Bid Manager Lead

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  • Location:
    Washington, District of Columbia, US
  • Alternate Location
    RTP, San Jose
  • Area of Interest
    Business Strategy and Operations
  • Compensation Range
    172200 USD - 223500 USD
  • Job Type
    Professional
  • Technology Interest
    Portfolio
  • Job Id
    1444769

Bid Manager Lead

Position Overview

The Bid Manager Lead oversees a team of Bid Managers responsible for the development and submission of all assigned proposals from initial request through final delivery to customers. You will lead and manage Cisco's bid management organization, ensuring adherence to standard processes and templates while driving continuous improvement across the team. This role involves strategic oversight of the RFP pipeline, resource allocation, team development, stakeholder reporting and collaboration with Account Managers and extended members of the Account Teams to optimize proposal outcomes. This position reports to the Senior Director of Customer Proposal Xceleration (CPX).

The ideal candidate must be a proven leader with strong strategic thinking, team management, and communication skills. Building and maintaining relationships across Cisco Sellers, Subject Matter Experts, Cisco Legal, managing stakeholder expectations, and developing high-performing teams is as critical as ensuring excellence in proposal delivery. The ideal candidate has extensive experience managing both proactive proposals (without an RFx) and RFx responses at scale.

This position is responsible for leading, developing, and scaling our Bid Management capabilities across all RFP/RFI responses and proactive proposals. The individual will ensure consistently professional work across the team and must demonstrate proven ability to build and lead diverse teams of bid professionals while fostering synergy with senior executives, sales professionals, and subject matter experts.

What You'll Do

Team Leadership & Development

  • Lead, mentor, and develop a team of Bid Managers, providing coaching, performance feedback, and career development guidance.
  • Provide reporting and associated insights on proposal work for presentation to our stakeholders.
  • Recruit, hire, and onboard new team members as the business scales.
  • Actively work to improve the performance of the team through a combination of processes and tooling.
  • Establish team goals, KPIs, and performance metrics aligned with business objectives.
  • Foster a collaborative, high-performance culture within the bid management organization.

Team Management

  • Oversee proposal pipeline management and resource allocation across multiple concurrent opportunities.
  • Be the point of escalation and primary decision maker for questions raised by the Bid Managers.
  • Manage budget responsibilities for the Bid Management team, including resource planning and expense oversight.
  • Develop and implement standardized processes, templates, and best practices for proposal development.
  • Drive continuous improvement initiatives to enhance efficiency, quality, and win rates.
  • Collaborate with senior leadership to align proposal strategy with business priorities.

Stakeholder Management & Cross-Functional Leadership

  • Partner with Account Teams, Sales Leadership, Cisco Legal and SMEs to optimize responses and proposal outcomes.
  • Serve as escalation point for complex customer requirements and high-stakes opportunities.
  •  Liaison with senior stakeholders across Cisco departments (Product Management, Services, Legal, Development) to ensure organizational alignment.
  •  Represent the bid management function in strategic planning and business reviews.

Process & Technology Oversight

  • Ensure productive use and continuous improvement of Cisco's RFP database (Responsive) and related tools.
  • Drive adoption of proposal management technologies and methodologies.
  • Oversee quality assurance processes and compliance with RFx requirements.
  • Manage vendor relationships for Contingent Workers and tool evaluations as needed.

Who You Are

Experience & Background

  • Minimum of 7+ years professional experience in proposal management, with at least 3+ years in a people management role.
  • Proven track record of managing proposal teams in fast-paced technical environments.
  • Demonstrated success scaling proposal operations and improving win rates.
  • Experience managing complex, multi-million-dollar opportunities and enterprise-level RFx responses.

Leadership & Management Skills

  • Strong people leadership skills with experience developing and retaining high-performing teams.
  • Demonstrate clear communication skills.
  • Ability to manage matrix relationships and influence without direct authority.
  • Experience with performance management, coaching, and talent development.
  • Proven ability to drive change management and process improvement initiatives.

Technical & Operational Capabilities

  • Deep understanding of bid process management and proposal development methodologies
  • Experience with RFx and content management tools, ideally including Responsive or similar platforms
  • Strong analytical skills with ability to interpret proposal metrics and drive data-driven decisions
  • Excellent program management skills with ability to oversee multiple concurrent initiatives

Communication & Collaboration

  • Exceptional verbal and written communication skills with ability to present to senior executives
  • Strong relationship-building skills across all organizational levels
  • Ability to translate business requirements into operational excellence
  • Superior organizational skills with attention to detail and ability to manage competing priorities

 

Meet the Team

The CPX (Customer Proposal Xceleration) team is a relatively new group within Cisco’s Global Sales Strategy and Planning Organization. You will spend most of your time working with Bid Managers and our stakeholders. You will be part of a larger team whose focus is on accelerating the creation of and the submission of proposals whether through our team of expert Bid Managers or via the tooling that we have developed.

#WeAreCisco

#WeAreCisco where every individual brings their unique skills and perspectives together to pursue our purpose of powering an inclusive future for all.

 

Our passion is connection—we celebrate our employees’ diverse set of backgrounds and focus on unlocking potential. Cisconians often experience one company, many careers where learning and development are encouraged and supported at every stage. Our technology, tools, and culture pioneered hybrid work trends, allowing all to not only give their best, but be their best.

 

We understand our outstanding opportunity to bring communities together and at the heart of that is our people. One-third of Cisconians collaborate in our 30 employee resource organizations, called Inclusive Communities, to connect, foster belonging, learn to be informed allies, and make a difference. Dedicated paid time off to volunteer—80 hours each year—allows us to give back to causes we are passionate about, and nearly 86% do!

 

Our purpose, driven by our people, is what makes us the worldwide leader in technology that powers the internet. Helping our customers reimagine their applications, secure their enterprise, transform their infrastructure, and meet their sustainability goals is what we do best. We ensure that every step we take is a step towards a more inclusive future for all. Take your next step and be you, with us!

Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:

When available, the salary range posted for this position reflects the projected hiring range for new hire, full-time salaries in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including equity or benefits. For non-sales roles the hiring ranges reflect base salary only; employees are also eligible to receive annual bonuses. Hiring ranges for sales positions include base and incentive compensation target. Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location and additional factors, including but not limited to skillset, experience, and relevant education, certifications, or training. Applicants may not be eligible for the full salary range based on their U.S. or Canada hiring location. The recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.

U.S. employees have access to quality medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, short and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance and numerous wellbeing offerings.

Employees receive up to twelve paid holidays per calendar year, which includes one floating holiday (for non-exempt employees), plus a day off for their birthday. Non-Exempt new hires accrue up to 16 days of vacation time off each year, at a rate of 4.92 hours per pay period. Exempt new hires participate in Cisco’s flexible Vacation Time Off policy, which does not place a defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use, but is subject to availability and some business limitations. All new hires are eligible for Sick Time Off subject to Cisco’s Sick Time Off Policy and will have eighty (80) hours of sick time off provided on their hire date and on January 1st of each year thereafter.  Up to 80 hours of unused sick time will be carried forward from one calendar year to the next such that the maximum number of sick time hours an employee may have available is 160 hours. Employees in Illinois have a unique time off program designed specifically with local requirements in mind. All employees also have access to paid time away to deal with critical or emergency issues. We offer additional paid time to volunteer and give back to the community.

Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components. For quota-based incentive pay, Cisco typically pays as follows:

.75% of incentive target for each 1% of revenue attainment up to 50% of quota;

1.5% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 50% and 75%;

1% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 75% and 100%; and once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap on incentive compensation.

For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.

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