Pursuit and Proposal Lead

JLL•Chicago, IL

8d•Onsite

About The Position

JLL is seeking an experienced Pursuit and Proposal Lead to drive high-value, complex CRE technology services opportunities. This role involves shaping strategy from inception to award, acting as a project manager, storyteller, and quality champion. The ideal candidate will ensure all submissions align with client needs and effectively articulate JLL's value proposition.

Requirements

5-7 years of dedicated experience in proposal management, technical writing, or strategic GTM enablement, ideally in the technology or SaaS space.
Exceptional writing, editing, and storytelling skills.
Strong interpersonal presence with the confidence to guide, challenge, and align senior executives and deep technical experts under tight timelines.
A forward-thinking mindset with curiosity and comfort using AI and tech tools (eg: Claude, ChatGPT) to drive efficiency and quality.
Excellent project and time management skills with ability to juggle multiple high-priority deliverables simultaneously.
Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship.
Experience leading public sector proposals an added bonus.
APMP certification preferred (Foundation minimum; Practitioner or higher a strong plus), or equivalent professional credential.

Responsibilities

Contribute to go/no-go decisions and advise bid teams on pursuit selection, risk assessment, and win strategy.
Drive alignment around win themes, competitive positioning, and differentiators.
Build strong stakeholder relationships to sustain visibility into current and upcoming opportunities and their proposal/bid requirements.
Lead multidisciplinary teams through end-to-end proposal processes, establishing clear project plans with milestones, ownership, and quality standards.
Facilitate proposal kick-off meetings, stand-ups and reviews to keep teams aligned and on schedule.
Provide regular updates to leadership on pursuit progress and potential blockers.
Conduct meticulous compliance checks to ensure all RFP instructions, evaluation criteria, and contractual requirements are fully addressed.
Drive quality assurance through structured review cycles and implement feedback from reviewers and leadership.
Guide technical and management contributors to produce clear, compliant, and compelling content aligned to customer requirements.
Apply persuasive writing techniques to craft compelling proposal narratives and non-technical proposal content, including baseline content, cover letters, executive summaries and case studies.
Coordinate and develop proposal graphics, org charts, workflow diagrams, and other visual aids that reinforce value messaging.
Model best practices in pursuit management and champion process improvements that enhance team efficiency and deliverable quality.
Leverage AI tools to maintain proposal repositories, past performance libraries, resumes, and boilerplate content to enable rapid turnarounds.
Support performance and improvement initiatives.
Leverage KPIs (win rates, response time, etc) to drive process improvements and training.
Performs other duties as assigned.