Falling into proposal management: Career path, skills and AI with Tania Field (APMP ANZ)
Building a career in bids and proposals is a funny mix of chaos, challenge, intrigue, pride and growth. You get called a cat herder, a nerd, a pocket rocket, a bulldog, a terrier. The names change, but the theme stays the same. Proposal management professionals are the people who keep the chaos moving, keep the team together, and get the submission out the door.
That’s why I wanted to talk to Tania Field, wearing her second hat as Chair of the APMP ANZ. Like most of us, she didn’t grow up dreaming of being a proposal manager. She fell into it through a secondment from a senior admin role into a proposal coordination position on a joint venture for Central Place Sydney, an unsolicited proposal worth around $3 billion. Not exactly a gentle introduction. She came out the other side a full advocate for the profession, and then did what a lot of high performers do when they find their lane. She went all in, chased every credential she could and made a deliberate decision to build a career around bids.
How people enter the profession is still a pattern
One of the first things Tania and I agreed on is that most people don’t enter proposal management through an intentional pathway. They’ve been doing pieces of it for years, often under different titles and then one day they realise there is actually a profession. A real craft. A skill set that organisations rely on, even if they don’t always name it properly.
That moment matters because it changes how you see yourself. Tania described it as a pivot point. You either drift back into your previous lane, or you decide, this is me. This is my skillset. And once you decide that, you start building it with purpose.
The skillset is broad, but your superpower matters
When I asked Tania to define the proposal management skillset, she was honest about something people don’t say enough. There are different entry points and different strengths, and you don’t have to be dominant in the same area as the person sitting next to you.
Some people are writers first. Some are designers. Some come from marketing, PR, project management, operations, engineering, or admin. Tania’s dominant strengths are organisation, project management and stakeholder management. She can do the other parts, but those are the areas where she knows she excels.
That’s important for people new to the profession, because early on it can feel like you need to be a unicorn. The reality is you need range, but you also need to understand where you are strongest and how you contribute to the team.
Not everyone wants to be a strategist
Tania also pulled me up on one of my favourite assumptions. Not everybody wants to be a strategist.
I tend to assume everyone wants to be in the front end, shaping the story and setting direction. But there are people who love process, compliance, consistency, content libraries, coordination and production. They are exceptional at it, and the profession needs them.
We also talked about how AI might change the shape of this over time. It won’t remove the need for proposal management, but it could refine what different roles look like. Writing may not be as dominant in every bid environment as it once was. The ability to understand and work with AI may become part of the baseline. But on complex joint venture bids, the mess still exists and the need for good people does not disappear.
The soft skills that make or break you
When we got into soft skills, Tania didn’t hesitate. Relationship skills. Strong communication. Problem solving. Empathy.
Empathy is one of those words that can sound soft until you’ve lived through a bid. Proposal managers often end up doing light touch therapy because there is no time for anything deeper. People are under pressure, the stakes are high and the work is personal. If you can’t read a room, calm a situation and move people through uncertainty, you will struggle.
Tania also made a point I wish more people heard early. If you can’t deal with ambiguity, this is probably not the profession for you. Uncertainty is not a temporary phase in bids. It is the environment. If you need to know everything up front, or you need to feel in control of every decision, you’ll find bids exhausting.
Control shows up differently in bids
We unpacked the difference between driving outcomes and being inflexible.
Deb’s style of control is all about creating momentum. This is mine, I’m going to drive it, I’m going to keep it moving. That can be healthy in a bid environment, because someone has to drive progress.
The kind of control that breaks bids is command and control. The rigid, this is the way or the highway approach. Tania has seen project directors bring that style into bid rooms, and it becomes a bottleneck. It slows decisions, inhibits progress and drains the team.
Flexibility is not weakness in bids. It is what keeps the machine moving.
What the profession is talking about right now
Tania and her committee recently ran a major APMP ANZ event with around 180 bid professionals and the themes that came out were telling.
