• Experience developing scalable or tiered proposal processes based on opportunity size, complexity, risk, and schedule.
• Experience mentoring technical staff new to proposal development.
• Experience with electronic procurement and proposal submission portals.
• Experience leading or supporting live orals, presentations, and/or demonstrations.

Pay Range: $107,900.00 - $195,050.00