Proposal Manager – Federal Health

Location: Columbia, MD (Hybrid)

Residency Requirement: Candidates must have lived in the U.S. for at least 3 of the past 5 years and be authorized to work in the U.S. (Citizen, Permanent Resident, or EAD).

Sponsorship: This position does not offer sponsorship.

Job Overview:

Cogent People Inc. is seeking an experienced, results-oriented Proposal Manager to lead and manage the development of high-quality, compliant, and compelling proposals in support of the company’s federal health IT growth strategy. This role is responsible for managing proposal efforts from solicitation release through final submission, coordinating cross-functional proposal teams, establishing schedules and assignments, driving content development and reviews, and ensuring all responses meet customer requirements and Cogent People quality standards.

The Proposal Manager leads the proposal team to translate capture strategy, customer requirements, solution concepts, win themes, and differentiators into clear and persuasive proposal responses. Success in this role requires exceptional organization, strong federal proposal management experience, excellent writing and communication skills, attention to detail, and the ability to lead diverse teams under compressed deadlines while maintaining accountability for the quality and compliance of the final submission.

Responsibilities:

Proposal Planning & Management

• Lead the end-to-end development and submission of federal proposals, RFIs, Sources Sought Notices (SSNs), RFQs, task order responses, and other government procurement responses.
• Support and participate in pre-proposal activities, including capture planning, solutioning, strategy development, and proposal readiness efforts.
• Analyze solicitation documents, including RFPs/RFQs, PWS/SOW/SOOs, evaluation criteria, amendments, Q&As, and submission instructions to identify requirements and develop the proposal response strategy.
• Develop and maintain proposal schedules, compliance matrices, outlines, assignments, calendars, and other proposal management artifacts.
• Conduct proposal kickoffs and lead recurring status meetings, working sessions, and other proposal-related meetings throughout the response lifecycle.
• Assign and manage writing responsibilities across technical SMEs, solution architects, delivery personnel, corporate resources, and teaming partners.
• Track proposal activities, dependencies, action items, risks, and deadlines to ensure the team remains on schedule.
• Maintain accountability across the proposal team and proactively escalate schedule, content, staffing, or quality risks when necessary.
• Establish and enforce disciplined proposal processes, templates, artifacts, and quality standards while contributing to the continuous improvement of proposal SOPs and workflows

Proposal Development & Writing

• Translate capture strategy, customer priorities, win themes, discriminators, and solution concepts into clear, compelling proposal content.
• Write, edit, and refine proposal sections, including executive summaries, management approaches, staffing approaches, transition plans, past performance, corporate experience, and other response content as needed.
• Work closely with technical and operational SMEs to transform complex technical concepts into concise, customer-focused narratives.
• Ensure proposal content directly addresses solicitation requirements, evaluation criteria, customer objectives, and identified pain points.
• Review proposal sections for clarity, consistency, responsiveness, persuasiveness, and appropriate use of supporting evidence and metrics.
• Integrate content developed by multiple authors into a cohesive response with a consistent voice, structure, terminology, and messaging.
• Coordinate development of graphics, tables, callout boxes, organizational charts, process diagrams, and other visual elements with graphic design resources.

Compliance & Quality Management

• Develop and maintain detailed compliance matrices and crosswalks to ensure all solicitation requirements are addressed.
• Perform ongoing compliance reviews throughout proposal development rather than relying solely on final-stage quality checks.
• Validate page limits, formatting requirements, file requirements, naming conventions, forms, attachments, certifications, and submission instructions.
• Lead and coordinate structured proposal reviews, including Pink Team, Red Team, Gold Team, executive reviews, and final quality-control reviews.
• Consolidate, adjudicate, and track reviewer comments to ensure feedback is appropriately incorporated.
• Conduct final document reviews for completeness, consistency, grammar, formatting, cross-references, and submission compliance.
• Manage final proposal production and submission activities to ensure complete and on-time delivery.

Team & Stakeholder Coordination

• Partner closely with BD leadership, capture managers, solution architects, technical SMEs, recruiting, delivery leadership, contracts, pricing, graphic design, and executive leadership throughout proposal development.
• Coordinate proposal activities and contributions from subcontractors and teaming partners, including assignments, deadlines, reviews, resumes, past performance, and corporate information.
• Facilitate interviews and working sessions with SMEs to obtain the information necessary to develop strong proposal responses.
• Communicate proposal status, risks, decisions, and upcoming milestones clearly to proposal teams and leadership.
• Support capture-to-proposal handoffs to ensure customer intelligence, competitive positioning, win themes, discriminators, and solution strategies are reflected throughout the proposal.
• Maintain organized proposal files, working documents, reference materials, reusable content, and final submission records within SharePoint and other collaboration environments.

Operational & Growth Support

• Support development of proposal templates, reusable content, past performance libraries, resume repositories, graphics libraries, and other proposal assets.
• Maintain lessons learned and support post-submission and post-award proposal reviews to improve future performance.
• Manage RFIs, market research responses, capability statements, presentations, oral presentations, technical challenges, and other growth-related deliverables as required.
• Collaborate with BD leadership, capture managers, and solution architects during pre-RFP activities to improve proposal readiness and identify content, staffing, past performance, and solution gaps before solicitation release.
• Support development and continuous improvement of Cogent People’s proposal processes, tools, workflows, and SOPs.