AI emerged because it is part of the future of work conversation. The more interesting question wasn’t the tools themselves. It was what happens to our time. If technology makes high-volume, standard bids more efficient, does that free proposal professionals to step into higher order skills like strategy and facilitation? Does it create room to do more? Or does it change the shape of the career entirely?
Alongside that, the traditional craft still came through strongly. People are still wrestling with how to get the best out of subject matter experts. They are still navigating the dynamics of constrained environments. They are still dealing with hybrid working. They are still asking what to do with the quiet time between bids, and how leaders should manage that rhythm.
The surprises when you go all in
Towards the end, I asked Tania if anything surprised her once she went boots and all into tendering.
She wasn’t ready for how much fun she would have, which I loved. But she was also honest about the stress, especially in major submissions. She talked about growing in maturity and learning how to manage that stress more effectively over time.
She also said something that will make a lot of people laugh in recognition. She was surprised by how dysfunctional most organisations are. Every organisation has quirks. Every organisation has friction. Every organisation has a version of the matrix. And once you’ve seen enough of them, you stop thinking your situation is unique.
The other surprise was how much you still have to lean in, even when you’re in a senior role. You don’t just sit in leadership and delegate actions. You absorb noise, you shoulder pressure, and you protect the team so the writers can do their job. That takes maturity. It takes stamina. And it takes a real commitment to the craft.
At the end of the day, proposal management is a profession built for people who can hold uncertainty, drive progress, and keep the humans moving. We can call it cat herding if we want. But the truth is, it is skilled work, and it is work worth taking seriously.
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[00:00:00]
[00:00:51] Deb: I've been called a lot of names as a tenderer, a cat herder.
[00:00:56] Tania: Mm-hmm.
[00:00:57] Deb: A big nerd.
[00:00:58] Tania: Mm-hmm.
[00:00:59] Deb: I've been [00:01:00] called a weirdo.
[00:01:01] Tania: Mm-hmm.
[00:01:02] Deb: I've been called a pocket rocket.
[00:01:04] Tania: Nice.
[00:01:05] Deb: Yeah, I quite like that one.
[00:01:06] Tania: I've been called a gun Gun for hire.
[00:01:08] Deb: A gun for hire. Yeah. I've been called a terrier. I've been called a bulldog.
[00:01:14] Tania: Nice.
[00:01:14] Deb: Yeah.
[00:01:15] Tania: And uh, probably T-Rex.
[00:01:18] Deb: T-Rex. Ooh, I like it. All of the names that I've been called have something in common, though. They apply to the wonderful people that work in our profession. And I've asked you here with your second hat on Tanya Field chair of the A-P-M-P-A-N-Z to really shed a spotlight on what it is to be a proposal management professionals.
[00:01:44] I think it's a common theme among tenderers proposal management professionals that we fall into tendering. How did you fall into it?
[00:01:53] Tania: So I was in a very senior administrative capacity working for a chief investment officer, huge pipeline [00:02:00] team of 50 people, and I was asked to second into a role, um, in a, uh, I guess a proposal management coordination role, uh, for a jv, um, for Central Place Sydney, which was a, an unsolicited proposal.
[00:02:14] Um, so, uh, what was essentially a, a $3 billion value project.
[00:02:20] Deb: So only a small as first bit up. Yeah,
[00:02:22] Tania: small. Yeah, I know. Exactly. Um, so adjacent to major rail interchange. So it's the busiest, um, railway in Australia, super complex. Uh, yeah. So formed part of that team and came out the other end being a massive advocate for bids and proposals.
[00:02:41] Deb: Did you know what a proposal manager was?
[00:02:44] Tania: I probably had been doing it in capacities, um, but wasn't actually in that title per se.
[00:02:51] Deb: Yeah. Didn't realise that it was an actual profession.
[00:02:54] Tania: Definitely didn't, but I would suggest I'd been acting in that capacity for some time. So [00:03:00] I'd been working in a development team environment for at least, I guess, eight years, um, up until that moment.
[00:03:08] And that was a team of originators. Mm-hmm. So they were constantly chasing acquisitions, but then also competitive processes.
[00:03:16] Deb: Yeah. The next big thing.
