Knowledge Expert & Team Manager- International Development at Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

What You'll Do
As a Knowledge Expert focused on International Development within BCG's Social Impact Practice Area (PA), you will support the growth of BCG's work with a range of donors, development finance institutions (DFIs) and foundations. This will involve a diverse range of responsibilities and tasks, including:

• Business development: supporting the management of the international development pipeline, including go/no-go decisions, consortium development and bid positioning; the development of capability statements, expressions of interest and management of bid assets (CVs etc); coordinating the development of bids, including writing key sections.
• Programme management: helping ensure BCG's donor funded projects are delivered on time, to budget and with strong impact; that this is recognised by the client and wider stakeholders; and that all reporting and compliance obligations are met.
• Financial management: coordinating programme financial forecasting, budget development and invoicing; assessing the financial viability of programmes; and ensuring all client and BCG reporting and finance metrics are achieved.
• Commercial management: developing commercial strategies, producing commercial proposals, determining how to price, managing pricing schedules.
• Manage 2-3 junior team members who will be focused on a similar range of tasks.
• You will help build on BCG's existing portfolio of international development work, which covers: numerous countries in Africa, South and South East Asia; topics ranging across economic development, climate and sustainability, agriculture, infrastructure, energy, health and education; priority donors, including FCDO, USAID, JICA, WB, ADB, AfDB, GIZ, KfW and Gates; and which features flagship programmes such as the FCDO funded Growth Gateway, a £28m project to support trade and investment achieve economic growth and development impact in low and middle income countries globally.
• You will work within the wider Social Impact Practice Area, which seeks to make BCG the most positively impactful company in the world. We are pursuing this ambition by working across sectors to build a sustainable business for BCG, leveraging BCG’s commitment to invest in this area in partnership with our clients and partners. We are scaling BCG’s work with public and social sector organizations across key topics, helping to solve the world’s greatest challenges. And we are pioneering work on socially transformative business, based on the belief that we can transform how business views competitive advantage and uncover ways to make solving some of society’s most pressing problems profitable—and therefore scalable.

YOU'RE GOOD AT

• Working in an ever changing and complex environment, and comfortable with ambiguity and navigating a fast-paced environment
• Winning large donor-funded international development bids
• Ensuring large donor-funded international development projects achieve their targets and deliver significant impact
• Meeting the expectations of clients, beneficiaries and internal stakeholders on donor funded project implementation
• Developing commercial and pricing strategies which are competitive but still achieve internal profit objectives
• Quickly adapting to new ideas, picking up complex concepts and understanding issues across a range of topics and sectors
• Self-starting with a strong work ethic, entrepreneurial drive to work autonomously and in a multinational team
• Earning the respect of senior colleagues that are remotely located, juggling the various priorities and viewpoints of multiple stakeholders, showing influence to compile inputs and opinions from a range of colleagues and stakeholders while meeting demanding deadlines
• Operating effectively in a matrix organization with the ability to prioritize and make decisions
• Working independently to identify the need for, scope, gain endorsement and drive implementation of relevant initiatives
• Leading others, including senior colleagues, in clarifying problems and developing solutions by building cross business partnerships - building consensus, persuading and influencing
• Acting as a highly effective coach and mentor, guiding team members to achieve goals efficiently and effectively

You Bring (experience & Qualifications)

• 7+ years of relevant experience in international development, ideally working for a development consultancy;10-12+ years of industry experience strongly preferred
• Relevant Master's degree preferred
• Experience managing large donor funded programmes, and managing staff in line positions
• Experience leading the development of donor funded bids across a range of sectors, including writing technical and non-technical sections
• Experience developing commercial strategies and proposals for donor funded bids
• Networks and relationships across the international development sector, deep understanding of the international development consultancy market
• Ability to lead teams or a defined work area with varied level of complexity as well as build the capacity of others
• Ability to independently resolve diverse problems and establish guidelines
• Exceptional organizational, planning and project management skills; strong at conceptualization, follow-through, ownership and accountability
• Ability to effectively influence and work with senior stakeholders
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills
• Strong commercial acumen
• Advanced knowledge in Outlook, Word and Excel
• You will work closely with the central International Development team, particularly the International Development Associate Director, Julian Toogood; the wider Social Impact Practice Area (SI PA), particularly the SI PA Director, Kim Rajimans; our donor, DFI and foundation client teams; our international offices, with a focus on Africa, India and South-East Asia; our global technical Practice Areas e.g. in economic development, climate and sustainability, health, education, infrastructure; and our support functions, including finance and HR.

Additional Information

• As a Knowledge Expert (KE), Team Manager within BCG's Social Impact Practice Area, you will deliver against the client and commercial priorities for the Practice Area. You will grow and deploy a team of junior team members to support the Practice Area objectives, particularly focusing on business development and programme management. You will be responsible for team’s performance across all KPIs (case billability, quality, content creation, etc.).
• The Knowledge Team (KT) is a group of functional and/or industry experts leveraging deep domain knowledge to enable insight for the Practice Area. KT members are affiliated to BCG Practice Areas, plugged into the strategic agenda and building and deploying leading edge thinking to deliver insight. KT members support the PA’s business development and proposals and help to organize and codify the knowledge that enables BCG to deliver superior business value for its clients; KT members can also be staffed on project delivery