Arvon, the UK's oldest and most celebrated creative writing charity, is recruiting up to two finance trustees to join its dynamic board and help shape the charity's future. If you have a passion for the arts and literature, and believe in the positive, even transformative impact creative engagement can have for everyone, then we'd love to hear from you. We have run creative writing courses for young people, disadvantaged adults and the general public at our three writing houses – located in beautiful rural settings across England and now also online – for nearly 60 years. This is an opportunity to play a part in supporting and influencing the future of a unique charity at a time of exciting change.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Thank you!
Actively Interviewing
This organisation is scheduling interviews as applications come in. They're ready to hire as soon as they find the right person. Don't miss your opportunity, apply now!
The Africa Health Organisation (AHO) seeks to engage in bidding and tendering to deliver health and social care services effectively. Our goal is to ensure sustainability and positively impact the lives of more people. We want assistance in developing an ambitious strategy.
What will you be doing?
We are excited to announce an incredible opportunity for a talented Bid Manager to join our passionate team at the Africa Health Organisation (AHO)! Since 1999, we've been dedicated to delivering health and social care to millions across Africa and the Diaspora, and now we're ready to further elevate our impact.
This year, we're embarking on a mission to broaden our funding strategy by incorporating bid and tender opportunities. Our goal is to engage with governments in Africa and the UK, the public sector, and the public, providing essential, practical, and emotional support to those facing chronic conditions. We need a visionary like you to help us achieve our goals.
We're seeking a dynamic, experienced Bid Manager to develop and execute a winning strategy to secure the necessary financial backing. There are numerous exciting possibilities ahead, including central government tenders, local and statutory opportunities. We're eager to explore them all.
In this pivotal role, you'll plan and execute our bids and tender writing efforts, ensuring that our bid proposals not only shine but also come to life in meaningful ways. If you're a bid writer who thrives on creativity and collaboration, we want to hear from you! Additionally, you'll have the opportunity to inspire and mentor volunteers within our bid and tender team, making a positive impact together. Join us on this exciting journey!
Key Duties and Responsibilities
The Role Description:
Bid Management: Lead and manage the entire bid and tender process, ensuring submissions meet deadlines and align with client requirements across the UK & Ireland.
Proposal Development: Collaborate with internal stakeholders to develop tailored, high-quality, and persuasive proposals that align with our value proposition.
Stakeholder Engagement: Work closely with sales, operations, legal, and clinical teams to gather critical input and ensure accurate, compliant, and compelling submissions.
Market Analysis: Stay informed on market trends, tender opportunities, and competitor activity to identify and secure strategic opportunities.
Compliance: Ensure all submissions adhere to company standards, client specifications, and relevant regulatory requirements.
Process Improvement: Continuously refine bid processes, content libraries, templates, and tools to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
Post-Submission Activities: Manage debrief processes and gather feedback to inform future submissions.
Key Duties and Responsibilities:
- Lead AHO bids: Manage the whole bid process with a hands-on approach.
- Create strong responses: Tailor solutions that clearly show our value.
- Support growth: Work with Business Development and Marketing to boost propositions.
- Drive best practice: Lead bid qualification, governance, and reviews.
- User-focused: Understand needs and clearly present our solutions.
- Know the landscape: Medical, research industries, and opportunities.
- Know our strengths: Stay sharp on our services and competitors.
- Seal the deal: Coordinate smooth contract closures.
- Stay tidy: Keep the bid library updated and accessible.
- Keep comms clear: Align stakeholders throughout the process.
- Stay compliant: Follow governance and secure approvals.
- Push for quality: Lead reviews to ensure high-standard submissions.
- Maintain the opportunity pipeline: utilising CRM and creating reports for management.
- Taking the lead on other business development activities, such as award submissions, whitepapers, and sales collateral.
- Supporting every stage of the sales funnel: by working closely with marketing, sales, implementation, and operations teams.
What are we looking for?
Person Specification: What You'll Bring:
- At least two years of proven experience in bid and tender management, preferably within the healthcare (NHS & private), medical, or technology sectors.
- End-to-end bid management experience: A minimum of 4 years' experience leading the whole bid process.
- Preferred qualifications include a degree in Business, Communication, Marketing, Creative Writing, English or equivalent.
- APMP Certification is also desirable.
- Sector versatility: Experience with both public- and private-sector bids in the medical, biotech, biomed, health, and social sectors is preferred.
- Industry knowledge: Understanding of contact centres and/or customer experience is essential.
- Commercial acumen: Strong business sense, negotiation skills, and a hands-on approach.
