Who You'll Work With

You will be based in our Chicago or Columbus Office and will work closely with Social, Healthcare and Public Entities (SHaPE) Practice leaders, client team leaders and consultants serving the Midwest states.

You will also work collaboratively with other client development advisors, contracting specialist and proposal managers.

Your impact within our firm

You will work closely with client team leaders and consultants serving Midwest states to expand the firm's impact within these markets by playing a key role in generating new engagements, with focus in capital cities of Springfield, Illinois and Columbus, Ohio.

In this role, you will participate in process client development. In the Public Sector, process is in three phases: business development, which includes all activities that occur before a client organization has decided internally to move ahead with a consulting engagement on a given topic; capture management, which begins once an opportunity has been qualified and ends with the formal award decision; and proposal delivery, which typically starts with the request for proposal (RFP) or equivalent procurement release and ends upon proposal submission.

You will have responsibilities across all three of these areas as an individual contributor and key catalyst for collaboration with practice leaders and associates.

Business development will compose a significant portion of your effort, and examples of what you'll do in this phase include establishing relationships with procurement professionals in priority client organizations and senior and mid-level professionals at the prospective client, in concert with McKinsey client project team leaders, to construct comprehensive client account plans and manage the client opportunity pipeline. Other responsibilities include establishing relationships with other consultancies and contractors with whom McKinsey might partner in service to the government; supporting client teams in the development of written materials for client development discussions; attending conferences and industry days where public sector contracting opportunities might be discussed; gathering intelligence about upcoming procurements for which McKinsey might be well suited to compete; making recommendations to client team leaders about how they could more effectively develop business with clients.

In the capture management phase, examples of what you'll do, include providing market research input in advance of procurement to assist the government in understanding their needs and clarifying their requirements such that they are able to procure the type of assistance they require. You'll also make recommendations to practice leaders and consultants about how they can gather useful information about emerging procurements, identify partners with whom McKinsey could team for emerging procurements, finalize teaming agreements, and develop opportunity-specific competitive intelligence - including relative strengths and weaknesses of competitors.

In the proposal delivery phase, examples of what you'll do, include understanding the objectives and requirements of the RFP and formulating a view about what it will take to win the procurement, collaborating with team members to ensure key aspects of client intimacy resonate through the proposal, and creating workplans and aligning resources to generate high-quality proposals on time.

Your qualifications and skills

• Undergraduate degree; graduate education is preferred but not required
• 10+ years of professional experience in business development, capture management, and proposal delivery in the Midwest state & local market
• Solid experience working at large professional services firms, developing opportunities across Illinois & Ohio state governments
• Full and deep understanding of the Midwest state government market, corresponding state procurement process, how such procurement decisions are made, and how a consultancy like McKinsey can maximize the chance of winning new contracts
• Successful track record developing client relationships with Midwest state & local government leaders
• Distinctive collaborative mindset with an ability to forge effective relationships across various constituents in a distributed and non-hierarchical organization
• Ability to build consensus for their ideas and help lead without formal line authority
• Proven strategic and analytical thinking skills to identify new opportunities and resolve complex challenges throughout the client development process
• Entrepreneurial approach; ability and desire to initiate the identification and pursuit of innovative ideas in business development while orchestrating C-level stakeholder management
• Excellent writing and editorial skills