Manager, New Business Development at eHealth Systems Africa

Purpose of the position

The New Business Development (NBD) Manager works together with technical and program staff to develop and pursue funding to support eHealth Africa’s mission. The NBD Manager serves primarily in a planning and proposal/pitch production capacity: contributing to prospect research, analyzing opportunities, managing moderate to highly complex proposals, assuring responsiveness and successful submission across all donors, whether prime or sub. Applying critical thinking skills, the NBD Manager will be involved in supporting donor relations and stewardship, including: proactive pursuit of new opportunities, qualification of opportunities; proposal development and management; writing; and ensuring successful transition of new programs to program colleagues. The NBD Manager interprets unique demands of specific bids, adapts or modifies standard operating procedures to fit specific proposals (proposal team requirements, workflow, and sequencing of proposal needs). The NBD Manager co-facilitates proposal design with technical and program colleagues and advises on partnership decisions and management for proposal design.

• The NBD Manager analyzes opportunities, develops and continually focuses teams on win themes, ensures regular engagement and communication with country offices to strategically inform leads and proposal development.
• They monitor the activities of competitors, partners and donors, and actively apply related knowledge, thereby improving responsiveness of persuasive, winning proposals.
• Similarly, the NBD Manager leads moderate complexity positioning/relationship development with external donors and formulates pitches/cases for why donors should partner with eHA.
• The NBD Manager leverages analytical findings to independently modify and adapt processes, procedures, approaches to work and operationalizes solutions.
• We seek a creative, pro-active and passionate professional with a growth mindset who thrives on playing a key role turning ideas into action, working with and through technical and multi-disciplinary teams.
• The selected candidate can exercise independence and decision-making capabilities to enhance, modify, and adapt NBD approaches to meet changing needs among the proposal management cadre.
• The selected candidate can expect to grow core competencies in developing and refining theories of change, understanding/facilitating and/or drafting compelling proposal content and sharpening draft narrative.
• Similarly, the selected candidate will grow in the areas of interpreting motivators behind donor interests, particularly within private sector and foundation donors, and translating these interests into effective donor strategies.
• The selected candidate can exercise judgment based on practical lessons and coach supervisees, including determining requirements for work by consultants to complement the team.
• The selected candidate will assist in creating or visioning theories of change as technical liaison for high touch technical areas and/or serve as portfolio manager to define direction and life cycle of New Business Development for countries in portfolio.

Key Responsibilities:

Proposal Management

• Manages the end-to-end prime and sub-proposals processes and serves as point of contact for moderate-high complexity proposal teams to answer questions both within the organization and partners and donors as appropriate with minimal support from capture or supervisor.
• Determines, scopes, assesses and communicates proposal requirements to the team
• Interprets unique demands of specific bids, adapts or modifies SOPs to fit specific proposals (proposal team requirements, workflow/sequencing)
• Defines and applies thorough understanding of the critical path for proposal development including identification of capacities, resources, needs and operational context with accountability for completion and quality of overall product
• Analyzes, summarizes and presents background information on donors, partners and competitors to inform, identify and track potential opportunities aligned with eHA’s core competencies, and assist in facilitation of informed bid/no bid decisions.
• Leverages analytical findings to independently modify and adapt processes, procedures, approaches to work and operationalize solutions
• Exercises independence and decision-making capabilities to enhance, modify and adapt NBD approaches to meet changing needs among proposal management cadre.
• Assures proposals include a strong value proposition, theory of change (as appropriate), objectives and outcome metrics
• Captures existing proposal content, relevant donor feedback and program results to present in future proposals
• Ensures all pitches are aligned with interests of the sponsor, good development practice, organizational priorities and emphasis on impact
• Develops proposal writing outlines, calendars and manages proposal teams to deliver on-time results and responsiveness to donor requirements. This will apply for all donors, including US Government, Foundation, Corporate, U.N. bilateral and other funding sources.
• Ensures alignment of programmatic approaches, performance monitoring plan, staffing, management, work-plan timelines, etc.within proposal content
• Drafts proposal content for review by technical and/or program staff.
• Coordinates, facilitates and documents internal proposal debriefs and donor debriefs
• Co-facilitates proposal design with technical and program teams
• Facilitates transition of awarded projects to implementation team
• Supports development, refinement and implementation of guidance, tools and processes to constantly improve the effectiveness & efficiency of NBD.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Serves as a liaison between NBD and select technical area(s), supporting strategy, positioning and pursuit of targeted opportunities. This can include supporting landscape analysis and advising on new donors or opportunities, aligned with country-office interests and priorities.
• Serves as NBD counterpart for select countries and substantially contributes to developing a country office and/or technical area pipelines and related positioning.
• Leads moderate complexity positioning/relationship development with external donors
• Formulates and/pitches a case for why to partner with eHealth Africa.
• May represent eHA as a participant at external events, and yield potential partner contacts for further organizational follow up as needed
• Maintains constant communication with country offices, program and technical staff
• Participates in, or leads, pre-bid proposal preparation including, but not limited to, advancing a positioning and leads strategy, partner negotiations, working with country office directors and their staff to effectively build relationships with donors, collect intelligence, track competition, recruit staff, etc.
• Coordinates, assesses and provides feedback on the usefulness of writing inputs from partners, working with content specialists across eHA.
• Supports formation and engagement of right-sized proposal teams.
• Works with HR to recruit and identify key personnel.

Requirements:

• Master’s degree or its equivalent is highly desirable.
• At least ten (10) years of experience in successful business and proposal development including multi-year, multi-million/complex solicitations for international donors such as the US, UK government and other multilateral organizations, large foundations, and/or corporations in Africa.
• Must be able to lead cross functional teams by having excellent oral and written communications skills.
• Must be capable of independent decision-making and have the ability to lead multiple bid processes.
• Must be able to lead as well as participate at all levels of contact.
• Superior analytical and organizational skills required.
• In-depth knowledge on technical and business priorities of diverse donor agencies (including USAID, CDC, GAVI, Global Fund, NIH). 
• Experience with European development assistance, particularly the U.K. Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, and/or major charitable foundations based in the US and Europe are highly preferred.
• Proven skills in writing and editing proposal content within a professional and credible manner with evidence of successful wins. 
• Experienced in leading capture planning, storyboarding sessions, participating in key review meetings / final document review, content sign-off, and document production. 
• Medium level working knowledge of digital solutions and technology space with foundational competencies in the health sector.
• Forensic attention to detail and meticulous proofreading skills.

Language and Additional Requirements 

• English is the spoken and written language. 
• Ability to read, analyze and interpret general business periodicals, professional journals, or government regulations. 
• Ability to write reports, business correspondence, and procedure manuals. English is the spoken and written language
• Ability to effectively present information and respond to questions from executive and senior managers, employees, the general public and clients/partners