Associate Director Proposal Development

Job Description

Optum is a global organization that delivers care, aided by technology to help millions of people live healthier lives. The work you do with our team will directly improve health outcomes by connecting people with the care, pharmacy benefits, data and resources they need to feel their best. Here, you will find a culture guided by inclusion, talented peers, comprehensive benefits and career development opportunities. Come make an impact on the communities we serve as you help us advance health optimization on a global scale. Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

Primary Responsibilities:

- Provide strategic leadership to the global team. Drive the structure, standards, and operating model for how strategic bids are run across pods
- Lead and manage a high-performing team ensuring clear role alignment, career pathing, and other related activities
- Sound collaboration and influencing skills
- Execution of strategic bid process from start to finish for RFPs, RFIs, and proactive proposals-ensuring delivery is timely, accurate, and aligned with client expectations
- Act as the single point of contact from global for all bid-related operations, interfacing with State-side Sales Leadership, Marketing, Pricing, Legal, and Solution SMEs
- Drive prioritization and global resource allocation across high-value pursuits, ensuring optimal support for Sales Leaders and alignment with business goals
- Contribute to designing and continuously evolving bid governance process, including workflows, templates, SLAs, and quality standards to scale leaving global best practices
- Influence upstream deal strategy, including qualification, pursuit planning, and solution framing-especially for complex, high-TCV opportunities
- Involve in the Process maturity function and focus on continuous improvements
- Drive Employee Engagement & Retention along with employee enablement through role clarity, performance accountability
- Comply with the terms and conditions of the employment contract, company policies and procedures, and any and all directives (such as, but not limited to, transfer and/or re-assignment to different work locations, change in teams and/or work shifts, policies in regard to flexibility of work benefits and/or work environment, alternative work arrangements, and other decisions that may arise due to the changing business environment). The Company may adopt, vary or rescind these policies and directives in its absolute discretion and without any limitation (implied or otherwise) on its ability to do so

Required Qualifications:

- 12+ years of experience in bid management, strategic proposals, or sales enablement, with 5+ years in managing high performance sales enablement teams
- Demonstrate solid process improvement skills and ability to handle escalations
- Proven ability to build and scale bid teams in a matrixed, high-volume environment
- Deep understanding of enterprise sales cycles, RFP/RFI processes, and commercial governance
- Solid executive presence with the ability to influence Sales, Finance, Legal, and Delivery
- Track record of driving operational change - enabling process maturity, leaving global best practices, automation
- Ability of coaching and mentoring teams to improve performance, building leadership bench & succession
- Knowledge of deal financials/CBA
- Proficiency in Salesforce (user-level), Microsoft Office Suite, and collaboration tools like SharePoint or Teams

Preferred Qualifications:

- APMP CF certification or similar certification
- Experience in US healthcare, payer/provider, or consulting environments
- Familiarity with Salesforce and proposal automation platforms
- Exposure to pricing strategy, deal desk operations, or solution design

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