Proposal/Compliance Manager

The Proposal/Compliance Manager leads the end-to-end development of compliant, compelling, and highquality proposal submissions for federal customers-including RFIs, RFPs, and RFQs. This role combines strategic proposal management with hands-on authorship and editorial excellence. The individual partners with Capture, Business Development, Contracts, Technical SMEs, Finance, and Leadership to plan, position, and produce winning proposals. Responsibilities include RFP "shredding," compliance management, schedule and resource orchestration, solution/price alignment, and production oversight, as well as drafting and editing technical, management, past performance, and resumes content. The role also oversees supporting materials (graphics, templates, layouts), maintains proposal libraries, and ensures accuracy, consistency, and adherence to solicitation instructions, evaluation criteria, federal standards, and internal style guidelines.

Lead preRFP activities, including schedule development, resource planning, content planning, and review strategy.

• "Shred" RFPs to create detailed compliance matrices, annotated outlines, and workback schedules.

• Prepare and facilitate kickoff, color reviews (Pink/Red/Gold), and leadership briefings; drive action items to closure.

• Manage version control and production in a highly collaborative environment; coordinate desktop publishing and final packaging.

• Write and edit major sections (executive summaries, technical/management volumes, staffing plans, past performance, resumes).

• Translate complex technical/operational information into clear, evaluator-friendly narratives tailored to Section L/M criteria.

• Interview with SMEs and leaders to elicit discriminators, best value propositions, solution details, performance data, and key strengths.

• Review, rewrite, and coach contributors to strengthen win themes, consistency, clarity, and compliance across volumes and forms. Sometimes you will be the sole contributor to the writing after interviewing with the SMEs.

• Ensure alignment with solicitation instructions, FAR principles, and evaluation factors; conduct comprehensive compliance checks.

• Maintain and enforce proposal standards, templates, style guides, and editorial practices for readability and tone.

• Issue and refine proposal policies, procedures, and operating practices; evaluate adherence and direct corrective actions.

• Direct development of graphics, callouts, tables, and layouts that enhance readability and tell the solution story.

• Build and maintain reusable asset libraries (boilerplate, past performance, resumes, graphics, contract matrices).

• Collaborate with Capture and BD to define win themes, discriminators, and customerfocused value propositions.

• Conduct market, client, and competitive research to inform positioning and solutioning.

• Coordinate solution design meetings with SMEs; align technical approach, staffing, and risks/mitigations with pricing strategy.

• Liaise with Contracts to manage Q&A with COs/CORs/COTRs; clarify requirements and confirm compliance positions.

• Partner with Finance/Accounting to develop and validate pricing inputs and simple financial models that support narrative claims.

• Support negotiation strategy; represent the company in discussions related to contract, pricing, and performance reviews with federal agencies.

• Provide documentation support for internal policies, technical documents, and corporate procedures (e.g., IT/SDLC/network processes).

• Maintain a pipeline inventory (current, historical, planned opportunities) and ensure past performance and boilerplate are current.

• Prepare reports and presentations for leadership on pursuit status, review findings, and win/capture strategy recommendations.

• Recommend process improvements for proposal operations, marketing, and business development effectiveness.

• At least 10 years of experience with a Masters degree OR at least 12 years of experience with a Bachelors degree or equivalent.
• Expert command of federal proposal processes, including RFP analysis, compliance matrixing, color reviews, and production.
• Strong understanding of federal procurement practices (e.g., FAR) and Section L/M compliance, with the ability to translate evaluation criteria into scoring optimized responses.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; able to synthesize complex inputs into persuasive, evaluator centric narratives.
• Skilled at interviewing SMEs and executives; highly effective at coaching contributors and guiding authoring teams.
• Adept with proposal collaboration environments and productivity tools (e.g., MS Office, SharePoint, Adobe Acrobat); proficiency in graphic direction and layout best practices.
• Strong organization, attention to detail, and deadline discipline across multiple concurrent proposals.