[00:03:17] Tania: Exactly. Yeah. So I was always involved in it. It just, I wasn't that official title per se, but when I eventually, you know, through circumstances of moving out of that role and having that moment where you have to pivot or you have to make a decision about your career, I went a tenderer.
[00:03:36] I shall be. And, and therefore when I did that and I went, okay, we're in boots and all, we're gonna run so hard at this. We're gonna find every single kind of, I guess, association, certification, whatever, that I could. Achieve and put down on my resume and prove to every single person moving forward, this is me and this is my skillset.
[00:03:58] Deb: Including [00:04:00] yourself.
[00:04:00] Tania: Yeah. And that's what led me to doing your course at the time, was the diploma, um, that I undertook.
[00:04:06] Deb: Let's look at what that skillset was then. You realised that you had broader skillset to this proposal. If you had to define the skillset, what is it? What does it encompass?
[00:04:19] Tania: I'll be honest, I think you can come at it from different superpowers and strengths.
[00:04:24] Yeah. And you might be forward in one area. So writing and then secondary in others. Yeah. My forward, my dominant set of skills is around organisation and project management.
[00:04:34] Deb: Yeah.
[00:04:35] Tania: And stakeholder management.
[00:04:36] Deb: Yeah.
[00:04:36] Tania: So I can do all of those other things, um, confidently and to a great degree. But those are the areas that I would say I excel in.
[00:04:44] Deb: That's really interesting because if someone is coming new to this profession or they've just recently fallen into it, um, you know, they could be, as you say, a great writer. They could be a creative, they could be a, a graphic designer or have come from an [00:05:00] advertising or a PR background. They could be a marketer, they could be from project management or an operational background, and they, they really have to decide to some extent where they sit within the profession.
[00:05:13] Tania: Absolutely.
[00:05:13] Deb: You said something to me the other day that I found really interesting. You said not everybody wants to be a strategist, Deb. Um, you are known to pull me up on things which I do appreciate enormously. I think there's, are you
[00:05:24] Tania: sure?
[00:05:25] Deb: Yes, I am. I'm positive. I always assume that everybody loves strategy.
[00:05:28] I always assume that, that that's what people want to do, but some people don't. Mm. They're actually really great at, at process or really great at, um, compliance. Really great at consistency or really good at maintaining a, a content pool or exceptional at designing. Is there a space for it? Everybody in the proposal management profession?
[00:05:52] Tania: I think there is, and I think though, that we are changing somewhat how we're evolving with ai. [00:06:00]
[00:06:00] Deb: Mm.
[00:06:00] Tania: It's more about how we're, I guess, how progressed and mature we are at understanding ai. Mm. I think that is changing where I would've said every skill comes into this, the muck.
[00:06:11] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:11] Tania: The mess and plays a role.
[00:06:14] Perhaps that becomes a bit more refined moving forward.
[00:06:17] Deb: Yeah.
[00:06:18] Tania: Potentially. Maybe not on the JV consortia bids just yet.
[00:06:22] Deb: Yeah.
[00:06:23] Tania: Yes. You can still be dominant and forward in a certain skill that you are, you're very good at. Yeah. But I think the nature of, um, perhaps writing and how much, uh, how dominant writing is probably changes a little bit.
[00:06:36] Deb: It might be changing over time. Yeah. I mean, I've always said that you actually do have to bring a multifaceted skillset to bidding no matter what. No matter which bit becomes the dominant part of, of how you work within a team. You have to be multifaceted. You know, you might have a project management background, operational background, technical background.
[00:06:55] Many people in proposal management come from engineering, for example. What are the soft skills that people [00:07:00] absolutely must have to make it in this profession?
[00:07:02] Tania: I'd say relationship skills, general communication skills as well. Um, well, not general, really good communication skills.
[00:07:10] Deb: Yeah.
[00:07:10] Tania: Because I've seen a lot of very, um, subpar communicators and that doesn't help in a time pressured environment.
[00:07:17] Problem solving, um, empathy. Mm.
