Senior Manager, Business Development at Adam Smith International

JOB CONTEXT AND PURPOSE

• The Senior Manager, Business Development will be an integral member of ASI Africa Team and lead concerted efforts to further expand and diversify ASI’s growing multi-donor portfolio across Africa.
• Working under the Head of Africa, the Senior Manager will play a fundamental role in conceiving and executing ASI’s regional business growth and engagement strategies, strategic planning, positioning, partnerships and thought leadership, as well as contributing to the ongoing successful delivery and performance of ASI’s existing long-term programs and technical assignments.

KEY RELATIONSHIPS

Internal:

• Head of Africa
• Country Leads
• Head of BD and Business Growth Team
• Technical, geographical and client team leaders, bid leads and bid team members
• Corporate service teams including Finance, Legal & Compliance, People and Talent, IT and Cyber Security, etc.

External:

• Donor staff
• Partners
• Associates

KEY TASKS

• Business Development Strategy, strategic direction, bid coordination, preparation and delivery
• Support and/or lead facilitated regional business development discussions to ensure the Africa SMT, ASI BD Team and Executive Team’s visibility, awareness, decision-making, oversight and guidance on: (i) overall tender pipeline and opportunities; (ii) priority pursuits including strategic assessment of competitiveness and winnability of pursuits; and (iii) resourcing.
• Lead / bid manage priority pursuits to develop high quality technical and commercial proposals, identify and recruit consultants and technical advisers, and coordinate with other bid leads / technical practices / geographic or donor leads to contribute to proposal development where it pertains to Africa geographic mandate or donor expertise.
• Arrange timely bid check-in meetings, assess progress with bid preparation and help teams to identify and address bottlenecks in a timely manner. Quality assure the inputs provided by colleagues or associates to ensure highest technical rigor and compliance of submissions.
• Where operationally required, support implementation of large donor funded programs and approaches, including providing technical know-how, project management, support to in-country teams, including performance management and quality assurance of deliverables.
• Business development processes, monitoring and knowledge management
• Ensure processes for both pre-submission and quality assurance are well defined and articulated to all.
• Ensure post-submission lessons learning are regularly reviewed, updated and implemented, including review client debriefs and feedback to identify and share an issues impacting the development of quality tenders. Identify, recommend and implement adaptive actions and ways of working to strengthen quality of tenders.
• Own and maintain the Africa BD Database and other digital knowledge repository, including the timely and comprehensive upload of all bid materials post-submission to aid future tenders. Maintain, refresh and refine ASI Africa’s BD templates, proformas, graphics and visuals to ensure accessible and impactful tenders.
• Maintain and develop further necessary compliance documentation to ensure ASI’s continued compliance with donor requirements.
• Monitor, understand and cascade any evolution of donors strategies, action plans or quality standards, with a particular focus on FCDO, EU, USAID, European bilaterals, MDBs and Foundations.
• Lead ASI’s outreach and engagement with current and prospective donors, advisors and potential partners in Africa, including developing and implementing targeted communications strategies, products and thought leadership. Build and maintain a robust network from which to source potential technical advisers, partners, and consortiums. This includes external networking with new and existing strategic partnerships, as well as maintaining a relevant Talent Pool/associate database.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Effectively manage and coordinate the Africa BD portfolio.
• Produce consistently high-quality technical and commercial proposals.
• Increase the conversion rate of proposals to wins.
• Effectively collaborate between other technical, geographic and donor teams in the development of proposals.
• Improve the capture and sharing of business development lessons.
• Improve BD systems, processes, templates and knowledge repositories.

REQUIREMENTS
QUALIFICATIONS:

• A post-graduate degree in a relevant field.

EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

• Significant international development experience, with preference to Africa experience, and the exigent development challenges facing Africa, such as private sector development, climate change, sustainable infrastructure, stabilisation, economic governance and security sector reform;
• Consulting experience, preferably within the international development, governmental, and multilateral organisations. Prior relevant experience in key donors governments may be considered in lieu of direct consulting experience;
• Outstanding business development capabilities, including preparation of pitch packs, ability to present ASI’s global and regional work effectively to prospective clients, ability to represent ASI in business development meetings, ability to explore new markets with appropriately tailored service offering;
• Outstanding bid preparation and writing capabilities, including bid management experience, as well as comprehensive appreciation of key donor procurement cycles; Experience conceiving, developing and delivering business growth strategies is advantageous;
• Nuanced understanding of international development strategies of one or more of ASI’s core Africa clients, namely FCDO, EU and USAID. Knowledge of other bilateral and multilateral donors, private foundations and MDBs is an asset;
• A strong understanding of the intersection between private sector, public sector and civil society, preferably in developing countries and fragile and conflict-affected countries, emerging economies or nascent democracies;
• Demonstrable ability to prioritise and perform multiple tasks to the highest standards in a fast paced, high volume and strategic environment;
• Developed project management, people, team and communication skills, as well as high levels of emotional intelligence and the ability to engage with multi-cultural talent and a broad and diverse set of stakeholders;
• Strong oral and written communication skills in English. Proficiency in French is an asset; and
• Ability to working autonomously and remotely or collaboratively and in-person as part of a high energy, regionally dispersed, and culturally diverse team.

COMPETENCIES:

• Planning and delivering results;
• Quality and accountability;
• Continuous improvement;