United States of America: Senior Business Development Specialist - Contracts

Job Title: Senior Business Development Specialist – Contracts

Reports to: Director, Resource Acquisition

Dept./Location: Resource Acquisition / Baltimore HQ

Background: This Business Development Specialist – Contracts position is part of the Resource Acquisition Department’s Business Development team. Within the department, Business Development staff supports HQ and field staff to acquire public funding for CRS’ programs worldwide. Team members promote efforts related to each of the three parts of the CRS Business Development Cycle: prepositioning, pursuing opportunities, and leveraging results. Prepositioning involves gathering information about the funding environment, taking action to improve CRS’ competitiveness, cultivating donor and partner relationships, and identifying potential funding opportunities. Pursuing opportunities involves using a systematic process to produce funding proposals that are both responsive to the public donors’ needs, and that articulate CRS’ unique capabilities. Leveraging results involves documenting and marketing information about what CRS accomplishes through its current projects, in order to secure new funding. This specific position will focus on the pursuit of acquisition opportunities.

Primary Function:
The Business Development Specialist – Contracts is a new position which will support the agency’s competitive positioning for and pursuit of USAID resources through acquisition mechanisms (contracts). This specialist will focus initially on systems, processes, and capacities development, primarily on the BD side, to build agency readiness for the pursuit of these opportunities. Later the position will shift to a stronger focus on RFP response either as a proposal coordinator or pricing specialist, depending on the capacities of the individual hired. He or she will provide field and HQ staff with direct support, information and analysis, and capacity building to improve their business development skills in contracts to enhance CRS’ reputation and revenue.

Job Responsibilities:

S/he works with business development, programs, finance, and contracts staff in relevant departments and divisions to develop institutional processes that will enable CRS to prepare for, successfully bid on and negotiate contracts as prime. S/he promotes development of agency capacity, working with appropriate staff to identify and address gaps in staff capacity and implementing steps to ensure improvements. The position is a critical component of the agency’s contracts readiness effort, and will interact with public donors, partners, legal counsel and CRS senior management. While the focus of the position is on contracts, the individual may also support agency work on assistance proposals.

Specific Responsibilities:

· Provides support to a complete range of government contracting activities such as acquisition planning, evaluation of RFPs, assisting with interpretation and implementation of federal procurement regulations, and other procurement guidance.

· Develops internal training programs, tools and resources, in conjunction with HR and other relevant departments, to ensure that staff have strong capacities in business development with a particular focus on federal contract mechanisms.

· Supports senior managers to track potential contract funding opportunities and to strengthen their competitive intelligence to enable successful pursuit of RFPs.

· Leads and supports bid capture, teaming and recruitment strategies for RFPs.

· As appropriate, serves as Proposal Coordinator or other appropriate core proposal team role in partnership with technical, pricing, management/staffing, and program operations staff.

· Work in an on-the-job training and mentorship capacity with peers in CRS’ field offices to build overseas staff capacity in all facets of contracts BD.

· Works with HR to develop and implement contract recruitment policies and practices from the perspective of new business development and RFP requirements, and builds CRS staff capacity on pre-proposal recruitment, biodatas, salary negotiation, CVs, and live proposal recruitment.

· Works with Finance and Operations to strengthen CRS’ contract pricing and budget development processes and capacities; supports cost teams to produce accurate, compliant, and competitive applications.

· Provide support to field teams on pre-teaming negotiations and agreements for sub-contract roles on anticipated or live RFPs.

· Participates in proposal reviews and After Action Reviews, incorporating lessons into best practice guidelines and related job tools.

· Analyzes performance on contract bids and competitiveness within the international aid and development community, providing data and recommendations to inform senior management and executive decision-making.

Agency-wide Competencies (for all CRS Staff):*These are rooted in the mission, values, and guiding principles of CRS and used by each staff member to fulfill his or her responsibilities and achieve the desired results.*

· Serves with Integrity

· Models Stewardship

· Cultivates Constructive Relationships

· Promotes Learning

Supervisory Responsibilities:This position may supervise 1-2 contracts-focused business development staff as determined by the candidate’s experience and CRS’ decisions on team structure.

Key Working Relationships:

INTERNAL: Resource Acquisition Department, Program Impact and Quality Assurance Department; Operational Excellence Department; Country Representatives and Heads of Programming; Country and Regional technical and business development staff;Finance, Purchasing, Human Resources, Office of Legal Counsel.
EXTERNAL:Donorrepresentatives, business development officials of peer organizations

Qualifications:

Masters Degree in Development, International Relations, or relevant field preferred; equivalent experience acceptable.Minimum 8 years of international development experience required; at least 3 years in a developing country a plus.Demonstrated experience providing proposal development leadership in response to competitive USAID RFPs required. Experience with non-USAID and non-USG funding opportunities highly desirable.Comprehensive experience developing technical applications in response to RFPs required; experience developing or supporting cost applications highly desirable.Strong knowledge of Federal and USAID Acquisition Regulations, USAID ADS, and USG Cost Principles for non-profit organizations required.Knowledge of common USAID contract types including IQCs, T&M, FFP, CR, and CPFF required.Experience with adult learning, instructional design, and/or facilitation and training highly desirable.Knowledge of agriculture and livelihoods, water and sanitation, and/or health programming and the institutional funding landscape for those sectors a plus.Excellent interpersonal, oral and written communication and negotiation skills.Demonstrated experience managing people and processes, leading cross disciplinary teams to produce complex applications under tight deadlines and at exceptional quality.Strong analytical skills. Knowledge of Microsoft Office software (Word, Excel, Outlook, Internet) required, experience with Access or other data base programs is a plus.

· Ability and willingness to travel overseas as needed, up to 30% of job time.

Fluency in English required; working ability in French, Spanish or Arabic preferred.

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