[00:07:21] Deb: I mean you say empathy. I sometimes think we have to be therapists,
[00:07:24] Tania: light touch therapy. Yeah. Because there's no time for,
[00:07:27] Deb: there's no time for deep hard for deep
[00:07:29] Tania: therapy. Hard therapy.
[00:07:30] Deb: Yeah.
[00:07:31] Tania: But, uh, you know, fundamentally that's, you are there to do a job and transition, move people efficiently through something.
[00:07:37] Deb: Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting though because I think if people are people, people, they might actually get a lot of joy from being a proposal manager. You get to experience the best and the worst of people in a very close period of time. And if you care and you have empathy, then you get to actually help them navigate that [00:08:00]
[00:08:00] Tania: a hundred percent.
[00:08:00] Deb: But I also think it's not for some people. Do you think there'd ever be a circumstance where someone came to you and you actually said, don't do this. Don't, don't become a proposal management professional.
[00:08:13] Tania: It's really interesting you say that. 'cause when I had my light bulb moment and said, a tenderer, I shall be, someone reached out to me and said, are you sure you want to go down that path?
[00:08:24] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:25] Tania: Bids are really hard.
[00:08:27] Deb: Yeah.
[00:08:28] Tania: And I went, yeah,
[00:08:29] Deb: yeah, yeah. I am. Yeah. Yeah. Bring it.
[00:08:32] Tania: I think the harder, and for me, the more difficult something is, the more enjoyable I find it. Yes. I don't think it's for everyone. I think if you can't. Probably deal with degrees of uncertainty and ambiguity. It's probably not the place for you to, um, play in because that will never change and you cannot expect it to change.
[00:08:53] Yeah. So you need to be comfortable in not knowing.
[00:08:57] Deb: Absolutely. Absolutely. I, I mean you've [00:09:00] nailed it on the head. Ambiguity, uncertainty. I think I'd probably add that if you are the sort of person that has to be perpetually in control of everything, then this is not the profession for you because you often have to step back and say, I am not in control of this particular decision, or I am not in control of this particular dynamic.
[00:09:24] I can contribute to it, I can be part of it, I can put an idea forward, but I'm actually not. Ultimately going to be able to be in control of it. So if you're very firm on control, control and command doesn't really work very well in a bid environment.
[00:09:43] Tania: Yeah. But I've seen project directors of large, multi-billion dollar projects come into a bid environment who I think are that type of personality.
[00:09:52] Mm-hmm. Quite command and control. 'cause I think that, and it has a time and a place for it. It
[00:09:57] Deb: does. Yeah.
[00:09:58] Tania: But in those bid environments, that [00:10:00] doesn't work that way. Yeah. It actually becomes a bottleneck and an inhibitor to basically progress. So there is a certain extent of flexibility that is required, but I'm probably gonna come back to the aspect of control.
[00:10:14] Deb: Mm.
[00:10:15] Tania: Because I've been sort of probably empowered and given permission by you a fair bit to step into that space. Yeah. Where I think by nature, I do want to drive an outcome, but I've probably been worried that maybe that doesn't work in getting the best out of people.
[00:10:31] Deb: Yeah.
[00:10:31] Tania: And I think you've always recon reaffirmed me and reconfirmed that no, you need to step into that space and drive.
[00:10:38] And drive and drive. Yeah. So I do think control is in it in regard of this is mine, I'm gonna go, oh, this, this is mine. I'm gonna drive it.
[00:10:47] Deb: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:10:48] Tania: The, it's probably the level of inflexibility in that, that's more of the aspect that you have to look at. Yeah. Which is that command and control, this is the way
[00:10:57] Deb: it's gonna be this way or the highway.
[00:10:59] That [00:11:00] doesn't work.
[00:11:00] Tania: Yeah.
[00:11:00] Deb: Yeah. Exactly. No, I agree. So recently you, along with your committee, you, you organised a pretty exceptional event, um, for BID professionals, about 180 people,
[00:11:10] Tania: 180.
[00:11:11] Deb: What were the emerging themes from it for the future of the profession?
