Proposal Development Manager

cb20 is an award-winning provider of managed IT and audio-visual services, proudly serving organizations across New York, Massachusetts, and the greater New England region. With over 30 years of experience, a team of world-class engineers, and trusted partnerships with the world’s leading hardware and software providers, we deliver confidence, security, and above all "An Experience Above".

cb20 won the Albany Business Review Best Places to Work and Albany Times Union Top Places to Work five years in a row.  In 2025, cb20 achieved the #1 spot in the over 100 category at the ABR Best Places to Work event. People are cb20's greatest asset.

Overview

The Proposal Development Lead is responsible for responding to and winning Requests for Proposals (RFPs), strategic bids, and competitive client pursuits. This role partners closely with sales, solution engineering, operations, and leadership stakeholders to develop compelling, compliant, and differentiated proposals that align with customer requirements, business objectives, and growth goals. The manager drives proposal strategy, response quality, process discipline, and on-time delivery across the pursuit lifecycle while maintaining a high standard of accuracy, professionalism, and responsiveness.

The manager leads the end-to-end development of high-impact RFP responses and proposal submissions, including opportunity assessment, requirements analysis, response planning, content strategy, contributor coordination, review management, and final delivery. This role is accountable for helping increase win rates by improving the quality, consistency, and competitiveness of proposal responses, strengthening proposal content libraries and templates, and ensuring that every submission clearly communicates cb20’s value, differentiators, and ability to deliver business outcomes.

This role reports to the Senior Director of Enterprise Services and will work cross-functionally with the Manager of the Proposal Development function.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead and manage the proposal and RFP response pipeline, ensuring timely intake, qualification, prioritization, resource alignment, and delivery of high-quality submissions.
• Own the end-to-end RFP response process, including bid review, requirements analysis, compliance tracking, response planning, content development, review cycles, final production, and submission readiness.
• Partner with sales leadership, the Manager of the Win Lab, and pre-sales engineering teams to shape winning proposal strategies that position cb20 competitively and align solutions to customer goals, evaluation criteria, and business drivers.
• Analyze RFP requirements, scoring criteria, and customer priorities to develop response strategies that improve competitiveness, compliance, and overall win probability.
• Guide the development of persuasive, accurate, and customer-focused proposal content, including executive summaries, win themes, solution narratives, scopes of work, implementation approaches, assumptions, exclusions, and value messaging.
• Coordinate cross-functional contributors to ensure proposal content is complete, compliant, aligned to pricing and delivery expectations, and clearly differentiates cb20 from competitors.
• Facilitate internal and customer requirements discussions to clarify scope, objectives, constraints, decision factors, and proposal expectations when additional information is needed.
• Develop response calendars, milestone plans, compliance matrices, and review workflows to manage contributors, reduce risk, and improve submission quality.
• Collaborate on proposal pricing strategies, response positioning, and overall pursuit messaging to strengthen competitiveness and support revenue growth.
• Establish and maintain proposal governance, templates, content libraries, reusable responses, and best practices to improve efficiency, consistency, and win support across pursuits.
• Drive proposal quality through structured reviews, version control, formatting standards, and final validation to ensure submissions are polished, compliant, and client-ready.
• Track proposal performance, win/loss insights, and process metrics to identify opportunities for continuous improvement in proposal quality, speed, and effectiveness.
• Continuously expand knowledge of cb20’s service catalog, delivery capabilities, target markets, and competitive differentiators to strengthen proposal relevance and increase the likelihood of winning.

Qualifications and Skills

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience required; significant experience in proposal management, bid management, capture support, technical writing, or solution development strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated success leading complex RFP responses, competitive bids, and strategic proposal submissions in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment.
• Strong understanding of proposal best practices, compliance requirements, evaluation criteria, and strategies for developing compelling, differentiated responses.
• Excellent written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills, with the ability to translate technical and operational content into clear, persuasive customer-facing proposals.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple concurrent pursuits, deadlines, and stakeholders.
• Proven ability to influence cross-functional teams, drive accountability, and lead proposal efforts from qualification through final submission.
• Experience developing proposal strategies, win themes, executive summaries, and value messaging that improve competitiveness and support higher win rates.
• Exceptional attention to detail across compliance, formatting, grammar, content accuracy, deadlines, and final deliverable quality.
• Experience with proposal templates, content libraries, review workflows, and continuous improvement of proposal operations is preferred.
• Experience with proposal content related to IT services, such as networking, data center, managed services, cloud, security, or audio-visual solutions, is preferred.