Business Development Director

About ATR Consulting

Assess Transform Reach (ATR) is an international research, monitoring, and evaluation firm specializing in third-party monitoring (TPM), data collection, and evidence generation in fragile and conflict-affected settings. ATR was founded in 2012, has implemented projects in 44+ countries, and has delivered over 290 multi-sector assignments for some of the world’s most demanding clients, including the World Bank, UNICEF, WFP, UNESCO, FAO, the European Commission, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

ATR’s work spans the full monitoring cycle at scale. Annually, the organization conducts thousands of physical site visits and tens of thousands of interviews across active conflict zones and hard-to-reach areas, supported by a roster of over 4,500 field enumerators, 400+ trained call center agents, and a dedicated in-house data analytics function. This includes serving as physical monitoring lead on the World Bank’s largest single TPM contract globally, as well as delivering census-scale data collection, post-distribution monitoring, impact evaluations, and community feedback mechanism oversight across humanitarian and development portfolios worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

ATR’s roots are in large-scale monitoring work in Afghanistan, and the past two years have been a period of strong growth by adding new contracts in Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria, and Chad on top of an already established global footprint and long-standing frameworks with UN agencies and multilateral donors. Building on this momentum, the organization is now entering a new phase of growth diversifying its portfolio, moving from reactive bidding to proactive positioning, diversifying funding sources, and building a stronger presence beyond a limited set of markets and institutional donors.

Job Summary

ATR is seeking a Business Development Director to drive the implementation of its 2026–2027 growth strategy across three connected funding streams:

• Philanthropy and private sector
• EU mechanisms
• Institutional donors (to a lesser extent)

The Role: A Hands-On Leadership Opportunity

This is a senior, hands-on role for someone who:

• Owns opportunities end-to-end—from shaping early-stage concepts to leading competitive consortiums.
• Builds rather than inherits—designing a function from the ground up during a genuine growth phase.
• Leads a small team (currently 5: BD Manager, officers, assistants) with accountability for quality, consistency, and pace—while still contributing hands-on at every stage, from identification to submission.

Key Focus Areas

Proactive Positioning

• Shape opportunities early.
• Develop unsolicited concepts.
• Engage funders ahead of formal calls.
• Manage multi-partner consortiums competitively at the proposal stage for large-scale framework opportunities.

Marketing & Positioning

• Support the redesign of ATR’s website.
• Build tangible “products” from ATR’s work (case studies, briefs, organizational profiles, thought leadership pieces).
• Strengthen ATR’s overall digital presence and visibility with donors, partners, and the wider sector.

Ideal Candidate

Self-Starter

• Sets their own priorities.
• Makes decisions with incomplete information.
• Brings structure to a still-evolving function.

Experience & Network

• Credible experience and an existing network in at least one of the primary pillars: philanthropic foundations, private sector actors, or EU development instruments (spanning both grant and framework opportunities).
• Institutional donors are an important part of the portfolio, and the BD Director will at times contribute to more traditional tender responses.

Mindset

• Flexibility, resourcefulness, and a bias toward action matter more here than following an established playbook.

Strategy & Overall Pipeline Direction

• Drive the BD function toward securing ~USD 5M in awarded contracts over 12 months, with direct accountability for EU and institutional donor-sourced awards (~USD 3–3.5M) and shared accountability for the team’s overall results.
• Work closely with the Managing Director to translate ATR’s 2026–2027 fundraising strategy into a quarterly BD workplan, setting clear priorities, targets, and ownership across the team.
• Own the organization-wide bid/no-bid framework, ensuring decisions across the whole BD function including the philanthropy and private sector pipeline, reflect strategic fit, competitiveness, and realistic conversion potential.
• Maintain a single, coherent view of ATR’s total pipeline across institutional donors, EU mechanisms, and philanthropy/private sector, coordinating closely with the BD Manager, Philanthropy & Private Sector Partnerships to avoid duplication and ensure aligned prioritization.
• Establish and maintain a focused portfolio of priority institutional and EU donors (approximately 15–20 organizations), leading engagement with these actors in coordination with the Managing Director.

EU Access & Institutional Growth

• Own ATR’s EU funding pipeline across grant and framework instruments, and lead engagement with EU institutional counterparts ahead of formal calls.
• Lead a feasibility assessment into establishing an EU-based entity or office for ATR, evaluating the legal, operational, and financial requirements to build in-region capacity, the EU funding instruments this would unlock (e.g. NDICI-Global Europe, EU trust funds, ECHO), and the additional EU procurement frameworks that favor or require an EU-registered presence, and present a clear recommendation to the Managing Director and leadership.
• Oversee the team’s contribution to institutional donor tenders (World Bank, UN agencies, bilaterals), personally leading the highest-value or most complex submissions.
• Manage multi-partner consortiums at the proposal stage for large-scale EU and institutional framework opportunities, aligning partners around a shared technical and commercial approach under tight deadlines.

