Lead Proposal Strategy & Development Manager

U.S. Bank; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 133,000 - 157,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare

Dental

Vision

Life insurance

Disability insurance

Pregnancy and parental leave

401(k)

Paid vacation

Paid holidays

Adoption assistance

Sick leave

Job summary

U.S. Bank is seeking a Proposal Development Manager to lead the proposal writing team, ensure quality, timeliness, and client‑focused messaging across opportunities.

You will coach writers, manage workload, coordinate strategy from kickoff to submission, and partner with Sales, Legal, Pricing, and SMEs to deliver compliant, compelling proposals in a fast‑paced financial services environment from day one. This role emphasizes leadership, editorial excellence, and disciplined processes to drive

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Communications, English, Journalism, Marketing, Business, or related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• 7+ years of experience in proposal writing, proposal management, business writing, marketing communications, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience leading, coaching, or developing proposal writers or similar professional teams.
• Strong experience managing multiple concurrent RFPs, RFIs, questionnaires, or complex client deliverables.
• Exceptional writing, editing, proofreading, and executive communication skills.
• Strong workload, resource, and deadline management capabilities.
• Demonstrated ability to operate effectively in a fast‑paced, highly matrixed environment.
• Strong collaboration and stakeholder‑management skills.
• Ability to translate complex financial, technical, and product information into concise, client‑focused messaging.

Responsibilities

• Directly manage, coach, and develop proposal writers.
• Establish clear expectations for writing quality, project execution, collaboration, responsiveness, and deadline management.
• Provide ongoing coaching, feedback, mentoring, and writing guidance.
• Identify individual and team development needs and help build proposal writing capabilities.
• Support onboarding and training of new proposal writers.
• Build greater consistency across the team in writing quality, client‑centric messaging, executive communication, and proposal execution.
• Manage daily proposal writer assignments and workload across the team.
• Assess capacity, proposal complexity, deadlines, and writer capabilities when assigning work.
• Monitor workloads and rebalance assignments when priorities or capacity change.
• Maintain visibility into upcoming deadlines, resource constraints, competing priorities, and delivery risks.
• Serve as the first point of escalation for writer capacity or delivery challenges.
• Coordinate coverage for planned and unplanned absences.
• Escalate significant capacity, prioritization, or delivery risks to the Head of Proposal Strategy & Management.
• Provide oversight across the portfolio of active proposal development assignments, from kickoff and strategy alignment through content development, review, and submission.
• Monitor progress against key milestones, content deadlines, review cycles, pens‑down dates, and submission requirements.
• Help writers resolve obstacles that could affect quality or delivery.
• Reinforce accountability for established proposal processes and deadlines.
• Ensure appropriate escalation when contributors or stakeholders miss critical deadlines.
• Provide hands‑on support for complex, high‑value, or time‑sensitive assignments when needed.
• Serve as the proposal development, writing, and editorial leader for the team.
• Review and strengthen executive summaries, strategic narratives, key proposal sections, and other high‑visibility content.
• Coach writers on translating complex product, technical, and business information into clear, compelling client value.
• Reinforce consistent standards for grammar, tone, structure, readability, brand alignment, and client focus.
• Help ensure responses clearly address client requirements, business objectives, differentiators, and opportunity‑specific win themes.
• Partner with the broader proposal team to support quality‑control and continuous‑improvement practices.
• Lead regular writer workload and assignment discussions.
• Maintain visibility into active assignments, upcoming demand, capacity, and resource needs.
• Identify recurring delivery challenges and recommend operational improvements.
• Reinforce consistent use of approved proposal processes, templates, content, and tools.
• Partner with proposal leadership on staffing, capacity planning, training, and team capability development.
• Support adoption of proposal technology, approved AI capabilities, and content‑management practices.
• Serve as the primary day‑to‑day leadership contact for issues involving proposal development resources, assignments, and delivery coordination.
• Help writers navigate competing stakeholder requests and priorities.
• Partner with Sales, Product, Pricing, Legal, Risk, Marketing, SMEs, and other contributors as needed to support successful proposal delivery.
• Escalate broader strategic, governance, organizational, or business‑priority decisions to the Head of Proposal Strategy & Management.

Skills

Proposal writing

Team leadership

Editing

Communication skills

Project management

Stakeholder management

APMP certification

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent in Communications/English/Journalism/Marketing/Business

Tools

Responsive

Job description

U.S. Bank is seeking a Proposal Development Manager to lead the proposal writing team, ensure quality, timeliness, and client‑focused messaging across opportunities.

You will coach writers, manage workload, coordinate strategy from kickoff to submission, and partner with Sales, Legal, Pricing, and SMEs to deliver compliant, compelling proposals in a fast‑paced financial services environment from day one. This role emphasizes leadership, editorial excellence, and disciplined processes to drive