Bid Manager

Southern Lights Recruitment is partnering with a high-growth international insurance and financial services organisation to appoint an experienced Bid Manager. Our client operates across the UK, Europe and the US, delivering specialist insurance solutions to asset finance and leasing partners. As the business continues to scale internationally, it is investing in strengthening its commercial and proposal capability.

This is a stand-alone, high-impact role offering the opportunity to design and lead a bid management function from scratch within a growing, entrepreneurial environment.

The Role

As Bid Manager, you will take full ownership of the end-to-end bid and proposal process, creating the frameworks, tools and governance required to support low-volume, high-value strategic opportunities. With a particular focus on supporting growth in the US market, you will work closely with senior stakeholders across sales, commercial, finance and operational teams to deliver compelling, high-quality submissions.

Key Responsibilities

• Bid function development
• Design and implement bid and proposal processes, templates, standards and governance
• Introduce best-practice methodologies appropriate for complex, solution-led sales
• Build and maintain a central content and knowledge library (case studies, credentials, value propositions)
• Establish scalable workflows to support future growth
• Bid delivery & coordination
• Manage bids, RFIs and proposals from qualification through to submission
• Lead bid kick-offs, workshops and review sessions to define win strategy and messaging
• Coordinate inputs from sales, underwriting, product, legal, compliance, finance and operations
• Own timelines, approvals and quality control
• Draft, edit and refine proposal content to ensure clarity, consistency and impact
• Commercial & strategic support
• Partner with senior commercial leaders to prioritise opportunities
• Ensure proposals demonstrate strong client insight, competitive positioning and market awareness
• Support pricing and commercial modelling alongside finance and product teams
• Track outcomes, capture lessons learned and drive continuous improvement
• CRM & reporting
• Maintain accurate opportunity data within the CRM system (Dynamics 365 preferred)
• Produce bid and pipeline reporting for senior leadership
• Support forecasting and pipeline reviews
• Encourage best practice CRM usage across commercial teams

About You

• Proven experience in bid or proposal management within professional services, financial services, technology or complex solutions environments
• Track record of delivering high-value, strategic bids, ideally across multiple regions (US exposure highly desirable)
• Experience building or enhancing a bid function and embedding structured processes
• Excellent written communication and storytelling skills
• Strong project management capability with the confidence to influence senior stakeholders
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, scaling business
• Experience using CRM systems (Dynamics 365 advantageous)
• Flexible approach to working hours to support US-based colleagues

Why Apply?

• Opportunity to build a business-critical function with senior leadership exposure
• Play a key role in international growth, particularly in the US
• Join a collaborative, ambitious and values-driven organisation
• Competitive salary and long-term career progression