[Hiring] Director of Partnerships @102902d0-5a14-42e9-897b-71f86918e754

Role Description

The Director of Partnerships is a strategic leader responsible for identifying, pursuing, and winning federal funding opportunities (e.g., grants, cooperative agreements, OTAs, subawards, and FAR-based procurement contracts). This role addresses top-of-funnel capture, focused on strong market intelligence and relationship-building.

Core Responsibilities

• Federal Business Development & Capture (60%)
  • Agency Engagement & Positioning: Cultivate relationships with federal program officers, contracting officials, state partners, and prime/subcontractor networks to increase their awareness of ASTRO’s capabilities, identify upcoming opportunities, and shape requirements.
  • Pipeline Management: Monitor agency forecasts, existing OTA and membership programs, as well as SAM.gov, Grants.gov, and market intelligence tools (e.g., GovWin) to identify and qualify federal funding opportunities. Maintain a tracking pipeline via CRM systems.
  • Shaping: Work with key government agencies to identify potential opportunities for collaboration to support common goals in manufacturing technology, supply chain, and industrial base development.
  • Bid Strategy: Lead Bid/No-Bid gate reviews. Develop win strategies, value propositions, and price-to-win analyses tailored to agency pain points.
  • Teaming & Partnerships: Identify, negotiate, and establish strategic teaming agreements, subcontracts, and academic/industry partner alliances to strengthen probability of win.
• Partnerships & Consortium Engagement (40%)
  • Industry Liaison: Oversee operational leadership, governance, and member engagement for collaborative research and technology deployment consortia.
  • Government Support: Structure and manage Executive, Technical, and Government Advisory Committees to align public-private R&D investment priorities.
  • Facilitate: Advance consensus among stakeholders across industry, government, and academia to accelerate technical adoption and commercialization pathways.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Communications, Public Policy, or any STEM discipline (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math).
• 5+ years of progressive experience in federal business development, capture, or proposal management.
• Demonstrated track record of writing and securing high-value federal grants or contracts (e.g., DOD, DOE, NSF).
• Existing knowledge and relationships in Advanced Manufacturing and the Defense Industrial Base.
• Strong working knowledge of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), Grants and Agreements guidance (2 CFR 200), and agency-specific procurement guidelines.
• Deep familiarity with structured proposal methodologies (e.g., Shipley).
• Superior communications skills, technical writing, project management, and cross-functional team leadership.

Performance Metrics

• Total value of federal awards won annually.
• Win rate percentage on submitted solicitations.
• Quality and volume of qualified opportunities added to the pipeline.
• On-time, 100% compliant submission of all assigned proposal efforts.