Request for Proposal Strategy Manager, Financial Services - Remote (EST or CST)

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Must be eligible to work in the United States without the need for work visa or residency sponsorship.

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Our Newest Opportunity

Summary:

This role leads the strategy, content, and operating model for OneDigital’s Financial Services RFP and proposal function, a capability focused on supporting prospective client business development efforts, primarily within retirement plans including defined contribution, defined benefit, and related institutional business. Sitting within the Retirement Solutions team, this role partners directly with Financial Services leadership, Sales Enablement, Marketing, Compliance, local market leadership, advisors, and other cross-functional stakeholders to build a scalable, high-performing pursuit engine that becomes a competitive advantage for the practice. This role leads complex and high-priority pursuits, governs the compliance-approved content library, manages a support team, and drives adoption of the operating model across Retirement Solutions, Sales, Sales Enablement, Marketing, Compliance, and Financial Services leadership. This is a builder’s role with significant room to grow, establishing new ways of working, strengthening how Financial Services approaches prospective client RFPs and proposals, and developing a capability that scales across the business.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities (includes but is not limited to):

Team & Operating Model Leadership

• Own the standards for how RFPs and proposals enter the review process , how they are prioritized, what level of support they receive, and when opportunities should be pursued or declined.

• Partner with Financial Services leadership, Sales Enablement, Marketing, Compliance, and local market stakeholders to design a modern, scalable RFP operating model including triage lanes, self-service pathways, service-level agreements, and go/no-go criteria.

• Lead a team dedicated to detailed execution, set priorities, review work, and build their capability to handle additional volume and complexity over time.

• Own capacity planning and workload balancing across the team.

• Establish KPIs and reporting that connect RFP and proposal activity to pipeline, win rates, revenue, cycle time, capacity, and content reuse.

• Drive adoption of the operating model across Retirement Solutions, Marketing, Sales, Sales Enablement, Compliance, and Financial Services leadership.

Content, Knowledge & AI Strategy

• Own the Financial Services RFP and proposal content library end to end.

• Partner closely with Sales Enablement , Marketing and Financial Services leaders to keep the library curated, current, and sharply aligned to OneDigital's value proposition and competitive differentiators.

• Draft net-new answers for complex and strategic pursuits where no compliance-approved content exists.

• Govern taxonomy, confidence tiers, freshness cadence in the knowledge management platform.

• Partner with subject matter experts , Marketing and Compliance to ensure content is accurate , defensible, and appropriately approved.

• Identify and lead responsible AI use cases across the RFP and proposal lifecycle — including content discovery, response development, competitive intelligence, quality control, and knowledge management — while maintaining appropriate human oversight and compliance controls.

• Partner with Compliance, Legal, IT, and other stakeholders to establish practical guardrails for AI use in a regulated Financial Services environment, ensuring efficiency gains do not compromise accuracy, confidentiality, regulatory requirements, or brand standards.

Proposal Strategy, Pursuit & Growth

• Lead or co-lead the largest, most strategic, and most complex prospective client RFPs and proposals, while delegating standard, lane-appropriate pursuits to the team .

• Proactively identify and prioritize upmarket, recompete, cross-practice, and other strategic RFP opportunities beyond those surfaced through the traditional advisor-led process.

• Use pipeline, win-rate, competitive, and pursuit data to determine where the function can have the greatest commercial impact.

• Develop pursuit strategies, win themes, messaging, and differentiated positioning in partnership with Financial Services leadership, Sales and Marketing leadership.

• Pull competitive intelligence on incumbents and competitors — particularly within the retirement plan market — to sharpen positioning across every active pursuit.

• Maintain the case-study library, referenceable-client roster, fee and service exhibits, comparison matrices, and pricing grids for finalist-stage pursuits.

• Own the win/loss debrief loop — feed themes from decided bids back into the content library, content strategy, and the operating model.

Qualifications, Skills and Requirements:

• Strong understanding of defined contribution and defined benefit retirement plan language and regulatory context, with the ability to quickly learn adjacent Financial Services businesses.

• Experience improving or scaling proposal, content, or pursuit processes; track record of building new operating models and scalable ways of working.

• Experience with proposal management, content, or knowledge management platforms; familiarity with Responsive, Seismic, or similar tools is preferred.

• Demonstrated ability to apply AI tools effectively within a compliance-driven environment — including practical experience using AI for content development, knowledge management, research, or workflow automation.

• Strong business and commercial instincts, with the ability to assess opportunity value, understand competitive dynamics, and prioritize pursuit resources accordingly.

• Strong editorial judgment and the ability to distinguish between what can be standardized, what requires customization, and what requires human expertise and oversight.

• Experience driving adoption of new processes, tools, or operating models across cross-functional teams, with the ability to create structure without unnecessary friction.

• A builder's and operator's mindset — energized by creating structure, testing what works, and continuously improving the model as the business evolves.

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to build credibility quickly across Retirement Solutions, Sales, Compliance, Marketing, and Financial Services leadership.

• APMP certification or comparable proposal management training is a plus.

Education, Training and Experience:

• Bachelor's degr