Lead Proposal Manager

Description

Job Summary

The Proposal Manager – Federal Healthcare Market leads the full proposal development lifecycle for federal healthcare opportunities, with a primary focus on HHS, NIH, CMS, and their operating divisions, centers, institutes, and subdivisions. This role is responsible for managing compliant, compelling, and timely proposal responses from solicitation release through final submission. The ideal candidate brings at least 10 years of experience managing and contributing to federal health proposals, excellent writing and editing capabilities, and strong organizational skills to coordinate cross-functional teams, schedules, content, reviews, and production requirements.

Key Responsibilities

The Proposal Manager’s work spans proposal planning, compliance management, writing, editing, content development, color team reviews, production coordination, and continuous improvement of proposal processes across the federal healthcare ecosystem.

Federal Healthcare Proposal Management

· Lead the full proposal lifecycle for federal healthcare opportunities, including RFIs, sources sought responses, RFQs, RFPs, task orders, and recompetes.

· Manage proposal responses across HHS, NIH, CMS, and related subdivisions, including operating divisions, institutes, centers, program offices, and contracting offices.

· Develop proposal plans, schedules, outlines, compliance matrices, storyboards, writing assignments, review calendars, and production timelines.

· Ensure proposal compliance with solicitation instructions, evaluation criteria, page limits, formatting requirements, submission portals, and customer deadlines.

Proposal Writing, Editing & Reviews

· Write and edit proposal content, including executive summaries, management approaches, technical sections, staffing plans, past performance narratives, resumes, and transition plans.

· Translate technical and operational input from subject matter experts into clear, persuasive, compliant, and customer-focused proposal narratives.

· Lead proposal reviews, including Pink, Red, Gold, and final compliance reviews, and coordinate incorporation of reviewer feedback.

· Maintain proposal quality by ensuring consistency of voice, tone, win themes, discriminators, formatting, grammar, and message alignment across all volumes.

Team Coordination & Proposal Operations

· Coordinate cross-functional contributors, including capture managers, business development leads, technical subject matter experts, operations, pricing, contracts, recruiting, and subcontractor partners.

· Organize proposal resources, content libraries, templates, resumes, past performance references, data calls, graphics requests, and version-controlled files.

· Facilitate proposal meetings, including kickoffs, daily stand-ups, solution sessions, color team debriefs, production check-ins, and final submission readiness reviews.

· Support continuous improvement by refining proposal processes, tools, templates, reusable content, lessons learned, and proposal management best practices.

Qualifications & Requirements

· Experience: Minimum of 10 years of experience managing, writing, editing, and supporting federal health proposals.

· Federal Healthcare Market: Demonstrated proposal experience supporting HHS, NIH, CMS, and related subdivisions, operating divisions, institutes, centers, or program offices.

· Proposal Management: Proven ability to manage complex federal proposal efforts from planning through final submission, including compliance, schedule, reviews, content development, and production.

· Writing Skills: Excellent writing, editing, proofreading, and storytelling skills with the ability to develop persuasive and compliant proposal content.

· Organizational Skills: Excellent organizational and time-management skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities, deadlines, contributors, documents, and concurrent proposal activities.

· Federal Contracting Knowledge: Familiarity with FAR-based acquisitions, GWACs, IDIQs, BPAs, task orders, set-aside strategies, and common federal procurement portals.

· Technical Skills: Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite, SharePoint or similar collaboration platforms, proposal templates, content libraries, and document version-control processes.

Work Environment & Travel

· This is a hybrid role that requires the employee to work in the company office two days per week.

· Periodic travel may be required for customer meetings, industry events, proposal strategy sessions, color team reviews, partner meetings, and final proposal production activities.

· Must be comfortable working in a fast-paced proposal environment with multiple active pursuits, shifting deadlines, detailed compliance requirements, and cross-functional proposal teams.