Senior Manager, Business Development Operations
About The Position
The Senior Manager, Business Development Operations owns qualified business development opportunities and proposals from intake through final submission. The role shapes opportunities into well-scoped, well-priced proposals by understanding the requester’s needs, coordinating contributors and reviews, and ensuring responses are accurate, compliant, polished, on brand, and submitted on time. It also manages the operational side of business development, including opportunity identification and evaluation, RFP coordination, scoping and pricing inputs, and ongoing improvement of the systems, tools, and processes that support agency growth. The role works closely with Account Management, Creative, Strategy, Project Management, Finance, agency leadership, and other subject-matter experts. It coordinates scoping, estimates, staffing assumptions, pricing inputs, and required commercial, contractual, procurement, and security reviews. Pricing is set by Account Management leadership and approved by agency leadership; this role coordinates the inputs and ensures proposal consistency with the approved price. The position also maintains proposal resources and reusable content, tracks outcomes to improve win rates, and operates and improves AI-enabled and automated workflows for proposal development, RFP responses, and SOW creation, applying judgment and quality control to AI-assisted work. This is a hands-on, non-quota-carrying role that does not own client relationships and has no direct reports. West Cary Group is a full-service digital marketing and technology agency based in Richmond, Virginia, serving mid-sized local and Fortune 500 clients across a range of industries. The position is Richmond-based, with hybrid work and a minimum of two to three days per week in the office. It reports to the Chief Operating Officer and is classified as exempt, salaried.
Requirements
- At least 5 years of experience in business development operations, growth operations, proposal management, capture management, sales operations, or a similar role.
- Experience writing and managing proposals, RFP responses, SOWs, Task Orders, or other complex client-facing business documents through submission.
- Ability to understand a requester’s business needs and present a clear case for why West Cary Group is the right solution.
- Strong project-management and organizational skills, including the ability to manage multiple opportunities and deadlines simultaneously.
- Strong written, verbal, and presentation skills.
- Ability to coordinate cross-functional contributors and drive work to completion without direct authority.
- Demonstrated attention to detail and commitment to quality, including catching inconsistent numbers, missed requirements, and incorrect client names.
- Ability to identify missing information, challenge assumptions, and resolve issues quickly.
- Comfort working in a small organization with home-grown tools and building structure where little exists.
Nice To Haves
- Experience in an advertising, marketing, consulting, professional-services, or other project-based organization.
- Familiarity with government procurement and solicitation platforms such as SAM.gov and eVA.
- Experience with rate cards, staffing models, project estimates, or proposal pricing.
Responsibilities
- Own qualified new-business opportunities, proposals, RFP responses, Statements of Work, and Task Orders from intake through final submission.
- Analyze opportunity requirements and underlying business needs, and position West Cary Group as an appropriate solution.
- Identify ambiguities, gaps, and risks in RFPs; determine clarifying questions and manage the Q&A process and deadlines.
- Coordinate proposal timelines, contributor assignments, reviews, approvals, and deliverables.
- Ensure submissions are accurate, compliant, on brand, polished, and on time.
- Monitor and track opportunities from agency relationships, referrals, marketing, RFP intake, procurement marketplaces, and other channels across commercial and government clients.
- Review SAM.gov, eVA, and other opportunity channels for opportunities aligned with agency capabilities and growth priorities.
- Prepare information for leadership bid/no-bid decisions and maintain visibility into opportunities, submissions, outcomes, and next steps.
- Work with Account Management to understand business goals, client requirements, and desired outcomes.
- Coordinate with cross-functional teams to define scope, deliverables, timelines, effort estimates, staffing requirements, assumptions, and dependencies.
- Identify gaps, risks, conflicting assumptions, and unresolved questions before proposals are finalized.
- Use rate cards, pricing models, prior proposals, historical estimates, and comparable work as inputs; coordinate pricing consistently with the price approved by agency leadership.
- Coordinate updates when scope, timing, staffing, or pricing assumptions change, and obtain required reviews and approvals before submission.
- Draft, assemble, edit, and coordinate proposals, RFP responses, SOWs, Task Orders, and related business development documents.
- Translate agency leader and subject-matter expert input into clear, compelling client-facing materials.
- Apply consistent approaches to scope, pricing, assumptions, deliverables, and timelines while tailoring proposals to each opportunity.
- Coordinate required commercial, contractual, procurement, and security reviews.
- Maintain and improve proposal and SOW templates, workflows, checklists, and approval processes.
- Maintain reusable proposal content, including agency credentials, team resumes, case studies, past-performance examples, and standard response language.
- Maintain an organized library of prior proposals, scopes, estimates, pricing approaches, and awarded work.
- Track opportunity outcomes, learn from awards and losses, and apply lessons to future proposals to improve win rate.
- Improve proposal efficiency, effectiveness, tools, processes, and content so the agency can respond faster and better.
- Operate and continuously improve AI-enabled and automated workflows for proposal development, RFP responses, and SOW creation.
- Help maintain and expand the proposal knowledge base and reusable content resources.
- Apply sound judgment and quality control to AI-assisted work products.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