- Resilience under pressure: Able to thrive in a fast-paced environment and meet tight deadlines.
- Detail orientation: High attention to detail to ensure quality and accuracy.
- Growth mindset: Self-motivated, proactive, and focused on continuous improvement.
- Strong communicator: Confident and articulate, with the ability to build trusted relationships across stakeholders.
- Time management: Skilled at prioritising tasks and managing competing deadlines.
What difference will you make?
In this exciting role, you will lead the strategic process for winning new business through competitive bids, tenders, and proposals, ultimately elevating AHO's success. Your specialised knowledge will enhance our win rates and maximise revenue by bringing clarity, quality, and coordination to what can be a complex and high-stakes journey. impact
Your primary mission is to boost AHO's tender win rates and strengthen our strategic advantage. By diligently overseeing each step of the bidding process—from initial evaluation to final submission—you will significantly improve the quality and persuasion of our proposals, directly increasing our chances of securing valuable contracts.
You'll provide key insights to help AHO target the most promising opportunities by implementing a thoughtful "bid/no-bid" process. This approach will ensure we focus only on lucrative and winnable contracts that closely align with our strategic goals, ultimately saving time and resources and allowing us to prioritise high-potential projects.
In this role, you will orchestrate a well-coordinated process that drives operational efficiency. As the central point of contact, you will gather input from diverse internal teams—sales, finance, legal, and technical—ensuring everyone collaborates smoothly to meet critical deadlines.
As a leader, you'll elevate the quality of our bid content. By overseeing the creation of compelling, polished materials, you'll ensure our final submissions are professional, cohesive, and error-free. You will utilise a centralised content library containing valuable resources, such as case studies and CVs, to streamline efforts and enhance our proposals.
You will keep projects on track by developing detailed project plans and timelines, ensuring all tasks are completed on time—especially critical in the fast-paced environment of tender submissions. Your effective management will ease colleagues' workloads, allowing the entire team to shine.
To foster long-term business growth, you'll create a wealth of knowledge around our tenders and bids. By conducting insightful post-submission debriefs and analysing feedback, you will capture invaluable lessons from both successes and setbacks. This ongoing improvement process will enhance our bidding capabilities for future opportunities.
You also have the opportunity to enhance AHO's brand reputation by submitting well-organised, accurate, and compliant bids. By doing so, you'll showcase our professionalism and reliability to clients, building trust and solidifying our credible standing in the market.
Strategic alignment is vital for sustaining consistent, stable business growth. Together, we can make a remarkable impact on development.
Applicants must submit a CV and a cover letter explaining how they meet the role description and the person specification.
Interviews will be arranged and conducted via Microsoft Teams.
Interview dates are agreed with the applicant.
Non Charity Employer
21 - 50
To promote equity in health, to combat disease, and to improve the quality of, and lengthen, the lives of the people in Africa and the Diaspora.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Thank you!
Actively Interviewing
This organisation is scheduling interviews as applications come in. They're ready to hire as soon as they find the right person. Don't miss your opportunity, apply now!
The Africa Health Organisation (AHO) seeks to engage in bidding and tendering to deliver health and social care services effectively. Our goal is to ensure sustainability and positively impact the lives of more people. We want assistance in developing an ambitious strategy.
What will you be doing?
We are excited to announce an incredible opportunity for a talented Head of Bids and tenders to join our passionate team at the Africa Health Organisation (AHO)! Since 1999, we've been dedicated to delivering health and social care to millions across Africa and the Diaspora, and now we're ready to further elevate our impact.
This year, we're embarking on a mission to broaden our funding strategy by incorporating bid and tender submissions. Our goal is to engage with governments in Africa and the UK, the public sector, and the public, providing essential, practical, and emotional support to those facing chronic conditions. We need a visionary like you to help us achieve our goals.
We're seeking a dynamic, experienced Head of Bids to develop and execute a winning strategy to secure the necessary financial backing. There are numerous exciting possibilities ahead, including central government tenders, local and statutory opportunities. We're eager to explore them all.
In this pivotal role, you'll plan and execute our bids and tender writing efforts, ensuring that our bid proposals not only shine but also come to life in meaningful ways. If you're a bid writer who thrives on creativity and collaboration, we want to hear from you! Additionally, you'll have the opportunity to inspire and mentor volunteers within our bid and tender team, making a positive impact together. Join us on this exciting journey!
Key Duties and Responsibilities will include:
- Overall responsibility for delivering high-quality, accurate, compliant and commercially sound proposals on time, to budget, with inputs from key stakeholders.
