Senior Business Development Manager / Capture Lead

Senior Business Development Manager / Capture Lead - U.S. Navy

Location: Hybrid/ Washington , DC (DMV area) Travel: Up to 30-40% Clearance: Active Secret required

About the Role

Sayres Defense is seeking a senior Business Development/Capture professional with deep expertise in U.S. Navy programs to lead and execute strategic growth initiatives. This role requires a highly experienced individual with a proven track record of identifying, shaping, and capturing new business opportunities across U.S. Navy customers, including NAVSEA, PEOs, SYSCOMs, and Fleet stakeholders.

The selected candidate will be responsible for driving new business growth beyond recompete and organic efforts, with a strong emphasis on expanding Sayres Defense's footprint within Navy acquisition, engineering, and mission support programs. This individual must bring established relationships across the Navy community, a broad and active network, and the credibility to engage directly with senior government stakeholders to influence acquisition strategies and position the company for success.

This is a hands-on, execution-focused role requiring ownership of the full capture lifecycle, from early opportunity identification and qualification through shaping, teaming, proposal development, and award. The ideal candidate will have demonstrated success leading Navy captures, understands the nuances of Navy acquisition environments, and is capable of converting relationships and market insight into awarded work in a near-term timeframe.

Key Responsibilities

Capture & Business Development Leadership

• Lead capture efforts for high-value Navy opportunities, including IDIQ task orders and single-award contracts.
• Identify, qualify, and shape opportunities aligned with Navy mission priorities (e.g., readiness, sustainment, digital modernization).
• Develop and execute capture plans, win strategies, competitive assessments, and pricing approaches.
• Lead bid/no-bid reviews and briefings with senior leadership.

Navy Customer Engagement

• Build and maintain trusted relationships with Navy stakeholders, including but not limited to:




• PEOs and PMOs
• NAVSEA, NAVAIR, SPAWAR / NAVWAR
• ONR, NAVFAC, Fleet commands, and SYSCOMs




• Represent the company at Navy industry days, technical exchanges, and acquisition briefings.
• Track Navy budgets, acquisition forecasts, and emerging requirements.

Teaming & Partner Strategy

• Identify and manage teaming partners, primes, and subcontractors aligned with Navy requirements.
• Assist in the negotiation of teaming agreements and workshare arrangements.
• Recommend prime vs. subcontract strategies based on customer and vehicle positioning.

Proposal & Transition Support

• Collaborate with proposal managers and solution architects to develop compliant, compelling Navy-focused proposals.
• Contribute to executive summaries, management approaches, and past performance narratives.
• Support transition planning from contract award through program kickoff.

Pipeline Management & Reporting

• Maintain an accurate Navy-focused opportunity pipeline using Sayres' CRM and other market intelligence tools.
• Provide capture status, revenue forecasts, and risk assessments to executive leadership.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Engineering, or a related field.
• 8-12+ years of business development and capture experience supporting U.S. Navy programs.
• Proven success leading captures and winning competitive Navy contracts.
• Demonstrable existing relationships with Navy primes and acquisition offices.
• Strong understanding of Navy acquisition processes and contract vehicles.
• Excellent executive-level communication and relationship-building skills.
• Ability to lead cross-functional teams in fast-paced capture environments.
• Active Secret security clearance

The position description is only meant to be a representative summary of the major responsibilities and accountabilities performed by the incumbents of this position. The incumbents may be requested to perform position-related tasks other than those stated in this description. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, gender identity, disability or veteran status.

At Sayres, our employees enjoy an atmosphere conducive to realizing their potential through personal and professional development while simultaneously exceeding customers' expectations. We offer a broad spectrum of technical, engineering and administrative services including acquisition, financial and program management; fleet synthetic training; logistics; ship construction engineering; systems engineering and integration; wargaming; test and evaluation; security, counterintelligence and policy analysis and have been providing excellence in service to the Federal Government since 2001. Sayres is headquartered in Washington, DC with offices throughout the United States and has a presence abroad.

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