Business Development Executive- CDC/NIH

The Opportunity

As a Public Health Business Development Executive, you will drive Abt’s growth strategy with key clients. Experience building business in the public health markets and in-depth familiarity with associated Federal agencies, including CDC, NIH, and FDA will allow you to grow new business and increase Abt’s impact. You should have superlative client relationship development skills and experience that includes pipeline creation and qualification, business development capture, proposal management, client buyer value and win theme definition, teaming and partnering, and competitive positioning. You will collaborate with other growth-focused team members to identify, qualify, assess, and win high priority business opportunities. These opportunities will primary focus on opportunities with new clients (i.e., ‘white space market areas’), but could also include new opportunities with existing clients. In this role your focus is to generate sales, build/sustain a pipeline of qualified, addressable opportunities that supports the portfolio’s growth and is equivalent to at least 3x of sales plan in line with long-range strategies and plans. You will meet with clients, build relationships with key partners, develop winning bid strategies, including crafting key inputs into solutioning, pricing, teaming, and staffing, and identify resources and requirements to pursue, bid and win.

Core Responsibilities:

• Work against a sales goal in support of larger account plan

• Identify opportunities through client engagement, client and partner networks, and market intelligence tools and data. 

• Align opportunity pursuit to company criteria and strategic priorities.

• Opportunity qualification, including validated win themes and solution features, resulting in a larger qualified pipeline and higher PWin pursuits

• Lead the development and execution of an Account Plan and Strategy for CDC and NIH

• Secure new client relationships and expand existing relationships through creation of relationship maps and call plans and identifying client decision makers and influencers.

• Identify and support up-sell/cross-sell opportunities from existing contracts

• Support and drive the early phases of capture activities, including:

  • Identifying customers’ strategic priorities, goals, pain points, needs

  • Working with Solution Architects to identify and shape high level solutions

  • Defining competitive landscape and Abt positioning relative to competition

  • Define the initial “Why Abt” rationale, teaming strategy

  • Creation of materials for Division leadership, Bid Board for go-no-go determinations

  • Lead content creation for submission to potential buyers, clients, and for government requests (RFI, market research, sources sought, solicitations, etc.)

• Support and drive later stages of capture, including:

  • Supporting more detailed solutioning, pricing, price-to-win activities

  • Participating in color team reviews and supporting B&P

  • Leading/participating in Black Hat/competitive assessments

• Identify and negotiate with partners and prepare input for NDAs and TAs (working with Contracts)

• Creation of client sales presentation materials and decks.  Support the creation of sales/marketing material.

• Identify new opportunities for pursuit, including early identification of opportunities that go to RFP as well as “demand generation” activities that define and shape new opportunities with clients for which Abt is well positioned.

• Maintain and update opportunity management system

• Achieve and exceed annual sales goals.  Grow a larger and more qualified sales pipeline, especially digital.

• Develop business development skills of key staff

What We Value

• P5: Bachelor’s Degree and 12 years of experience or Master’s Degree and 10 years of experience

• P6: Bachelor’s Degree and 15 years of experience or Master’s Degree and 12 years of experience

• Minimum of 10 years’ experience in business development, capture, or equivalent client facing/relationship development role.

• Demonstrated success in identifying, initiating, and nurturing new or ongoing business opportunities at CDC, NIH, or FDA.

• Strong working knowledge of the Federal government’s sales cycle and demonstrated experience working across different phases of that cycle to identify, qualify, capture, and win opportunities

• Understanding of the full Federal government contract lifecycle; past experience in managing contracts in execution and delivery is a plus

• Preference for business development in the areas of digital/AI innovation and low-code, no-code platforms; data analytics and interoperability (e.g., HL7), technical assistance delivery, and research/public policy.

• Previous work with CDC or NIH, public health and clinical research studies, and strong relationships with current Program Leaders and decision-makers

• Strong working knowledge of CDC, NIH, and FDA organizations, mission areas, research, and programs

• Communication and interpersonal skills including verbal and presentation skills to individuals and groups, internally and externally

• Superior proficiency with Microsoft Office tools (e.g., Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Teams, etc.)

• Experience with CRM tools and AI tools