THE FIRM
Welcome to Addleshaw Goddard (AG). We are a London headquartered, international, full-service law firm that consistently delivers high-quality outcomes for our clients globally.
We have been advising clients for 250 years, and today we support over 5,000 of the world's most respected organisations. We help them in over 50 areas of business law, across more than 100 countries. And while the opportunities and challenges they bring us vary, we solve each in a uniquely AG way.
Our clients enjoy working with us, we deliver a high-quality experience across everything we do, and we are known for award-winning innovation – all of which we harness to bring impact to clients.
In recent years we were recognised by the FT as one of the top 10 most innovative law firms in Europe; we have been named Law firm of the Year 2024, Litigation Law Firm of the Year, Real Estate Law Firm of the Year and Private Equity Firm of the Year in the UK; Corporate & Commercial Firm of the Year in Qatar; and Law Firm of the Year in Oman.We are committed to inclusivity and sustainability and have a modern culture based on being approachable, collaborative and supporting each other.
In the last few years, we have successfully built out our presence in Europe with new offices in Germany, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Poland and Spain. We recently celebrated a decade in the Middle East where we have award-winning teams operating out of offices in Dubai, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and most recently Abu Dhabi.
THE ROLE
This role is about helping our expert Partners to win by delivering unforgettable and persuasive pitches and proposals. You will work alongside our Head of Bids, wider Bids Team, BD professionals, the firm's Partners, and an internal team of other specialists.
Ideally, you will be an experienced bids professional in your current role where you focus on delivering bids, proposals or supporting pitch opportunities in the legal or professional services sectors.
At Addleshaw Goddard, you will sit within our central Bids team and be capable of developing close working relationships across many areas of the business, including Partners and Senior Managers and will provide support to lawyers and members of the BD team managing bids. The goal is for you to work with the Senior Bids Managers, Bids Managers and BD Managers (covering different sectors and legal practice areas) to deliver specific sections of must-win tenders and proposals for panel as well as managing transactional opportunities and compliance questionnaires and mini-tenders either on your own or as part of a client support team.
You will also be responsible for managing and updating the Bids Library and Bids Tracker and for implementing and delivering projects to improve bids team systems and processes and facilitate self-service tools for lawyers.
The Bids team is well established and supports on a wide range of proposals from "routine" service line opportunities through to major FTSE100 (or equivalent) panel opportunities. There are some established best practices, but the team prides itself on its ethic of continual improvement.
The role will require occasional travel within our UK offices.
DUTIES
Working as part of the Bids team, the Senior Bids Executive will:
• Raise issues on Bid / No Bid decisions and advise and lead partners and associates through the development of a bid strategy and formulation of a winning strategy.
• Lead on compliance questionnaires and smaller tenders for transactional bids, overseeing the bids process from beginning to end, including:
• Downloading, summarising and circulating documents to appropriate stakeholders.
• Initiating bid/no bid discussions (with a Bid or BD Manager), overseeing scoping process and leading on kick-off calls.
• Managing inputs from other stakeholders including Risk, HR, and InfoSec etc.
• Shaping pitch approach and key messages.
• Drafting pitch content and obtaining standard firm information.
• Ensuring pitch content reflects client requirements and reflects our proposition in an engaging and consistent way, including liaising with the design team.
• Follow up, including documenting any feedback received, working with partners to establish debrief questions and initiating/attending meetings with clients to receive feedback on the tender process.
• Work as part of the wider Bids team on strategic panel tenders or high-value transactional bids; assisting the Senior Bids Managers, Bids Managers and/or BD Managers by assuming responsibility for specific sections and key areas of the tender process.
• Collate and share best practice through the knowledge management platform and Intranet, including lessons learned.
• Help to maintain the various Bids pages on the intranet and in our knowledge management platform – ensuring content is kept up-to-date and is categorised correctly to ensure it is searchable.
• Build knowledge about the firm and its client base (i.e. services they buy, service gaps, profile of client base, retention rates, satisfaction with our services etc.).
• Use the Bids tracker to alert the business to new bids, managing and collating responses and managing the bid close process to handover responsibility to the BD Sectors / Relationship team or to the lawyers on non-client / target universe bids.
• Manage and develop BD information systems including our Bids Library, Bids Tracker and other platforms. This includes:
• Identifying areas of improvement and implementing necessary changes, including identifying available resource and overseeing team to drive the changes required, including using Generative AI to drive efficiency.
• Working with relevant stakeholders to identify and deliver training needs to encourage self-sufficiency and adoption of best practice; actively promoting best practice to BD and wider firm.
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE REQUIRED (BESPOKE TO ROLE)
The senior bids executive needs to be able to:
• Project manage bids effectively and calmly to tight deadlines (often simultaneously).
• Engage with different groups and stakeholders around the business – both in the UK and internationally – to promote best practice and develop relationships.
• Show initiative and find solutions where others can't.
• Show an understanding of developments in the wider legal market and empathy to challenges faced by our clients.
• Make connections between offerings throughout our sectors, practices, locations to articulate a compelling proposal.
• Show excellent software skills, including experience of MS Office. Knowledge of the latest Generative AI tools (ChatGPT, Copilot) is required.
• Demonstrate excellent attention to detail as well as strong writing and editorial skills.
• Show experience of bids process including proposal responses and compliance questionnaires.
• Apply project management best practices.
• Work as a team player – willing to support other colleagues.
• Interact professionally and credibly with senior internal stakeholders.
• Manage conflicting requests or concurrent multiple projects.
• Demonstrate experience of working in a professional services or similar fast-paced organisation.
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