Capture & Close Manager

Location: Washington, DC preferred

National Security / Federal

Role Overview

Red Cell Partners is seeking a Capture & Close Manager to turn qualified federal opportunities into winnable bids and executable contracts across our national security portfolio. This role sits at the intersection of capture strategy, pricing, proposal governance, and contract execution. You will partner closely with growth leaders, solution strategists, engineering, finance, legal, and proposal resources to improve win probability and get complex opportunities across the finish line.

What You’ll Do

Lead Capture Strategy

• Develop and execute capture plans for priority opportunities across the DoW and broader federal market.

• Partner with customer-facing teams and growth leaders to gather customer insight, shape requirements, and refine opportunity strategy before solicitation.

• Build win themes, discriminators, competitor analysis, and teaming strategies that improve probability of win.

• Support bid/no-bid decisions, stage-gate reviews, and pursuit of governance for the highest-priority deals.

Own Pricing, Commercial Structure, and Deal Close

• Partner with finance, legal, and engineering to shape pricing strategy, cost narratives, and contract structures that are competitive, compliant, and executable.

• Lead the transition from capture to award by ensuring alignment across customer need, solution approach, pricing, realistic timelines, and contractual path.

• Support negotiations and contract finalization in partnership with legal, finance, and executive stakeholders.

• Bring discipline to vehicle strategy and closing pathways, including familiarity with FAR-based contracts, OTAs, SBIR/STTR, IDIQs, and other federal acquisition mechanisms.

Govern Proposal Execution — Don’t Be the Proposal Department

• Partner with proposal management and writing support to ensure proposals are compliant, persuasive, and tightly aligned to win strategy.

• Provide strategic direction on proposal themes, discriminators, pricing logic, and evaluator-facing narratives, while relying on proposal resources for day-to-day writing, assembly, and submission management.

• Participate in storyboarding, color team governance, and major review cycles to ensure each submission reflects the right strategy and commercial posture.

Build a Repeatable Capture & Close Engine

• Create and refine repeatable capture, pricing, and close processes that can scale across multiple portfolio companies.

• Establish consistent artifacts, cadences, and reporting for pursuit of reviews, risk tracking, gate decisions, and award readiness.

• Help Red Cell improve win probability by making opportunity conversion more disciplined, more commercially grounded, and more scalable across the portfolio.

How This Role Works with the Team

This role is designed to complement—not duplicate—the other federal hires. The Head of Growth is responsible for finding and qualifying opportunities and shaping where Red Cell plays. The Solution Strategy & Deployment Director translates customer needs into integrated solution concepts and deployment paths. The Capture & Close Manager works with the contract specialist and proposal writer to convert shaped opportunities into winnable bids and executable contracts.

What Success Looks Like

• Qualified opportunities move into disciplined capture plans with clear win themes, pricing logic, teaming strategy, and contract pathway.

• Red Cell submits proposals that are not only compliant, but strategically sharp and commercially credible because capture, pricing, and proposal execution are tightly aligned.

• More opportunities progress from shaping to award because Red Cell is better at converting opportunity into executable business.

• Red Cell builds a repeatable capture-and-close operating model that lowers the lift on incubation teams and improves portfolio-wide government win rates.

Who You Are

• A senior capture leader who knows how to move complex federal opportunities from qualification to award. Public and internal capture-role materials consistently frame this as the core value of the function.

• Strong in strategy and execution: able to shape requirements, develop win themes, structure teaming, and coordinate pricing and contract close.

• Comfortable working across technical, customer-facing, legal, finance, and proposal teams to drive outcomes in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.

• Detail-oriented and operationally disciplined but focused on improving win probability and getting deals closed—not just managing document production.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in capture management, contracts, proposal strategy, or business development within defense, aerospace, or national security markets. Internal and adjacent role drafts typically describe this experience band for federal growth/capture roles.

• Proven experience leading or materially shaping full-lifecycle federal pursuits from capture through award.

• Strong understanding of DoD and federal acquisition pathways, including FAR/DFARS; familiarity with OTAs, SBIR/STTR, IDIQs, and related vehicles strongly preferred.

• Experience building win themes, competitor analysis, teaming strategies, pricing approaches, and governance.

• Ability to translate complex technical capabilities into compelling pursuit strategy and evaluator-facing value propositions.

• Experience partnering closely with proposal-management resources rather than having to personally own every aspect of proposal production.

• Active U.S. security clearance preferred; ability and willingness to obtain one required.

Location & Travel

• Washington, DC metro area preferred.

• Some travel required for customer engagement, partner coordination, and cross-functional work.

Salary Range: $150,000-$200,000. This represents the typical salary range for this position based on experience, skills, and other factors.