What drew you to the world of bids and proposals?
It was pure curiosity mixed with a healthy dose of restlessness. I started out in finance as a project accountant, working on genuinely exciting programs in subsea engineering across telecoms, oil and gas and offshore wind farms. The work itself was fascinating, but the monthly financial reporting and number-crunching routine just wasn’t igniting any passion for me.
I was contemplating my next career move when I came across an internal posting for a bid manager role. When I reviewed the required skill set, I realized I could tick most of those boxes and provide solid examples of my experience. So I reached out to the hiring manager, who painted this incredibly compelling picture of the role.
I figured I had nothing to lose, so I submitted my application – I was genuinely surprised when they called me for an interview. I just showed up as myself and answered honestly throughout the process.
It wasn’t until they actually offered me the position that reality hit: accepting meant leaving finance entirely. Was I really ready for that leap?
I decided to take the plunge, and it’s been nearly 20 years since that decision – with zero regrets. I’ve maintained my financial credentials throughout because they’ve proven invaluable and continue to serve me well, but bid management became my true calling. Sometimes the best career moves come from simply recognizing your transferable skills and having the courage to try something completely different.
Can you tell me about your career journey?
I studied finance and accounting, then began working toward my finance qualifications while taking on project accounting roles. I always intended to complete those qualifications, but once I discovered bid management, I never looked back. My finance background serves me well in bid management, and I’ve stayed focused on the business side of things.
Looking back, it’s no surprise I saw transferable skills in that first bid manager role. As a project accountant, I worked on the delivery side of programs we’d previously bid on. Understanding customer needs, delivery commitments and program intricacies gave me insight into what goes wrong – such as cost overruns and schedule delays. Those skills translate perfectly to the front end because getting things right in the bid prevents problems during delivery.
Sometimes the best career moves come from simply recognizing your transferable skills and having the courage to try something completely different.
How have you seen the industry change over the course of those years?
Nearly 20 years brings significant changes, and while technology is the obvious one, it’s not necessarily easier – just different. I remember assembling paper bids, managing massive printing and binding operations while simultaneously solving last-minute technical or pricing issues and navigating internal governance approvals. Everything had to come together perfectly for submission deadlines.
Today’s electronic submissions eliminate that physical complexity, but technology gives with one hand and takes with the other – creating different workloads.
The less obvious but equally important change is compliance. In my early public sector bids, if we didn’t want to provide a program management plan, we’d simply say “we’ll provide it post-contract.” That would eliminate you from competition today.
There’s also been a clearer distinction between capture management and bid management. Early in my career, I saw more of the end-to-end process alongside the sales team. Now the profession has evolved to separate these functions more distinctly.
What has been your biggest professional challenge and how did you overcome it?
I’ll be completely honest – the consistent theme throughout my career has been learning to thrive as a woman in male-dominated industries. From subsea engineering, telecoms, and oil & gas to rail and defence, I’ve regularly been the only woman in rooms of 20 people. Making your voice heard in that environment is challenging.
In defence, my most recent sector, this remains more prevalent than in previous industries, though it is improving. The frustration of having your point ignored, only to hear a male colleague make the same point differently and receive recognition, is a harsh reality.
I wish I had a complete solution, but overcoming this meant moving beyond the technical “hard skills” of bid management toward leadership skills, personal influence and understanding culture and high-performing teams. These softer skills, not typically covered in APMP training, became essential for earning the recognition my counterparts received naturally.
The situation continues to improve, but there’s still work to be done.
I've found that taking active ownership of your development path almost always results in 'yes' - both to day-to-day opportunities and additional training, whether internal or external.
What skills do you believe are most crucial for success in bid and proposal management today?
Focus on leadership skills combined with understanding culture and high-performing teams. You need to know how to perform at your best while bringing out the best in others, especially during critical moments. We’re all human – no one operates at 100% constantly – but in bidding, you must deliver peak performance when it counts.
Winning is always a team effort. Whether you’re establishing the team, leading it or participating in a specific aspect, success comes from outperforming the competition as a high-performing team.
The hard skills – customer intimacy, opportunity evaluation, win strategy development, transitioning capture insights into compelling proposals – are essential bedrock skills we can’t do without. But what sets the best bid managers apart are always the softer skills: leadership and team effectiveness capabilities.
My advice to newcomers: master the hard skills and APMP fundamentals, but focus on developing the softer skills that will truly differentiate you.
Winning is always a team effort. Whether you're establishing the team, leading it or participating in a specific aspect, success comes from outperforming the competition as a high-performing team.
How have you approached learning new skills?
Having always worked for employers rather than being self-employed, I’ve connected skill development to job-oriented goals with clear business outcomes – creating win-win situations for both myself and the organization.
This requires focus on two areas: skills learned through doing the job, and formal training opportunities. You need clarity on where you want to go, where you are now, what the gap is, and which skills will bridge that gap. When you’re vocal about this in the right way and build it into your annual performance goals, you typically get the exposure you’re asking for.