[00:11:15] Tania: So AI emerged, we didn't deliberately set out to make it just about ai.
[00:11:20] I'm a big believer in allowing this to be a much broader conversation to see what comes to the surface. So I don't believe in just kind of leaning into the hype
[00:11:29] Deb: Yep.
[00:11:29] Tania: And only talking about the hype.
[00:11:31] Deb: Yep.
[00:11:31] Tania: I guess our role, our, um, as advocating and ambassadors for the profession is to still come back to our core skillset
[00:11:40] Deb: for the people in the
[00:11:41] Tania: profession and make sure that we're developing that.
[00:11:43] But AI emerged as a theme because, and we'd also be silly to not explore it and look at it, but we did it in the context of what is the future of work generally. Yes. As AI then rises to the top, I guess one of the other themes [00:12:00] is then, um, that we saw really strongly through all of those sessions was, well with the impact of ai, what time does that leave available to people?
[00:12:10] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:10] Tania: So if you can consider being in high volume bids, um, that are quite standard by nature, therefore you could assume technology supports you to do that more efficiently. Does that leave room to do. A higher order set of skills.
[00:12:28] Deb: Yep.
[00:12:29] Tania: So you are less in the, in the weeds of kind of the production, therefore you're lifting up to more front, front foot skillset in terms of strategy?
[00:12:38] Or are you, uh, leaving room to do more? Just more? Is
[00:12:43] Deb: there just more
[00:12:44] Tania: generally or are you pivoting, but
[00:12:47] Deb: wait, there's more
[00:12:49] Tania: or are you pivoting completely differently?
[00:12:52] Deb: Yeah,
[00:12:52] Tania: so I think there's three avenues to look at, but the first avenue was the avenue most strongly, I guess, [00:13:00] regarded and discussed at the conference, which is leading into more strategic skillset.
[00:13:04] Deb: Yeah.
[00:13:05] Tania: Less back office type scenario of the profession.
[00:13:09] Deb: Yeah.
[00:13:09] Tania: We both love strategy equally. Yeah. We love a facilitation. We love getting out there in front of the pe in front of the people.
[00:13:16] Deb: The people. The
[00:13:16] Tania: people,
[00:13:17] Deb: the people,
[00:13:17] Tania: people. But I, I guess what we learn is that there's probably 50% of people who like sitting behind the scenes.
[00:13:25] Yep. And so what does that mean for those people?
[00:13:28] Deb: Do you think there's an opportunity there to actually elevate and advocate for the profession as a whole to be recognised for its contribution more because AI might, might take over some of the, I don't know, some of the more mundane and more administrative aspects of what we do.
[00:13:47] Do you see that as an opportunity for us to yell a bit loudly that we matter?
[00:13:51] Tania: I think it gives us an opportunity yes. To yell that we matter more. What we're learning is that the bidden proposal professionals in most [00:14:00] organisations are probably screaming for the technology as well. So you're part of that discussion and you're part of informing those investment decisions because it has a very direct influence and impact and an opportunity, especially when you combine that with, um, I guess revenue growth.
[00:14:16] It's a really direct correlation and very easy to sell. Yeah. So yes, you can leverage, um, that perspective. I think it also, there's just a challenge in how the career. If it does, gets reframed over the next five to 10 years, if we consider it will take a little bit longer than overseas, so maybe we'll borrow some of those insights from overseas before it happens here.
[00:14:41] Yeah, that'll be
[00:14:41] Deb: interesting. Um, what was another emerging area from, from discussions
[00:14:45] Tania: Dominant AI dominant strategy. Uh, it's trying to start to connect people to thinking broadly about the changes going on around you and how it impacts buying decisions. We still went back to the traditional aspects of the [00:15:00] craft.
[00:15:00] Um, so there were some sessions around, uh, getting the most outta your subject matter experts. So that's stuff still reigns supreme.
[00:15:07] Deb: Yeah.
[00:15:08] Tania: People still have the same issues around dynamics of getting the most outta people in a bid, in a constrained environment. Um, I think from a leadership perspective, how do you deal with, when everyone comes off the, the curve of a project life cycle and everything goes quiet and we wait for the next bid to come, what are we doing with that available time?
