Competitive Intelligence (CI) Manager I

About this role

The Competitive Intelligence (CI) Manager I serves as an enterprise growth leader operating parallel to Business Development and Capture. This role architects and institutionalizes the CI function across the full BD lifecycle — from long-range market shaping through proposal execution and executive strategy. CI is not a sub-function of Capture. It operates alongside Capture and BD leadership to maintain objectivity, enable enterprise-wide visibility, and ensure intelligence continuity across pursuits. The CI Lead ensures intelligence is proactive, predictive, and embedded across the growth lifecycle — strengthening competitive discipline and protecting long-term enterprise positioning. The CI Lead transforms intelligence from a reactive support capability into a predictive enterprise growth engine. This role increases win probability, strengthens executive confidence in major pursuit investments, reduces strategic blind spots, and builds durable competitive advantage across the organization’s growth portfolio. By institutionalizing the CI discipline and embedding intelligence across the lifecycle, the CI Lead ensures sustainable, compound growth aligned with enterprise objectives.

The ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance), Aviation, and Security (IAS) business area is a leader in ISR and aviation, it is a leading prime manned and unmanned aircraft systems integrator for innovative, high-performance ISR and aviation systems. Its end-to-end Command, Control, Computers, Communications and Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance (C4ISR) capabilities encompass design, integration, test, certification, ground/flight training and complete logistics support. IAS tailors solutions to customer cost, performance, and schedule requirements and designs to consistently exceed expectations – with an unrivaled record of on time and on (or under) budget deliveries.

Responsibilities: Enterprise Growth Strategy & Market Foresight • Lead enterprise-wide competitive positioning strategy. • Provide forward-looking market assessments and threat forecasting. • Analyze industry shifts, M&A; activity, and emerging entrants. • Inform strategic planning and investment prioritization. • Advise executive leadership on competitive risk and expansion opportunities. • Winning large new business programs. • Mentor and develop the SNC’s CI team personnel, fostering a high-performance culture. • Conduct in-depth market assessments to stay ahead of industry trends and customer demands. • Collaborate with product development and engineering teams to influence new product strategies based on market insights.

Organizational Positioning & Governance • Operate as a peer strategic function alongside Capture and other BD leadership. • Establish governance frameworks for competitive assessment integration. • Maintain recommendations objectivity in bid/no-bid decisioning. • Ensure cross-pipeline intelligence continuity.

Pursuit Architecture & Competitive Strategy • Support the development of content for use in SNC gate reviews. • Support milestone/gate reviews, black hat sessions, solution sessions, blue teams, and support proposal reviews. • Lead competitive assessments, teaming, and price-to-win efforts. • Oversee competitive risk modeling for priority pursuits. • Collaborate closely with business development, technical, management, pricing, and executive teams. • Architect Black Hat and competitor simulation frameworks. • Shape win strategies grounded in competitive reality. • Influence Gate reviews with executive-level intelligence briefings. • Lead and/or support the development and submission of white papers, RFI responses, and other proposal artifacts as assigned. • Contribute to and utilize a comprehensive opportunity-specific CI Plan. • Build and manage relationships with the Capture Team, the SNC’s other Business Development personnel, teammate personnel, SNC & teammate management, relevant client personnel, and industry stakeholders.

Proposal Differentiation & Strategic Messaging • Ensure enterprise differentiation is reflected across proposals. • Conduct delta competitive assessments post-RFP release. • Evaluate executive summaries for clarity and advantage strength. • Drive alignment between overall business winning strategy and proposal development.

Intelligence Infrastructure & Institutionalization • Design and scale standardized CI tools, repositories, and playbooks. • Build sustainable intelligence processes beyond individual pursuits. • Establish CI metrics tied to pipeline health and win performance. • Embed competitive discipline organization-wide. • Executive Advisory & Board-Level Insight • Deliver quarterly competitive landscape briefings to senior leadership. • Identify systemic risks to enterprise positioning. • Provide independent analysis to challenge assumptions and prevent blind spots. • Serve as strategic advisor on long-term growth trajectory and market influence.

Qualifications You Must Have: • Bachelor’s degree in a related field. • 4+ years of experience in related field. • Relevant experience can be considered as a substitute for the required educational qualifications. In the absence of a degree, a minimum of 8 years of related experience is required. • Higher level relevant degree may substitute for experience. • Demonstrated experience leading proposal teams. • Expertise utilizing proposal management software and AI tools. • Experience with simultaneously managing multiple proposals of all sizes from proposal planning to delivery. • Progressive technical, proposal writing and proposal management experience with emphasis in technical products and logistics services. • Excellent written and oral communication skills and the ability to motivate/work with others. • Ability to work successfully in a highly collaborative, fast-paced environment. • Experience preparing Pricing Volumes to include work breakdown structure (WBS) and Basis of Estimate (BOE), including government cont

Similar jobs

• Senior Competitive Intelligence Manager — Pagerduty · San Francisco
• Competitive Intelligence Analyst — Hklaw · Operations Center - Tampa | Philadelphia | New York - 787 Seventh Avenue
• Competitive Intelligence Analyst — Cooley · San Francisco | Los Angeles | Santa Monica
• Competitive Intelligence Lead — Harvey · New York
• Competitive Intelligence Lead — Openai · San Francisco
• Competitive Intelligence Lead — Harvey · San Francisco
• Competitive Intelligence Principal — OutSystems · Remote
• Staff Competitive Intelligence Analyst — Datadog · New York, New York, USA; San Francisco, California, USA