Posted: 18 June
The role
Farrelly Mitchell helps the world’s most ambitious food and agribusiness companies make the right decisions. With expert insight and local market intelligence, we build and implement sustainable strategies that help clients restructure, transform, and grow. From offices across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, we serve corporates, sovereign wealth funds, private equity and institutional investors, development finance institutions, governments, and multilateral agencies. delivering over $20 billion in due diligence and transaction advisory mandates alongside a deep portfolio of food systems and development engagements.
Our clients include leading multilateral and public institutions, international development banks, supernational executive commissions, multilateral trade and standards bodies, and a range of national ministries and development agencies. As demand for our development and impact work grows, we are strengthening our well-established Client Solutions Team with a dedicated Consulting Proposals Lead to lead the pursuit of competitively tendered and grant-funded opportunities.
Purpose of the role
The role sits within our Client Solutions Team, a highly skilled group of specialists that work alongside our Regional Consulting Teams to support the bid process. The Client proposals consultant reports directly to the Manager of Client Solutions.
The candidate is responsible for identifying, qualifying, and converting funding and tender opportunities into winning proposals for complex agrifood projects. Working closely with technical leads, regional consulting teams, partners, and senior management, the role owns the end‑to‑end client proposals lifecycle, encompassing horizon‑scanning and opportunity identification, consortium and partner sourcing, and the drafting and submission of compelling, compliant, and competitive bids.
Key responsibilities
Opportunity identification & pipeline
Continuously scan funding portals, tender platforms, and institutional pipelines to identify relevant opportunities for complex agrifood projects.
Qualify opportunities against the firm’s strategy, capabilities, and win probability, and maintain a structured, prioritised bid pipeline.
Track upcoming EU calls (including Horizon Europe) and multilateral and donor programmes, anticipating requirements ahead of publication.
Partner & consortium sourcing
Identify, approach, and secure suitable consortium partners, subcontractors, and individual experts to strengthen each bid.
Build and maintain a network of partner organisations, research institutions, and associates across the agrifood and development sectors.
Negotiate roles, contributions, and partnership terms in coordination with senior management.
Proposal drafting & submission
Lead the drafting of high‑quality technical and financial proposals, ensuring a clear, persuasive, and evidence‑based win theme throughout.
Translate complex technical input from subject‑matter experts into compelling narratives.
Interpret tender requirements, build response matrices, and ensure every mandatory criterion is fully addressed to meet compliance.
Manage timelines, contributor inputs, internal reviews, and quality assurance through to on‑time submission.
Capture lessons learned, debrief outcomes, and continuously improve templates, content libraries, and win rates.
What does success look like?
Success in this role is measured by the quality, competitiveness, and conversion of the proposals you lead. In your first year, we would expect a strong candidate to:
Build and maintain a healthy, well‑qualified pipeline of agrifood opportunities aligned to the firm’s strategy and capabilities.
Improve our win rate on submitted bids through sharper qualification, stronger win themes, and consistently compliant, high‑quality submissions.
Secure the right consortium partners and experts to make our bids more competitive and credible.
Establish efficient, repeatable bid processes (response matrices, content libraries, and review cycles) that reduce effort and raise quality over time.
Deliver every bid on time and fully compliant, with no avoidable disqualifications on technicalities.
Become a trusted partner to technical leads and senior management, recognised as the owner of the end‑to‑end bid lifecycle.
Qualifications & Experience
Proven proposal‑writing experience. A demonstrable track record of writing high‑quality, persuasive proposals and contributing to winning submissions is essential.
End‑to‑end proposal management capability. Including opportunity identification, partner sourcing, drafting, and submission.
At minimum a master’s degree in a relevant discipline (agricultural economics, food systems, international development, agronomy, environmental science, public policy, or a related field).
Outstanding written English, with the ability to structure persuasive arguments and convey technical content clearly to non‑specialist evaluators.
Strong communication skills, including the ability to engage confidently with clients, ask the right questions to uncover needs and requirements, and translate those insights into compelling tender and bid responses.
Excellent project‑management skills and the ability to manage multiple proposals to tight deadlines.
EU and multilateral funding expertise. Ideally hands‑on experience with EU instruments such as Horizon Europe, including identifying calls, shaping responses, and meeting compliance requirements.
Familiarity with the consulting landscape at EU and multilateral institutions. A strong working understanding of how bodies such as the FAO, IFAD, WFP, the European Commission, and award work.
Experience developing proposals and securing work with private clients across the agrifood and development sectors.
A PhD in a relevant agrifood, development, or policy discipline is a distinct advantage.
Direct experience working within, or bidding to, UN agencies or the European Commission.
An established network of partners, associates, and experts across the international agrifood and development community.
Working knowledge of a second language relevant to our markets (ideally French, Spanish, Arabic, Italian, or Portuguese).
Experience with development and impact programmes, capacity building, institutional development, food security, or monitoring and evaluation.
Personal attributes
Strategic and commercially astute, with sharp judgement on which opportunities to pursue.
Meticulous attention to detail and an instinct for compliance and quality.
Collaborative and diplomatic, able to coordinate experts, partners, and senior stakeholders.
Self‑directed, deadline‑driven, and calm under the pressure of competing submission dates.
What we offer
A pivotal role at the heart of the firm’s growth, with direct influence on the projects we win and deliver.
Exposure to high‑profile international clients and multilateral institutions across multiple regions.
A collaborative, expert‑led culture and the support of a global network of sector specialists.
Competitive remuneration commensurate with experience and flexible working arrangements.
Opportunities for growth and development in an ambitious growth‑driven boutique consulting firm.
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