- Responsible for the coordination and management of all Bid activities, for ensuring that Bid Plans are put in place and that all internal inputs are received promptly to meet Bid submission timescales.
- Responsible for the receipt, management, control and coordination of all external and internal information and documentation with respect to the enquiry and for the team acting as custodian for Bid documents, including all approved internal documentation signed by the Organisation.
- Responsible for compliance with all internal Bid policies and procedures and for passing internal and external audits.
- Contribute to the overall Bid strategy alongside other stakeholders.
- Responsible for the overall leadership of the team and ensuring that individuals within the team are given appropriate opportunities to grow and develop, and that the team maximises performance by creating and fostering a positive, can-do attitude and outlook on an ongoing basis.
- Responsibility to ensure that improvements are identified and those agreed upon are implemented continuously to support the growth and development of the team and those within it.
- There is a need to keep good records and to create and measure metrics on bidding performance to both review performance and drive continuous improvement in a key area of the business.
- Responsible for mentoring and training Bid Managers and Bid Writers to ensure they are up to date with bid requirements and improve their competence.
What are we looking for?
Education, Skills and Experience: Requirements
Essential:
- At least three years of experience in successfully leading teams within a bid environment.
- Proven track record of improvement and achievement - processes and people
- Keen understanding of numbers, spreadsheets, VOP/invoices, rates, cash flow, milestones, negotiations, and pricing audits.
- Ability to write strong proposals and experience as an estimator
- Excellent communicator (written and verbal) with local and international customers, and with an appreciation of cultural differences
- Ability to persuade and influence others
- Ability to lead team by example, with the ability to foster and maintain effective relationships with internal and external stakeholders
- Ability to work to deadlines
- Strong business/commercial acumen
- Keen attention to detail
- Commercially sound judgement
- Strong negotiation skills.
- Strong financial skills
Desirable:
- Leadership qualification (CMI or ILM)
- Experience with an integrated project management / ERP system (Enterprise Resource Planning)
- Experience in bidding roles in the Medical, Biochemistry, Biomedical, Public Services, Global Health, Humanitarian, NGOs, Public Health and Social Care industry
- MBA, Professional Qualification or formal leadership Qualification (CMI, ILM)
What difference will you make?
In this exciting role, you will lead the strategic process for winning new business through competitive bids, tenders, and proposals, ultimately elevating AHO's success. Your specialised knowledge of bids will enhance our win rates and maximise revenue by bringing clarity, quality, and coordination to what can be a complex, high-stakes journey.
Your primary mission is to boost AHO's tender win rates and strengthen our strategic advantage. By diligently overseeing each step of the bidding process—from initial evaluation to final submission—you will significantly improve the quality and persuasion of our proposals, directly increasing our chances of securing valuable contracts.
You'll provide key insights to help AHO target the most promising opportunities by implementing a thoughtful "bid/no-bid" process. This approach will ensure we focus only on lucrative and winnable contracts that closely align with our strategic goals, ultimately saving time and resources and allowing us to prioritise high-potential projects.
In this role, you will orchestrate a well-coordinated process that drives operational efficiency. As the central point of contact, you will gather input from diverse internal teams—sales, finance, legal, and technical—ensuring everyone collaborates smoothly to meet critical deadlines.
As a leader, you'll elevate the quality of our bid content. By overseeing the creation of compelling, polished materials, you'll ensure our final submissions are professional, cohesive, and error-free. You will utilise a centralised content library containing valuable resources, such as case studies and CVs, to streamline efforts and enhance our proposals.
You will keep projects on track by developing detailed project plans and timelines, ensuring all tasks are completed on time—especially critical in the fast-paced environment of tender submissions. Your effective management will ease colleagues' workloads, allowing the entire team to shine.
To foster long-term business growth, you'll create a wealth of knowledge around our tenders and bids. By conducting insightful post-submission debriefs and analysing feedback, you will capture invaluable lessons from both successes and setbacks. This ongoing improvement process will enhance our bidding capabilities for future opportunities.
You also have the opportunity to enhance AHO's brand reputation by submitting well-organised, accurate, and compliant bids. By doing so, you'll showcase our professionalism and reliability to clients, building trust and solidifying our credible standing in the market.
Strategic alignment is vital for sustaining consistent, stable business growth. Together, we can make a remarkable impact on development.
Applicants must submit a CV and a cover letter explaining how they meet the role description and the person specification.
Interviews will be arranged and conducted via Microsoft Teams.
Interview dates are agreed with the applicant.
Non Charity Employer
21 - 50
To promote equity in health, to combat disease, and to improve the quality of, and lengthen, the lives of the people in Africa and the Diaspora.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.