Proposal Leadership & Quality

• Personally lead priority EU and institutional proposals, working closely with technical staff, partners, and the wider BD team.
• Raise proposal quality across the team through stronger structure, clearer messaging, and sharper positioning, coaching team members rather than working in isolation.
• Oversee the development of strong, context-appropriate methodologies and clear visual presentation, ensuring proposals are credible, realistic, and aligned with ATR’s delivery model.
• Build and maintain proposal templates, tools, and content libraries so quality improvements are sustained across all submissions, including those led by the BD Manager, Philanthropy & Private Sector Partnerships.
• Champion the practical use of AI tools within the team to improve drafting, structuring, and synthesis, ensuring they are applied in ways that add real value to proposals.

Partnership Development

• Build, strengthen, and lead a partner ecosystem that supports participation in EU and larger-scale institutional framework opportunities.
• Direct the team’s efforts to identify, engage, and prioritize consortium partners based on strategic fit, complementary expertise, and access to funding streams.
• Maintain a practical partner tracking approach, capturing key information on expertise, geography, and past collaboration.
• Lead partner engagement during proposal development for consortium settings, ensuring clear roles, realistic expectations, and coordinated inputs across organizations.

Brand & Digital Presence — Strategic Direction

• Set the overall vision and positioning strategy for ATR’s brand and digital presence, including the direction for ATR’s website redesign, ensuring it reflects ATR’s credibility and range of work to donors and partners.
• Approve and provide final sign-off on core BD and brand materials, capability statements, pitch decks, service briefs, and website content, ensuring consistency with how ATR positions itself externally.
• Delegate day-to-day execution of website content, case studies, and digital channels to the team, while maintaining strategic oversight and quality control.

Systems, Processes & BD Infrastructure

• Work with the Director of Operations to refine and operationalize core BD systems, including the pipeline tracker, proposal repository, and basic costing references.
• Develop simple, practical SOPs for proposal development and partner engagement that improve consistency without adding unnecessary process.
• Improve turnaround time and overall coherence across proposals, building systems the team can actually use rather than imposing rigid process.
• Ensure ongoing alignment between BD, Operations, and delivery teams, particularly where implementation experience should strengthen proposals.

Compliance & Sustainability

• Strengthen ATR’s organizational credibility in the eyes of donors and partners, recognizing that this is increasingly linked to funding access, not only compliance.
• Work with Operations and leadership to develop, refine, and clearly articulate key organizational policies (e.g. ethics, safeguarding, data protection, environmental practices), ensuring they are practical and externally usable.
• Build a coherent “package” of credibility and compliance materials that can be consistently reflected in proposals, capability statements, and external communications.
• Ensure these elements are positioned effectively in proposals and partner discussions, strengthening ATR’s eligibility and competitiveness, including for EU procurement requirements.

Essential

• Over 15 years of experience in business development in international development or consulting.
• A proven track record securing funding through EU funding mechanisms (grants, frameworks, procurement cycles) and/or institutional donors (World Bank, UN agencies, bilaterals), with an existing network and strong working knowledge of EU funding and procurement structures.
• Demonstrated experience managing multi-partner consortiums at the proposal stage, including for large-scale framework agreements, with the ability to align diverse partners around a shared technical and commercial approach under tight deadlines.
• Prior experience leading or managing a team, with the ability to set priorities, coach junior staff, and hold a small team accountable for shared results.
• Strong strategic planning ability, with experience translating an organizational growth strategy into a workable BD plan, targets, and team priorities.
• Working knowledge of EU entity registration, legal presence, or procurement eligibility requirements, or demonstrated ability to assess and lead this type of feasibility work.
• Strong proposal writing and structuring skills, both technical and strategic.
• Experience leading high-value and multi-partner proposals.
• A genuine self-starter who is comfortable operating with a high degree of autonomy in a fast-moving, still-evolving environment — someone energized by building systems and structure rather than waiting for them, and who brings flexibility and resourcefulness to shifting priorities.
• Strong understanding of donor landscapes and funding cycles.
• Demonstrated use of AI tools in BD processes, mandatory.
• Ability to build systems, processes, and workflows from the ground up.

Desirable

• Prior experience helping an organization establish a presence, entity, or registration in the EU.
• Experience in MEL, TPM, or research-focused organizations.
• Experience working in fragile and conflict-affected settings.
• Existing network with EU institutions, consulting firms, or multilateral organizations.
• Familiarity with website content, digital marketing, or communications, sufficient to set direction and approve materials produced by the wider team.

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