Proposal Lead - World Bank

The Purpose of the Role

• The Senior Program/Business Development Advisor (World Bank) will join a global BD team and will help drive IRC's new business development efforts by engaging with global, regional, country, and technical staff throughout the business development cycle from opportunity tracking and positioning/capture planning to proposal development, and submission. The SPDA will primarily serve as capture and proposal manager, and s/he will also offer technical assistance and mentor staff working on proposals on relevant business development topics.
• The ideal candidate will have significant high-level experience in managing capture and proposal development for opportunities that are complex or high-value nature. This should include a track record of successful multi-million dollar proposal development with the World Bank or other multilateral development bank. Experience of large funding proposals with other major government donors will be a distinct advantage.

Key Accountabilities

Bid leadership and coordination (70%)

• Lead proposal development for complex and strategic public opportunities, including capture strategy, management of proposal teams, calendars, and deadlines; strategy development with technical staff; consortium management and negotiations; recruiting; writing; production; and after-action reviews.
• Collaborate with regional, country, and technical teams to develop and implement opportunity-specific long-term capture and positioning strategies.
• Lead strategic capture efforts for frameworks, single opportunities and wider funding sources including donor mapping, SWOT analysis, support to win theme development, and relevant strategies for pre-positioning efforts.
• Contribute to strengthening IRC's profile and relationships with key stakeholders, including donors, peer organizations, local partners, and government institutions to support opportunity-specific strategic planning and decision-making.
• Advises Technical Teams and Country Teams on strategic approaches for funding opportunities, guiding a robust and evidence driven Go/No Go process.
• Supports technical units and country teams to offer pitches to prospective partners to secure the most competitive consortia possible.
• Review and/or draft expressions of interest, concept notes, and proposals to ensure quality and compliance with donor standards.
• Collaborate with IRC's pricing team and other budget leads, ensuring technical coherence and value for money with the cost proposal.
• Collaborate with Proposal Recruiters to identify and assess candidates for key personnel positions on proposals.
• Organize and manage internal processes to ensure IRC is always submitting the most competitive and compliant proposals.

Business Development process improvement and knowledge management (10%)

• Conducts After Action Reviews, Donor Feedback Reviews and capture wider learnings to disseminate to wider organization
• Contributes to and models the use of standard business development processes, tools, templates and information.
• May serve in short term mentor role to junior staff leading large bids for the first time.

Partnerships and Strategy (20%)

• Conducts landscape analyses as necessary to identify most strategic partnerships in public donor markets, with a particular focus on fostering local partnerships.
• Drafts high quality positioning materials as necessary, including capability statements and prior project reference sheets.
• Strengthening collaboration with internal stakeholders including country teams, technical units, and other team members.
• Contributes to country-specific BD strategies and BD action plans as necessary to support prioritization of new business development opportunities.
• Work with colleagues across IRC, in particular the BD Quality & Systems team to support change initiatives to continuously improve, evolve and innovate IRC approach to effective, mission aligned business development.

Person Specification

Skills, Knowledge and Qualifications:

• At least six years of focused experience working with major institutional donors on large and often complex procurements, with extensive World Bank experience required. Additional experience with other multilateral and bilateral donors such as FCDO, French AFD, or German BMZ is an advantage. *
• Strong knowledge of World Bank compliance, rules, and regulations, along with familiarity with the policies of other relevant donors. *
• Familiarity with standard Business Development processes, and a willingness to learn and apply IRC's BD guidelines.
• Fluency in English and French required.*

Experience:

• Successful track record of acting as proposal manager on complex subject, multi-year, multi-partner proposals with minimal supervision*
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, including the ability to effectively manage a variety of relationships in a multicultural environment
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate equally effectively with colleagues in 'remote' and diverse teams, including as team leader for proposals
• The ability to work productively and accurately while under pressure in a fast-paced, demanding environment
• Experience managing large development or humanitarian programs- a strong understanding of program implementation and donor engagement throughout the project cycle will desirable.
• Lived and/ or working experience in Sub-Saharan Africa is an advantage.
• Ability to travel internationally (up to 20% of time)