Proposal Development Manager

U.S. Bank•Minneapolis, MN

About The Position

The Proposal Development Manager leads the day-to-day activities and performance of the proposal development team, aligning resources with business needs and ensuring proposal assignments are delivered with consistent quality, accuracy, and timeliness. The role directly manages and develops proposal professionals, oversees workload and assignment distribution, monitors schedules and deadlines, and provides hands-on guidance to address delivery challenges and maintain quality standards. It serves as the team's primary coordination point, balancing capacity, priorities, complexity, and development needs across assignments. The manager also provides strategic, writing, and editorial leadership for complex or high-priority opportunities. The role helps ensure proposals are developed through a disciplined, collaborative process and that deliverables are client-focused, persuasive, compliant, and aligned with established proposal strategy, processes, and standards. The position partners with Sales, Product, Pricing, Legal, Risk, Marketing, subject-matter experts, and other contributors to support successful proposal delivery. The posting also includes a separate marketing-role description concerning development of marketing strategy, programs, performance indicators, vendor relationships, and cross-functional compliance. Its relationship to the Proposal Development Manager role is unclear, so it is not treated as a core responsibility of this position.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Communications, English, Journalism, Marketing, Business, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
At least 7 years of experience in proposal writing, proposal management, business writing, marketing communications, or a related discipline.
Demonstrated experience leading, coaching, or developing proposal writers or similar professional teams.
Strong experience managing multiple concurrent RFPs, RFIs, questionnaires, or complex client deliverables.
Exceptional writing, editing, proofreading, and executive communication skills.
Strong workload, resource, and deadline management capabilities.
Demonstrated ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, highly matrixed environment.
Strong collaboration and stakeholder-management skills.
Ability to translate complex financial, technical, and product information into concise, client-focused messaging.

Nice To Haves

Experience in financial services, payments, treasury management, commercial banking, fintech, or another complex B2B environment.
Experience with proposal management platforms such as Responsive.
Experience developing executive summaries, strategic positioning, win themes, and value-based messaging.
Familiarity with proposal content-management and knowledge-management practices.
APMP certification or related proposal-management training.
Experience using AI-enabled tools to support proposal writing, editing, content development, or workflow efficiency.

Responsibilities

Directly manage, coach, mentor, and develop proposal writers; establish expectations for writing quality, execution, collaboration, responsiveness, and deadline management.
Identify team and individual development needs, build proposal-writing capabilities, support onboarding and training, and improve consistency across the team.
Manage daily writer assignments and workloads, considering capacity, proposal complexity, deadlines, and writer capabilities; rebalance work as priorities or capacity change.
Track upcoming deadlines, resource constraints, competing priorities, and delivery risks; act as the first escalation point for capacity or delivery challenges and coordinate coverage for absences.
Escalate significant capacity, prioritization, or delivery risks to the Head of Proposal Strategy & Management.
Oversee active proposal assignments from kickoff and strategy alignment through content development, review, and submission.
Monitor milestones, content deadlines, review cycles, pens-down dates, and submission requirements; help resolve obstacles and reinforce accountability for proposal processes and deadlines.
Ensure appropriate escalation when contributors or stakeholders miss critical deadlines, and provide hands-on support for complex, high-value, or time-sensitive assignments when needed.
Review and strengthen executive summaries, strategic narratives, key proposal sections, and other high-visibility content.
Coach writers to translate complex product, technical, financial, and business information into clear, compelling, client-focused messaging.
Reinforce standards for grammar, tone, structure, readability, brand alignment, and client focus; help ensure proposals address client requirements, business objectives, differentiators, and win themes.
Partner with the broader proposal team on quality control and continuous improvement.
Lead regular workload and assignment discussions; maintain visibility into active assignments, upcoming demand, capacity, and resource needs.
Identify recurring delivery challenges and recommend operational improvements; reinforce use of approved processes, templates, content, and tools.
Partner with proposal leadership on staffing, capacity planning, training, and team capability development; support adoption of proposal technology, approved AI capabilities, and content-management practices.
Serve as the primary day-to-day leadership contact for proposal-development resources, assignments, and delivery coordination; help writers navigate competing stakeholder requests and priorities.
Partner with Sales, Product, Pricing, Legal, Risk, Marketing, subject-matter experts, and other contributors to support proposal delivery; escalate broader strategic, governance, organizational, or business-priority decisions to the Head of Proposal Strategy & Management.

Benefits

Healthcare coverage, including medical, dental, and vision.
Basic term and optional term life insurance.
Short-term and long-term disability coverage.
Pregnancy disability and parental leave.
401(k) and an employer-funded retirement plan.
Paid vacation of two to five weeks depending on salary grade and tenure.
Up to 11 paid holiday opportunities.
Adoption assistance.
Sick and Safe Leave accrual of one hour for every 30 hours worked, up to 80 hours per calendar year unless otherwise provided by law.
Incentive and recognition programs.
Equity stock purchase, 401(k) contribution, and pension, subject to eligibility requirements.