About this role
Location: EMEA (Flexible / Hybrid)
Reports To: VP Commercial Ops EMEA
Direct Reports: 5-8 (Senior Bid Managers, Bid Coordinators, Content/Knowledge Manager)
Grade: Director Level
PURPOSE OF THE ROLE
Lead the transformation of EMEA Bid Management from a fragmented, KAM-dependent function into a centralized, disciplined Command Center that drives measurable improvements in win rates, resource allocation, and governance for large-scale critical infrastructure projects (>$10M). Own the end-to-end bid lifecycle — from Go/No-Go qualification through proposal submission and mobilization handover — ensuring Vertiv competes only on winnable opportunities with the right resources, at the right time, and transitions seamlessly into execution.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
STRATEGY, GOVERNANCE & DECISION FRAMEWORK
• Bid/No-Bid methodology: Own and enforce the Go/No-Go Evaluation Tool (T0 Gate) and Bid/No-Bid Scoring Mechanism (T1 Gate) to filter opportunities with rigor and consistency.
• SteerCo governance: Establish and chair the SteerCo governance process for large projects (>$10M), ensuring President, VP Sales, VP Ops, and CFO have clear, structured decision inputs at every gate.
• Hard Gates enforcement: Define and enforce Hard Gates — including insufficient time, critical unmitigated risk, legal/compliance issues, and margin floor breaches — to protect Vertiv from uncommercial commitments.
• Risk and resource discipline: Implement structured decision gates to control risk exposure, prioritize resources across competing bids, and focus pursuit investment on genuinely winnable opportunities.
• Red Team Review process: Drive a rigorous Red Team Review — assembling senior leaders and SMEs not involved in day-to-day bid drafting to challenge and stress-test the winning strategy before submission.
BID STORYBOARD & WINNING NARRATIVE
• Storyboard methodology: Own and enforce the Bid Storyboard framework, ensuring every major proposal tells a compelling, customer-centric story rather than a disjointed collection of technical responses.
• Framework design: Define the standard storyboard structure: articulate the customer's problem, Vertiv's unique value proposition, proof points (case studies, references, differentiators), and a clear "why us / why now" narrative.
• Early-cycle development: Ensure the storyboard is developed in the pre-writing phase and serves as the strategic blueprint aligning all contributors around a single, coherent winning theme before any content is drafted.
• Message consistency: Use the storyboard to drive alignment across all proposal volumes — Technical, Commercial, Delivery, and Services — so that every section reinforces the same win themes.
• Red Team integration: Leverage the storyboard in Red Team Reviews as the benchmark for assessing proposal quality: Does the narrative land? Is the differentiation clear? Would the customer choose Vertiv based on this story?
• Template library: Build a library of reusable storyboard templates by customer segment (Hyperscaler, Colo, Enterprise, Sovereign) to accelerate future bids and capture institutional knowledge.
• Cultural shift: Train Bid Managers and contributing SMEs on storyboarding techniques, shifting the culture from answering questions to winning hearts and minds with a differentiated narrative.
MOBILIZATION PHASE & EXECUTION READINESS
• Mobilization ownership: Own the Mobilization Phase as a critical bridge between bid award and project execution — ensuring no project starts without a signed-off, credible mobilization plan that has survived rigorous functional scrutiny.
• Functional sign-off governance: Drive a Functional Sign-Off process requiring each function (Engineering, Operations, Supply Chain, Finance, Legal, Services) to formally sign off on their scope, resource commitment, delivery assumptions, and risk acceptance before mobilization is approved.
• Stress-testing assumptions: Ensure the mobilization plan is validated against actual capacity constraints and supply chain realities — not built on the optimistic assumptions that may have underpinned the bid phase.
• Mobilization Gate: Establish a Mobilization Gate (post-award, pre-execution) where the SteerCo validates that all functional sign-offs are in place, the PM is confirmed, and the plan is credible before committing Vertiv resources to delivery.
• Prevent "winning the bid, losing the project": Validate execution feasibility during the bid phase and lock accountability during mobilization.
• Mobilization KPI: Track the percentage of projects that achieve full functional sign-off within the defined SLA of contract award as a standing governance metric reported to senior leadership.
WIN RATE & PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
• Measurable ROI: Deliver clear, quantified ROI through a defined win-rate improvement target from the current baseline within 12 months, tracked against an agreed performance framework.
• Bid analytics and reporting: Establish comprehensive reporting covering win/loss analysis, bid cost tracking, resource utilization, and cycle time metrics to drive continuous improvement.
• Win/loss reviews: Conduct structured win/loss reviews after every Tier A bid and feed insights back into pursuit strategy, pricing approach, and content library.
• Pipeline health: Track and report on bid pipeline health, conversion rates by customer tier (Hyperscaler/Colo/Enterprise), and margin protection performance on a regular cadence.
