Head of Bids

Job description

**This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Head of Bids based in Canada.** As Head of Bids, you will lead the function responsible for turning major opportunities into winning tenders across international public transport markets. You will own the full bid lifecycle, from qualification and strategy through submission, clarification, and award. Working at the intersection of Business Development, Product, Engineering, Services, Legal, and Finance, you will bring diverse expertise together into compelling, cohesive proposals. You will shape pricing and commercial strategy while balancing competitive positioning, profitability, and bid risk. Beyond individual bids, you will build the people, processes, content, tooling, and governance needed to scale a high-performing bids function. With AI becoming an increasingly important part of the workflow, you will help the team work smarter, faster, and more effectively. This is a highly visible leadership role with significant influence over growth, commercial decisions, and how complex opportunities are pursued. ### Accountabilities: - Lead competitive bids from qualification through submission, clarification, and award, ensuring high standards of quality, strategy, and deadline management. - Own pricing and commercial strategy for bids, balancing the probability of winning with sustainable margins. - Establish and manage bid governance, supporting senior decision-making on which opportunities to pursue, progress, or decline. - Present bid risks, recommendations, and commercial considerations clearly to senior leadership, including recommendations to walk away from opportunities when appropriate. - Coordinate contributors across Product, Engineering, Services, Legal, Finance, and Business Development to ensure technical, commercial, and legal responses form one cohesive proposal. - Build and continuously improve the bids function, including processes, content libraries, tooling, knowledge management, and AI-enabled ways of working. - Plan resources across multiple active bids, matching the right expertise and contributors to each opportunity. - Coach, support, and develop the bids team, providing meaningful feedback and helping team members grow professionally. - Build trusted relationships across internal teams and external partners to ensure proposals accurately reflect customer needs and expectations. ### Requirements: - Proven experience contributing to and winning high-value, competitive bids, with a strong focus on proposal quality and commercial outcomes. - Previous leadership experience managing a bids, tenders, or proposals function, including ownership of related processes and governance. - Strong understanding of pricing strategy, with the ability to clearly explain commercial trade-offs between winning opportunities and protecting margins. - Confidence presenting bid risks and recommendations to senior leadership, including challenging recommendations when necessary. - Understanding of both sales and procurement processes, ideally with experience from either side of the commercial relationship. - Ability to manage several complex bids simultaneously while maintaining accuracy, quality, and attention to detail under tight deadlines. - Excellent communication and stakeholder-management skills, with the ability to align contributors across teams, countries, and time zones. - Strong facilitation and decision-making skills, with the ability to handle disagreement constructively and guide teams toward clear outcomes. - Practical interest in AI and a willingness to integrate AI tools into everyday work to improve efficiency, learning, problem-solving, and bid quality. - Strong people-development skills and a genuine interest in coaching, mentoring, and helping team members perform at their best. - Familiarity with public procurement for technology solutions is a plus. - Experience in public transport, mobility, or another regulated, tender-led industry is advantageous. - Additional languages are a plus, particularly given the international scope of the role. - Experience improving bid tooling, content libraries, knowledge-management systems, or related processes is desirable. ### Benefits: - Fully remote position for candidates based in Canada. - 20 days of annual vacation in addition to public holidays, with the option to purchase 5 additional vacation days per year. - Company-wide closure between Christmas and New Year, bringing total annual time off to 28+ days. - Private healthcare and life insurance. - Monthly team bonding and team-building allowances. - Up to CAD $1,300 per year for training and professional development. - CAD $325 annual allowance for home-office expenses. - Menopause support. - Choice of workstation. - Ability to work from any country in the world for up to 3 months per year. - Enhanced family leave. - Supportive, inclusive, and flexible environment with opportunities to work on international projects and contribute to innovation in urban mobility.