Assistant Manager - Business Development Operations

Location: Delhi

Service Area: Business Growth

Duration: 12 months fixed term contract, with the possibility of extension based on performance.

Are you early in your career with an interest in working for a leading international development consultancy headquartered in the UK? This role sits at the centre of ASI on our Business Development Team (BDT) and offers the opportunity to play a key role in the development and operationalisation of a crucial part of the organisation. To grow as a business, we submit bids every week which are often complex, unpredictable, and a race against time. The BDT’s role is to ensure our specialist technical teams have the support they need to prepare for and produce these bids. This Assistant Manager role will directly contribute to the development of standalone bids, but also help to build, operationalise, and iteratively improve the systems which underpin bid development. We are looking for someone who thrives in a fast-paced environment and has excellent attention to detail.

About Adam Smith International

Adam Smith International is a global advisory company that works locally to transform lives by making economies stronger, societies more stable, and governments more effective. Our clients are governments, international organisations, companies, and foundations. They come to us to develop strategies and to design, deliver and evaluate programmes that address the big challenges facing the world.

Our service lines include education, infrastructure and climate change, inclusive markets, governance, justice, security and peacebuilding, public financial management and revenue reform, mining, oil and gas and cross cutting services.

We are committed to corporate integrity and a triple bottom line of social, environmental and financial performance. This commitment was formally recognised when we became a certified B Corp. The certification indicates we balance profit and purpose through the highest standards of transparency and accountability as well as social and environmental performance.  We are also a participant in the UN Global Compact, which certifies our respect for standards of human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption.

We serve an extensive mix of public and private sector clients across South Asia, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Europe, Africa and the Americas and are recognised as leading providers of economic growth and government reform programmes. Our clients are supported by our diverse and global team drawn from our central London Headquarters and offices located in over 20 countries.

About the role

This is an entry level role focused on business development operations which involves the management and coordination of standalone bids and the design, iteration, and implementation of BD systems and processes. The systems behind bids have a considerable impact on our ability as an organisation to run efficient bid processes and secure new work. This role will be central to processes for recruitment, compliance, knowledge management, bid management, commercials, and business analytics.

This role is part of the Professional Development Scheme at ASI, which is a 12-month programme that offers early career professionals the opportunity to learn different business development and/or project management functions across our different service lines and gives you the knowledge and skills to kick-start a career in international development. The scheme is designed to both challenge and support you and give you the knowledge and skills to kick-start your career in international development. You will have the opportunity to collaborate with, support and learn from more experienced Managers across different teams and discover which areas of the business best align with your skillset and interest. 

After successfully completing 12 months with the company, and depending on your performance, you will have the opportunity to progress into a Manager position.

Key Responsibilities:

(a) Bid Support

• Coordinate advisor recruitment: Identify, assess, and recruit best-in-sector experts across a wide range of technical and geographical areas. Manage the full recruitment cycle - including drafting TORs, screening CVs, liaising with candidates, and negotiating rates—ensuring all processes follow ASI’s quality standards and compliance requirements. Contribute to CV drafting on the bids.

• Manage bid processes: Support, and eventually manage, the full lifecycle of proposal development, including work planning, coordinating inputs, quality assurance, formatting, and final packaging.

• Ensure compliance and timely delivery: Maintain oversight of bid requirements, trackers, and submission schedules to ensure every proposal is delivered on time, fully compliant, and responsive to client expectations.

• Support drafting of high-quality financial proposals: Produce competitive, accurate, and commercially viable costings and budgets that align with client requirements, internal policies, and market benchmarks.

(b) Knowledge Management

• Maintain the global project experience database: Ensure our central repository of project experience is accurate, up to date, searchable, and reflects the breadth of ASI’s work. Support ongoing improvements to data structure, tagging, and usability.

• Develop and curate capability statements: Commission, write, refine, and format capability statements and marketing collateral that showcase ASI’s technical strengths, past performance, and geographic footprint. Coordinate with technical teams to ensure content is compelling and evidence-based.

• Support business performance analytics: Contribute to the collection, analysis, and interpretation of business development data. Produce dashboards, summaries, and insights to inform strategic decision-making and reporting to senior leadership.

• Strengthen internal knowledge systems: Help streamline document repositories, templates, and shared resources to ensure the business has rapid access to high-quality, up-to-date materials.

• Promote organisational learning: Capture lessons learned from bids, maintain libraries of strong proposal examples, and support continuous improvement of BD tools and processes.

About you

You thrive in fast-paced, dynamic environments and bring a calm, solution-focused approach to competing priorities. You have strong attention to detail and excellent organisational skills, enabling you to manage multiple workstreams simultaneously without compromising quality. You are proactive, adaptable, and comfortable taking ownership of tasks from start to finish, with the ability to anticipate needs and keep processes running smoothly. You communicate clearly, collaborate effectively across teams, and enjoy being at the operational heart of a busy business development function.

Key Qualifications

• An undergraduate degree in economics, political science, international development, business management, or other relevant field with excellent track record. Masters degree is a nice to have

• Strong writing and editing skills in English, and an ability to write well under time pressure

• Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to work with teams based remotely

• Strong attention to detail is a must

• A demonstrable interest in international development or development economics is desirable

• An ability to write incisively about issues in varying thematic areas

• Proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint

• You mugt be eligible to work in India

What We Offer You

ASI is committed to continually improving the diversity of our workforce through the attraction, retention and development of a diverse range of talented people. We want people to be comfortable bringing their whole self to work and recognise that inclusion brings further opportunities for innovation and creativity.  We keep a sharp focus on diversity and inclusion, including through our Equality Action Plan and our Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and through leadership from our Executive Team and oversight by our Board.

We recognise the importance of your life outside of work. We are proud to support flexible working arrangements and commit to make a success of flexible working arrangements wherever possible. We’ve built a culture to reflect our values, full of likeminded professionals who are smart, passionate and great at what they do.

Deadline for applications is 22nd February 2026.