Director of Partnerships
About The Position
The Director of Partnerships is a strategic leader responsible for identifying, pursuing, and winning federal funding opportunities, including grants, cooperative agreements, OTAs, subawards, and FAR-based procurement contracts. The role focuses on top-of-funnel capture through market intelligence and relationship-building. ASTRO America is a nonprofit research institute and think tank that works with industry, government, and academic partners to develop Advanced Manufacturing Accelerators in locations across the United States. Its networks, expertise, and approach to technology maturation and qualification support change in American defense production. The Director leads federal business development and capture, including agency engagement, pipeline management, opportunity shaping, bid strategy, and teaming arrangements. The role also oversees consortium operations, governance, and member engagement; structures advisory committees; and builds stakeholder consensus to advance technical adoption and commercialization. Performance is measured by the annual value of federal awards won, win rate on submitted solicitations, the quality and volume of qualified pipeline opportunities, and timely, fully compliant proposal submissions.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Communications, Public Policy, or a STEM discipline.
- At least 5 years of progressive experience in federal business development, capture, or proposal management.
- Demonstrated track record of writing and securing high-value federal grants or contracts, such as DOD, DOE, or NSF awards.
- Existing knowledge and relationships in Advanced Manufacturing and the Defense Industrial Base.
- Strong working knowledge of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), Grants and Agreements guidance (2 CFR 200), and agency-specific procurement guidelines.
- Deep familiarity with structured proposal methodologies such as Shipley.
- Superior communication skills, technical writing, project management, and cross-functional team leadership.
Responsibilities
- Cultivate relationships with federal program officers, contracting officials, state partners, and prime and subcontractor networks to raise awareness of ASTRO’s capabilities, identify upcoming opportunities, and shape requirements.
- Monitor agency forecasts, OTA and membership programs, SAM.gov, Grants.gov, and market intelligence tools such as GovWin to identify and qualify federal funding opportunities; maintain the opportunity pipeline through CRM systems.
- Work with government agencies to identify collaboration opportunities supporting shared goals in manufacturing technology, supply chain, and industrial base development.
- Lead bid/no-bid reviews and develop win strategies, value propositions, and price-to-win analyses tailored to agency needs.
- Identify, negotiate, and establish strategic teaming agreements, subcontracts, and academic and industry partner alliances.
- Oversee operational leadership, governance, and member engagement for collaborative research and technology deployment consortia.
- Structure and manage Executive, Technical, and Government Advisory Committees to align public-private R&D investment priorities.
- Build consensus among industry, government, and academic stakeholders to accelerate technical adoption and commercialization pathways.
- Achieve performance targets for annual federal awards, solicitation win rate, qualified pipeline opportunities, and timely, compliant proposal submissions.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Director
