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New Business Manager, Environment & Energy

DAI | Apply By 17 February 2012

DAI works at the cutting edge of international development, combining technical excellence, professional project management, and exceptional customer service to solve our clients’ most complex problems. Since 1970, DAI has worked in 150 developing and transition countries, providing comprehensive development solutions in areas including crisis mitigation and stability operations, democratic governance and public sector management, agriculture and agribusiness, private sector development and financial services, economics and trade, HIV/AIDS, avian influenza control, water and natural resources management, and energy and climate change. Clients include international development agencies, international lending institutions, private corporations and philanthropies, and host-country governments.

Job Description:

The Acquisitions Group — a service center within DAI—provides business development services that underpin DAI’s business planning, opportunity management, and proposal responses. Acquisitions is responsible for DAI’s overall new business performance, its win rate, bid/no-bid decisions, proposal team formation and execution, the establishment of proposal standards and processes, and proposal quality oversight.

Acquisitions is seeking a mid- to senior-level individual with proven new business skills in the USAID market segment to serve as the New Business Manager embedded in DAI’s Environment & Energy Sector (E&E). The E&E Sector applies interdisciplinary approaches to programs across a number of technical areas, including biodiversity conservation, natural resource governance, watershed management, water supply and sanitation, utility reform, renewable energy, energy efficiency finance, climate change adaptation and mitigation, ecotourism, enterprise development and sustainable livelihoods.
The New Business Manager will report to Acquisitions but work with Environment &Energy’s Managing Director and technical staff on a daily basis, supporting the development of E&E strategy; providing technical management and support to a small, dynamic team; and performing a variety of pipeline development, pre-positioning, proposal management, and proposal writing functions. The New Business Manager will often work on and with multiple proposal teams simultaneously. The ideal candidate will work well under pressure, delivering high quality results in a fast-paced environment.

Responsibilities:

Working closely with the sector’s Managing Director and Technical Area Managers, the NBM helps the sector to actualize its growth strategy by:

• Identifying and developing a robust pipeline of biddable opportunities – both in the sector’s annual business development plan and in the continuously updated corporate tracker;
• Vetting and prioritizing potential bids according to their financial returns, strategic value, and winnability;
• Helping establish – both within and beyond the sector – a common understanding of the sector’s new business priorities and the rationale and criteria for bid/no-bid decision making and proposal team assignments;
• Selecting, securing, supporting, and mentoring sector-based champions in comprehensive pre-positioning efforts for specific opportunities;
• Writing Business Acquisition Plans that justify a corporate investment in the pursuit of given opportunities, both through the home office and international offices;
• Controlling access to and holding accountability for the sector’s pre-positioning B&P funds;
• Ensuring achievement of the sector’s annual new-business target;
• Acting as a proposal manager, champion, or component writer on key bids – leading international recon trips with technical staff for teaming, recruiting, and intel gathering;
• Providing oversight and quality control to sector-led bids on which the assigned proposal manager has less experience or is new to DAI;
• Participating in the screening and hiring of new sector staff members, with an eye toward the ability of candidates to lead and/or make substantial contributions to DAI’s proposal efforts;
• Supervising the new business Opportunity Manager assigned to the sector; and
• Contributing (e.g., as a manager, reviewer, incubator participant, writer, etc.) to corporate-priority bids as needed, regardless of which sector is identified as the lead for the bid in question.

While responsibilities vary throughout the year, NBMs typically spend about half their time on pipeline development and the other half on the management and oversight of specific bids.

Basic Qualifications:

Education/Experience: Bachelor’s degree and minimum of seven years of work experience in the international development industry. Graduate degree preferred. Proven success in working under deadline, managing teams, integrating inputs into strong proposals, organizational relationship management, and delivering top quality writing and winning work. Comfort with international travel and cross-cultural communications required.

Knowledge: Working knowledge of USAID’s procurement process is mandatory; awareness of the procurement process of other donors is preferred. Solid understanding of proposal development process.

Skills: Self-motivated, highly organized communicator; skilled technical writer and editor; strong strategic thinker; able to articulate programmatic plans/approaches, make critical decisions with limited guidance, and handle changes rapidly and effectively; outstanding team builder and leader.

Must be eligible to work in the US.