Manager, Proposal Support

Role Summary

The Team Leader – Strategic Growth will establish and lead a new Strategic Growth function in India for WSP UK and Ireland. This pivotal role is designed as a growth enabler for the company's UK and Ireland business, leveraging a global work-sharing model. The Team Leader will direct key work-winning functions – including sales operations, bid coordination & management, knowledge management, and pricing – to drive work winning success. 

Operating as the primary bridge between the India Strategic Growth team and UK stakeholders, this leader will align the India team's practices with UK business goals and ensure seamless collaboration with UK colleagues against a defined roll out plan. By building a high-performing team and integrating best practices, the Team Leader – Strategic Growth will help the company win more work, improve competitiveness, and allow UK teams to be more client-focused.

• Strategic Direction: Working with the UK Strategic Growth leadership team, define and implement the Strategic Growth strategy in India, ensuring it supports and aligns with the UK business's growth objectives. This includes setting up the new function's structure, processes and ways of working in a phased approach. 
• Work-Winning Leadership: Oversee all work-winning activities delivered by the UK GCC Strategic Growth team. This spans sales operations (pipeline support), bid coordination and management, knowledge management, and pricing support for bids. Ensure each sub-function is effectively contributing to winning new work and maintaining high quality standards in line with industry best practice. Develop a roadmap to build capability and trust with UK staff so that work is shared across UK and GCC.
• Sales Operations & Pipeline: Responsible for sales operations support delivered by the team, including business critical activities such as opportunity distribution and portal management, framework management support and reporting, pipeline analysis, integrity and reporting.
• Bid & Proposal Management: Grow GCC capability to undertake bid & proposal management and support tasks from capture to PQQ/SQ/RfP production to award and post bid close down. 
• Knowledge Management: Ensure the Strategic Growth UK knowledge management strategy and best practice processes are implemented for work winning activities in GCC. 
• Pricing: Day to day management of pricing team in GCC ensuring they are working in accordance with UK Price to Win best practice processes.
• Team Building & Leadership: Build and nurture a high performing, integrated team that excels in each of the Strategic Growth sub-functions. This includes recruiting talent, defining clear roles and objectives, and providing ongoing mentorship and professional development. Build a Strategic Growth network across GCC ensuring all work winning staff foster an inclusive, collaborative culture that values diversity of thought and high performance. Lead by example to motivate the team with interesting and varied work to maintain high morale.
• Stakeholder Collaboration: Build and grow trusted relationships across all UK portfolios by demonstrating quality outputs and showing proven examples of GCC capability in supporting tasks. The candidate should demonstrate prior success in cross-cultural collaboration and stakeholder alignment.
• Quality and Process Improvement: Establish common standards, repeatable processes, and best practices for all work outputs, in line with UK work winning processes. Ensure consistency and quality at every stage of work winning lifecycle. Conduct regular process reviews and share lessons learned to drive continuous improvement in how the team operates. Introduce innovations (e.g. new tools, automation, AI solutions) to increase efficiency and effectiveness of work-winning activities.
• Performance Management: Define and track key performance indicators (KPIs) for the Strategic Growth function (e.g. bid win rate, pipeline data integrity and conversion rates, knowledge base usage, proposal quality scores). Regularly report on progress and outcomes to UK Strategic Growth leadership team. Use data-driven insights to adjust strategies and demonstrate the India team's impact on business growth.
• Governance & Compliance: Ensure all bid and sales support activities comply with internal governance processes and client requirements. 

Wider responsibilities that will facilitate growth in GCC

• Education: A Bachelors degree in a relevant field is required (e.g. engineering, business, marketing, or communications). A Masters [UT1] degree or MBA is a plus for the strategic and managerial aspects of the role.
• Experience: 15+ years of relevant experience in bids/proposals, business development, or work-winning roles within engineering consultancy or related professional services. Expert knowledge of proposal lifecycle management, sales and pipeline management, and competent in pricing / commercial aspects of work winning. 
• Team Leadership: Proven ability to build and lead high-performing teams. The ideal candidate has previous experience as a team lead or manager of a proposals/bid team, sales operations unit, or similar, with a track record of coaching talent and improving team performance. Experience setting up a new team or function is a plus (given this is a new role establishing a new function).
• Industry Knowledge: Deep familiarity with the engineering and environmental consultancy sector (or similar industries such as construction, infrastructure, or professional services). Understanding of how large consultancies pursue and win work (e.g. multi-million-dollar bids, long-cycle proposal processes, public and private sector clients) is essential. Global exposure – e.g. working on international bids or with overseas teams – will be highly valuable in coordinating with UK counterparts.
• Communication: Excellent written and verbal communication skills. English fluency is essential; proficiency in any Indian local languages is a bonus for local team management (the primary working language will be English given the UK interface).
• Adaptability: Flexibility to work UK hours overlap as needed (to interface with UK stakeholders) and willingness to travel occasionally (e.g., to UK for periodic alignment meetings, or within India to meet team members in different offices).
• Integrity and Compliance: Uncompromising commitment to ethical conduct, confidentiality (especially with sensitive client bid data), and following all corporate compliance processes during pursuits.

BGV:

• Employment with WSP India is subject to the successful completion of a background verification ("BGV") check conducted by a third-party agency appointed by WSP India.
• Candidates are advised to ensure that all information provided during the recruitment process — including documents uploaded — is accurate and complete, both to WSP India and its BGV partner".

 [UT1]Una to check with Shilpi if we require a Masters or MBA degree