TEAM LEADERSHIP & CAPABILITY BUILDING
• Team consolidation: Build and lead the consolidated Bid Management team, including Senior Bid Managers, Bid Coordinators, and a Content/Knowledge Manager, under a single governance model.
• Senior Bid Manager capability: Recruit and develop Senior Bid Managers with deep understanding of the data center lifecycle, TCO modelling, and RIBA stages to lead complex pursuits with authority.
• Coordinator efficiency: Ensure Bid Coordinators own the Content Library and manage high-volume standard RFPs efficiently, freeing Senior Bid Managers for strategic, differentiated work.
• On-call SME model: Establish the SME model: one Technical Architect pre-approved per BU to dedicate 20% of their week to bid support, providing consistent expert input without overloading delivery functions.
• Supply Chain and Ops integration: Coordinate Supply Chain and Ops on-call resources to provide accurate lead times and procurement constraint data during the bid phase, preventing commercial commitments that cannot be met.
TECH STACK & PROCESS EXCELLENCE
• Technology ecosystem: Own the bid technology ecosystem, including CRM integration, proposal automation tools, and the content management platform, ensuring all tools are fit for purpose and actively used.
• Single Source of Truth: Build and maintain the content library — spanning case studies, certifications, ESG data, and compliance matrices — as the definitive, version-controlled resource for all bid contributors.
• VCORE and RIBA alignment: Align bid stages to Vertiv's VCORE sales process and RIBA Plan of Work stages (0-6), ensuring the bid function operates in lockstep with the broader commercial and project lifecycle.
• CRM integration: Ensure seamless integration with Oracle Sales Cloud (OSC) stages — Identifying, Qualifying, Developing, Proposing, Negotiating, Closing — so pipeline data and bid status are always synchronized.
CROSS-FUNCTIONAL ORCHESTRATION
• Command Center function: Act as the Command Center that translates KAM "desires" into actionable engineering and financial requirements, preventing scope ambiguity from entering the bid process.
• Multi-BU coordination: Coordinate across all five Business Units (Infrastructure Solutions, Power Management, Thermal Management, ITS, Services) to ensure integrated, coherent responses to complex customer requirements.
• Functional interfaces: Interface with Finance (margin analysis), Legal (risk review), Operations (capacity and lead times), and Procurement to ensure all commercial commitments are grounded in operational reality.
• RACI discipline: Ensure the RACI is respected: Bid Management is Responsible for Bid/No-Bid Qualification, Pricing and Margin Analysis, Proposal Writing, Red Teaming, and Final Review on all Tier A and Tier B pursuits.
MUST-HAVE QUALIFICATIONS
• 10+ years experience: In bid/proposal management, with at least 5 years in a leadership role managing complex, multi-stakeholder pursuits.
• Critical infrastructure expertise: Direct industry experience in data centers, power systems, thermal management, or mission-critical facilities is essential.
• Proven win-rate improvement: Demonstrated track record of improving win rates on complex, multi-million-dollar bids (>$10M) through methodology, governance, and team capability.
• Hyperscaler and colo experience: Experience managing bids for hyperscalers, large colocation providers, or sovereign/government projects with complex technical and commercial requirements.
• TCO mastery: Deep understanding of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) models and lifecycle value propositions as a commercial differentiator in long-cycle infrastructure bids.
• Stage-gate governance: Experience implementing Go/No-Go and Bid/No-Bid frameworks with executive steering committees, including Hard Gate disciplines and risk-based filtering.
• Commercial acumen: Strong commercial capability: margin protection, penalty clause risk assessment, value engineering, and the ability to make and defend commercial recommendations at VP and CFO level.
• RIBA or equivalent: Experience with RIBA Plan of Work or equivalent construction/project lifecycle frameworks as the basis for aligning bid stages to customer procurement timelines.
• Mobilization governance: Proven ability to design and enforce mobilization and handover governance between sales and delivery functions, including functional sign-off processes and credible mobilization plan standards.
• Bid storyboarding: Demonstrated expertise in bid storyboarding — crafting compelling win narratives that differentiate Vertiv beyond price and align all contributors to a single strategic message.
• Language: Fluent English required; additional European languages are a strong advantage in an EMEA-wide role.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
• Experience in a multi-BU, matrixed organization where bid responses require cross-functional technical input from multiple business lines.
• Familiarity with APMP (Association of Proposal Management Professionals) best practices or professional certification.
• Experience deploying proposal automation tools and CRM-integrated bid management platforms at scale.
• Background in managing Red Team / Pink Team / Gold Team review processes as a structured quality assurance mechanism.
• Understanding of data center power and cooling topologies, rack density trends, and liquid cooling technologies relevant to AI-driven infrastructure.
• Experience with NeoCloud, AI factory, or GPU-intensive infrastructure bid environments where performance density and power requirements create unique commercial complexity.
• Knowledge of ESG and sustainability requirements in data center procurement, including ISO 14001, energy efficiency metrics, and carbon reporting.
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