About Ashurst:

Ashurst is a leading global law firm with a history spanning almost 200 years, and clear strategy for our future growth. Our in-depth understanding of our clients and commitment to providing exceptional standards of service have seen us become a trusted adviser to local and global corporates, financial institutions and governments in all areas of commercial law. To find out more please visit here.

In order to comply with regulatory and client requirements, Ashurst will undertake appropriate vetting of staff. When applicants accept a job offer, Ashurst, alongside a specialist provider, will undertake professional verification and background checks. These checks are only undertaken with consent, and in accordance with our legal and regulatory obligations

Business Area: Business Development

Role: Bid & Pursuit Manager

Location: London

Reporting to: Global Head of Bids

Hours of work:

Monday to Friday, 9:30 am - 5:30 pm. You may be required to work such hours as are necessary to carry out your duties.

Department/Role Overview:

As Bid & Pursuit Manager you will be responsible for the end-to-end bid and pursuit process and management strategy. An integral part of the Global Bid team and the bid and pursuit advisory function, you will lead the development of bid responses and pursuits in collaboration with the global bid team, business development and other stakeholders by developing leading and persuasive bid content for each requirement and client. Supporting bids throughout the process to ensure bid excellence, you will contribute to the strategic growth of the firm through new and existing business wins.

The Bid & Pursuit Manager will report to and work closely with the Head of Bids and will be an integral member of the Global Bid Team and wider business development function.

Main responsibilities:

• Drive the managed bid process ensuring stakeholders are aware of their role and managing inputs to timelines.
• Ensure a collaborative and high-performing culture is maintained across Bid Operations, Bid Content, Pursuit Intelligence and Bid Design teams as well as all members of the firm.
• Provide bid advisory and management of strategic opportunities, ensuring all engagement with Bid Operations team to contribute to the production of high-quality bid drafts.
• Work with Fee-earners, BD team members, Practice Executives and stakeholders to define the bid strategy with a clear value proposition and win themes for critical and strategic bids.
• Review, monitor and promote bid best practice regarding writing style and tone while being compliant to individual client bid requirements or restrictions.
• Support all teams across BD and Global Bids to share and promote best practice across pursuits and business development.
• Drive the pursuit strategy and execution across Ashurst to develop new panel and project opportunities.
• Work closely with the Pursuit Intelligence team to produce intelligence reports at the beginning of a pursuit process.
• Manage readiness assessment interviews/workshop and produce a readiness report to determine firm, team and individual readiness as part of the pursuit strategy.
• Conduct milestone workshops and toll gate sessions to drive pursuit activity and follow up readiness analysis.
• Work with CRPs and CRMs to ensure we are maximising opportunities and correctly positioning ourselves for our key client pursuits, and handing over intelligence post-bid/pursuit.
• Support the Head of Bids to deliver all bid and pursuit activity at the highest standards of quality and excellence.
• Work with the content team to support the development of the firm's preferred Bid technology for content, credentials and the creation and delivery of bids.
• Observe usage of written content from our bid technology, provide guidance on improvement opportunities and help to spot and fill data/content gaps.
• Analyse bid and pursuit reporting, statistics, feedback and outcomes to support continuous improvement of overall quality, win rates, activity and spot to trends.

Risk and Control: Ensure that all activities and duties are carried out in full compliance with our regulatory requirements and internal policies.

Essential skills and experience:

• Excellent bid and pursuit management capability. Experience of bid and pursuit management in either a legal, professional services or other relevant environment, and experience of producing winning bids. Extremely strong bid process knowledge, stakeholder engagement, writing and project management skills; able to transform technical information into clear, compelling, succinct content for proposals to various audience types (including public sector (government/councils), banks, financial institutions and corporates).
• Excellent strategic sales knowledge, including ability to identify client requirements and successfully articulate differentiators, benefits and win themes demonstrating our ability to meet client needs and requirements.
• Excellent organisational abilities and team management. Experience of managing complex opportunities across practice, borders with multiple stakeholders and challenging timelines. Experience of team management and collaborating with SME stakeholders and other teams to deliver against bid and pursuit requirements.
• Exceptional eye for detail, able to spot errors and inconsistencies, i.e. strong proofreading skills.
• Highly competent user of the Microsoft Office suite, including advanced Word and PowerPoint skills.
• Self-motivated; comfortable working autonomously to deliver the objectives of the role with limited day-to-day supervision.
• Team player, with a strong service excellence ethic and a desire to add value to the firm by improving the quality and usability of bid content.
• Qualified to degree level or equivalent (preferably English or other arts/humanities degree).

Desired skills and experience

• Client facing sales, business development or account management experience.
• Experience of bid library/pitch automation software systems and SharePoint.
• Experience of helping to embed and develop a new bid and pursuit processes and systems.
• An understanding of legal practices, products and the legal competitive landscape, gained from previous experience within the legal sector.
• Experience of having worked in the professional services sector, a partnership or other complex, global environment.
• An understanding of different bid cultures and customers, with bid writing experience across geographies and to a variety of customers (e.g. government, financial services, banks, funds, corporates.