Associate Director, Business Development at FHI360 NGO

Position Summary:

The Associate Director -Business Development will support the East & Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO) in the pursuit of new business opportunities under the direction of the Regional Director-ESARO and under the leadership/supervision of the Regional BD Director. The main role of the AD-BD is to manage the development and implementation of the ESARO BD pipeline across all sectors. This person will work closely with ESARO countries in evaluating and managing business opportunities, advancing partnership initiatives and providing recommendations for strategic business decisions. The position leads preparatory efforts for bid pursuits, supports the development of partnerships and client relationships, and coordinates pre-bid intelligence gathering efforts. In conjunction with senior staff, this position: plans and evaluates BD opportunities; provides analysis of new and existing markets; determines financial viability and planning and market strategy of BD objectives. The AD-BD may also provide inputs and support improvements into BD processes.

Main Duties and Responsibilities:

• Manage ESARO pipeline and support efforts to ensure country pipelines are aligned with client and market priorities. This includes efforts to identify, prioritize, and qualify opportunities that align with ESARO program and business objectives.
• Perform rapid assessments of ESARO capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses for each pursuit in the pipeline, support country teams’ development of the win strategy.
• Ensure quality capture and bid development for bids in the ESARO pipeline; manage decision gates, including early opportunity assessment and bid/no bid decisions. This includes:
  • Reviewing and helping finalize bid justification memos (BJMs), as well as driving the process and monitoring the status of BJMs and Development Account (DA) budgets (development, review, and approval).
  • Coordinating the process of gathering input for senior leaders to make go/no-go decisions on possible opportunities.
  • Coordinating the process of ensuring that resources are allocated to approved opportunities (at both capture and proposal stages), working with staff across the organization to get specific roles assigned to capture/proposal teams in a timely manner, and that sales force is kept up to date.
  • Supporting capture and proposal processes, in liaison with the BD Director, Associate Director-Programs and the assigned Project Design Leads (PDLs) to ensure that capture/proposal teams are moving at an appropriate pace.
  • Participating assigned color reviews of capture work and/or proposals.
• Conduct landscape analyses to inform business planning, identifying relevant stakeholders in countries (government actors, NGOs, private sector actors, etc.), reading and summarizing country policies, funder policy/strategy documents (USAID Country Development Cooperation Strategies).
• Oversees specific capture and proposal activities for ESARO pipeline, including working with HQ to identifying capture and proposal team resource requirements and estimation of costs associated with bids.
• Contribute to the development of regional and/or country partnership strategies, including identifying new local and private sector partners.
• Coordinate with other corporate support teams (strategic pricing, operations, human resources/recruitment) for required capture inputs, as needed.
• Ensure marketing and positioning plans are developed and implemented to enhance win probability (including, region-wide, country level, and bid specific, as needed).
• Develop and maintain strong local partnerships and stay informed on donor priorities within the region (including the Locally Led Development agenda and localization efforts of gthe USG).
• Monitor and support salesforce data entry for ESARO, supporting other licensed users within ESARO to access, review and properly input information.
• Generate routine and ad hoc reports from Salesforce to inform pipeline management, strategic planning, sales targeting, etc.
• Pull data from internal systems (i.e., Vine, Connect) to contribute to proposal development.

Minimum Requirements and Desired Traits:

• Bachelor's Degree or its International Equivalent in Business Administration, Public Health, Social Sciences or Related Field
• Minimum of 8 years’ experience working in the international development sector with particular focus on Sub Saharan Africa
• Minimum 5 years’ experience in business development including experience working in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Sub Saharan Africa.
• In-depth knowledge of the development sector, including a network of contacts and substantial experience working with key development donors including USG, FDCO, World Bank, EU and
• knowledge on USAID localization agenda. Knowledge of working with USAID.
• Entrepreneurial, self-motivated, action-oriented leader and professional with a passion for development.
• Must be able to read, write, and speak fluent English. Ability to read and/or speak in other languages a plus.