People who actively seek out and request advancement are much more likely to receive the recognition and opportunities they deserve. I’ve found that taking active ownership of your development path almost always results in “yes” – both to day-to-day opportunities and additional training, whether internal or external.
The more I’ve progressed and been strategic about this approach, the more opportunities I’ve received. When budgets are tight, if you frame requests as business-focused investments that deliver outcomes while developing your skills, the answer is nearly always positive.
If you want to embrace AI today, start building solid data libraries for future use. Focus on getting your data right now, so when the tools arrive that depend on it, you have a strong foundation.
Is there a skill you wish you had learned earlier in your career?
Personal energy management – and this has been relatively recent learning for me. We’re all human; nobody can operate at their peak 24/7. Learning to manage your energy so you can be at your best when it matters most is fascinating and crucial.
I remember a quote from recent training about personal energy management being more important to performance than time management. When you consider it, this makes perfect sense, yet I was offered countless time management courses over the years but never once heard of personal energy management training.
It was a real lightbulb moment – so obvious in hindsight, but not something we’re typically taught or exposed to. Given how prevalent burnout is in the bid profession, this skill becomes even more critical.
Personal energy management - and this has been relatively recent learning for me... When you consider it, this makes perfect sense, yet I was offered countless time management courses over the years but never once heard of personal energy management training.
Has having a mentor played a role in your career?
I’ve done a complete 360 on mentoring. For most of my career, I actively avoided it – if someone had offered mentoring, I would have run.
Two years ago, after completing challenging training that pushed me out of my comfort zone, I decided to deliberately choose something I thought I’d dislike: mentoring. I signed up for my company’s mentoring scheme specifically because the thought made me uncomfortable.
It was the single best thing I did that year. Having an excellent mentor opened my eyes to mentoring’s benefits, and I can’t recommend it highly enough for anyone, regardless of field or level.
The following year, I participated as both a mentee with a new mentor and as a mentor to someone else. Being on the mentoring side was equally rewarding – having someone look to you for advice makes you think about things differently and pushes your own development.
Both sides of the mentoring equation are invaluable and this comes from someone who actively avoided it for years.
What advice would you give to someone starting out in this role?
Look after yourself – not in a selfish way but professionally. Bid and proposal management can lead to burnout quickly if you’re planning to make a career of it rather than just trying it for 6-12 months. Think about your personal energy and how to best manage that.
This connects to what I mentioned about team effectiveness and bringing your best while getting the best from others. You can’t achieve that if you’re burnt out or running low – you’ll naturally be grumpy and won’t react well to well-intentioned situations around you.
So my primary advice is professional self-care as the foundation for everything else.
What do you know now that you wish you knew when you first started your career?
The value of mentor-mentee relationships. It’s been life-changing for me. The advice I’ve received and the skills I’ve developed in mentoring others have been invaluable for my leadership and team effectiveness capabilities.
This enabled me to make quite a large career progression step recently. As you advance in your career, progression steps typically become smaller but the mentoring relationship allowed me to make a significant jump forward.
I wish I'd been more open to this much earlier as I've only discovered its value in the last couple of years.
What’s been your most valuable lesson from a proposal you didn’t win?
Listen to your customer – really listen. When I examine our most painful losses and honestly assess why we lost, the customer was usually telling us what we needed to do all along, but we weren’t listening.
The key question is: are you truly listening to what they’re saying, or are you hearing what you want to hear? In our most stinging defeats, hindsight revealed that the customer had been clear about their needs, but we heard what we wanted to hear, did what we wanted to do and lost as a result.
How do you maintain work-life balance?
One word: accountability. It’s easy to say but incredibly hard to execute.
You must have clear sight of your priorities and hold yourself accountable to them. When you’re working long hours, evenings and weekends, focusing on bids instead of other things – whether family, hobbies, or friends – you’re choosing to prioritize work over those areas. If work is your number one priority, that’s fine and will serve you well. But if it’s not, and you don’t hold yourself accountable to your actual priorities, it won’t work out.
I’m not pretending it’s easy or that I’ve perfected it. Looking back at difficult periods, I either had my priorities wrong or had them right but wasn’t holding myself accountable to them.
How do you think the profession will evolve over the next few years?
It’s undoubtedly AI-driven. I recently participated in a VisibleThread discussion on this topic, and the key takeaway was that AI is coming whether we embrace it or not. What’s fascinating is that we’re not even seeing AI’s full potential yet.
The critical question becomes: do you want AI to happen to you, or do you want to be part of it? Most people choose to be part of it, so the next question is how to embrace it.
The key insight is that AI is only as good as the data it’s given. If you want to embrace AI today, start building solid data libraries for future use. Focus on getting your data right now, so when the tools arrive that depend on it, you have a strong foundation.
Many organizations will rush to acquire AI software and want recognition for rapid implementation, but without sound underlying data libraries, they won’t achieve the desired results. It’s the classic “garbage in, garbage out” principle.
