Proposal Staff Manager

WGI’s Proposal Production team is a key contributor to the success of our talented professional associates business development pursuits. Most importantly, we collaborate with them while building a culture that honors passion for people and commitment to greatness. Quality of work, reliability, and positivity are the foundation of our proposal production team brand.

If you are driven by bringing the best out of people, creating safe environments for people to flourish, and fostering a collaboration culture, this might be your opportunity!

We are looking for a leader that is ready to take on a journey with our talented impact players as a Proposal Staff Manager. The main responsibility of this position is to manage, mentor, and train staff that work directly with pursuit managers coordinating and creating compliant winning proposals. To be considered as a candidate, you will need to have at least seven years of experience working in the A/E/C industry preparing proposals for federal, state, and municipal clients. While staff management experience is highly desired, it is not required.

To be successful at this position, you will need these additional competencies:

Growth mindset. WGI is committed to grow. Growth requires change. Change requires the ability to be comfortable with making mistakes, learning from them, and implementing lessons learned.

Emotional intelligence. You will be collaborating with proposal staff and many different professionals in a fast-paced, deadline-driven, compliance-dependent environment. This requires a strong ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions.

Strengths-based management. We hire great talent. Your ability to understand their strengths and provide mentorship will enhance their impact in our work and your impact in their professional development.

Collaborative workstyle. We foster a team culture; there is no place for egos. We recognize and reward individual and team contributions, equally.

• Helps staff setting goals and provides them with opportunities to practice new skills for career development
• Assesses staff performance and provides them with timely feedback, including quarterly reviews
• Creates a safe environment that fosters collaboration, teamwork, and growth mindset
• Facilitates weekly progress meetings and one-on-one meetings with proposal staff
• Responsible for staff performance and quality of work.
• Ensures staff is following proposal process guidelines
• Reviews quality of all produced material including compliance, consistency, spelling, and grammar
• Debriefs project managers and proposal staff after submittals and document lessons learned
• Participates in strategy sessions for proposals or presentations
• Assigns work and ensures a balanced workload
• Reviews and approves staff timesheets, time-off (PLA) requests, and accommodations
• Assists with talent acquisition and strategic content development

• Supervises proposal production staff

We need a people-person who:

• Understands the proposal production world – messy problems, unclear roles, unforeseen obstacles, changing needs, and unrelenting demands.
• Understands that solving problems is not a distraction, it is the job. Everybody’s job.
• Understands how it gets done – experienced on proposal production process, skilled in Adobe and Microsoft software, has strong written and verbal communication, organizational, and time management skills.
• Enjoys managing and mentoring staff across the firm's geographic reach.
• Creates psychological safety in the workplace, builds a collaborative culture, and keeps staff motivated and engaged.
• Acts as the sounding board – helping staff realign perspectives.
• Owns it – reliable, adaptable, accountable, resourceful, makes decisions.
• Breathes teamwork – comfortable delegating and letting others do their job.
• Questions everything and is willing to be questioned in return.
• Fits – team player, takes pride in producing quality work, understands that reliability is our currency, and has an overall positive attitude.

• Bachelor’s degree in English, Communications, Journalism, or Marketing
• Minimum seven years of experience in the A/E/C industry preparing proposals for federal, state, and municipal clients
• Experience mentoring/managing staff in a fast-paced deadline-driven environment
• Experience mentoring/managing staff in various locations
• Ability to work from our offices located in Orlando, Tampa, West Palm Beach (FL) or Austin, TX
• Member of professional organizations such as SMPS (Society for Marketing Professional Services) or APMP (Association of Proposal Management Professionals)

The following qualifications are NON-NEGOTIABLE

• Must have the ability to work well with others – thrive on a teamwork environment
• Must share WGI’s values: passion for people, be the change you seek, and commitment to greatness
• Pre-employment drug screening is a condition of employment