[00:15:28] Deb: Yeah.
[00:15:29] Tania: Uh, we still have some of these challenges of hybrid working as well, so
[00:15:33] Deb: yeah,
[00:15:33] Tania: they're probably all challenges that are shared commonly across industry.
[00:15:37] Deb: Yeah. And as you came away from the conference, how did you feel about the profession as a whole? What were your reflections?
[00:15:45] Tania: I just felt really proud.
[00:15:47] It was a huge achievement to run 180 person conference and, you know, an initial survey that we ran 99% enjoyed it, got a [00:16:00] lot out of it. So it was fundamentally wonderful. I feel buoyed to be part of a community and I think people are appreciating, seeing that we are shining a spotlight on our profession and we're advocating for our seat at the table and our capability beyond what perhaps it has been seen as probably typically administrative.
[00:16:24] Deb: Yep.
[00:16:25] Tania: And, and even that annoys me to say that word because admin people are just fantastic and what they, people are awesome
[00:16:31] Deb: people.
[00:16:31] Tania: I don't know why we people have ever thought it's lesser than what it is, but, um, yeah. So I, I, I don't know. I felt really great. I, I feel genuinely positive about it. And curious
[00:16:44] Deb: about the future of our marvellous profession.
[00:16:46] Tania: Absolutely.
[00:16:47] Deb: So we will go forth and herd cats together.
[00:16:49] Tania: A hundred percent
[00:16:50] Deb: excellent.
[00:16:51] Tania: Forever more.
[00:16:52] Deb: Forever more. So you decided you were gonna be a tenderer tenderer. You were all in. Any surprises?
[00:16:59] Tania: [00:17:00] Probably wasn't ready for the fun I was gonna have. Uh, yeah. I think the, the surprises were, were definitely the, the levels of stress at times.
[00:17:10] And I, but as I would like to contextualise that, that I'm predominantly a major submission manager Yeah. As I've been positioned in this business for ever since I started.
[00:17:20] Deb: Yeah.
[00:17:21] Tania: And I think I've just had to deal with that I've grown in maturity and how I can manage that stress more effectively. Um, so that was a surprise.
[00:17:29] Um, probably a surprise was how dysfunctional most organisations are. But that's not a bad, like I'm not saying that as a, if you are listening and I have work, it's like saying we for you. Yeah.
[00:17:42] Deb: It's like saying we're all human organisations all have their quirks. They all have their level of dysfunction.
[00:17:47] They are not the perfect thing that they
[00:17:48] Tania: seem to be. And I feel quite twee in saying this, but every time someone clarifies, oh, you know, we're a matrixed organisation, it's not that easy to get it. Or, I'm behind the [00:18:00] eight ball and I say, you're not a unicorn,
[00:18:01] Deb: you're not alone in this,
[00:18:03] Tania: at this point in time, every single organisation I've worked with has that same challenge.
[00:18:07] Deb: Yep.
[00:18:08] Tania: And I guess in the inverse of that is why can't we get better at this stuff? We are, we've all got these same challenges. I think they're probably the fundamental, um, it was the stress, um, and maybe probably needing to lean in a little bit more than I expected I would have to. Mm-hmm. Um, so even though I've come in and I'm really privileged in the position I play in multi-billion dollar projects where I get to sit in that leadership role, I'm not suddenly just sitting there and delegating 50,000 actions.
[00:18:39] I'm actually probably absorbing quite a lot of it too in order to, I guess, reduce the noise that hits the team of rider that are working with me so that they can get on and do their job. So probably maybe shouldering more than I probably anticipated, but,
[00:18:56] Deb: and shouldering it incredibly well.
[00:18:58] Tania: Well, thank you.
[00:18:59] But I enjoy [00:19:00] it. As I said to you, it is a privilege. It's a great privilege, but it's, it's taken a great degree of maturity to work through that and get to that position.
[00:19:08] Deb: Yeah.
