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Keith Propst retired in 2018 with 30 years of experience in proposal management. He held proposal-related positions with two high tech companies for most of this time, with a 3-year period of independent proposal contracting between companies. Like most proposal professionals, Keith was drafted into proposal work unintentionally. He worked as a hands-on proposal manager as well as a director of a proposal organization. Before making the leap into proposal work, Keith worked for several Georgia-based manufacturing companies in a variety of roles.

APMP was a major factor in Keith’s success. APMP contacts helped him get started as an independent contractor and led directly to his second proposal position, which lasted 13 years. For more than 20 years, Keith filled a variety of leadership roles with the Georgia Chattahoochee APMP chapter, starting as program co-chair, then chapter chair for several years, and finally treasurer. He also served as co-chair for the Southern Proposal Accents Conference (SPAC) for more than a decade, working closely with peers in the Carolinas and Florida Sunshine APMP chapters. Keith is an APMP Fellow and was named Chapter Chair of the Year.

An Atlanta native, Keith grew up in Savannah, Georgia and graduated from Georgia Tech in 1973 with a BS in Applied Math. He credits his favorite high school English teacher with instilling good writing and editing habits and strongly believes that the ability to write clearly helped open doors throughout his career.​

Bobbie O’Brien, CF APMP Fellow, continues her attempt to retire. Having been lured from that idyllic state three years ago; another attempt will begin again in soon and also will probably only a few months! With almost 30 years’ experience in the Federal sector, she provides leadership to diverse proposal teams with direct accountability for leading strategic opportunities as well as development and continuous improvement of processes. Bobbie served on APMP’s international board (regional and strategic initiatives director); and was founding co-chair of the Liberty Chapter formerly known as NY Metro.

Rita Mascia is Global Bid Manager at Altro Rail and has been leading bids in APAC, EMEA and North America. Since 2000,  Rita has been involved in Business Development & Capture activities, Bid Writing, Bid Management and Training & Development. An active APMP member from 2012, Rita has presented at both the APMP UK and APMP Bid Con. She was a finalist in the 2019 APMP Individual Impact Award having been nominated for her impact setting up a Bid Management programme for Altro Rail.

Rita was a Board Member of APMP UK in the role of Certification Director (2015-16).  Since 2013 Rita has been volunteering as a coach and mentor to a number of fundraising professionals through the Small Charity Coalition and also informally through personal contacts.

In addition to being a Certified Professional (CPP APMP) Rita is also a certified Prince2 Project Management Practitioner and holds a level 7 Executive Diploma in Strategic Management & Leadership (MCMI) from the Chartered Management Institute.  She holds a BA (Honours) in French and Linguistics and a Master in Applied Linguistics.  Rita is a Master Practitioner of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) and a Toastmasters International Competent Leader (CC) and Competent Communicator (CL).

When she is not managing bids, Rita loves cooking, travelling, politics, and watching independent films.

Pippa Birch has worked in bidding for almost 20 years, the last eight as a freelancer. Her specialism is highways; however, she works with a diverse range of clients across many sectors. Pipster Solutions has become a successful, sustainable business with over 40 clients, providing bid writing, editing, management, coaching, and ongoing support. Pippa is a fan of keeping things simple, a champion of small companies and a supporter of creating and maintaining healthy connections with other bidding professionals. She wants young people to have easy access to information about amazing careers in bidding. Pippa is CPP APMP, APMP UK Rapport Mentor, Member of the Intentional Career Path Committee and is on APMP UK Awards 2020 Committee. Pippa also hosts #ThursdayThrong and #BidBites host and is part of the Bidding Quarterly award-winning team and a coach for APMP Professional submissions!

Karina Ames is experienced in winning work for engineering consultancies and currently leads Arup’s Infrastructure pursuit and bidding team in Australasia. She previously worked as a private investigator and with the Victorian Government. Karina holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne, APMP Foundation Certification and was a 2019 APMP 40 under 40 winner. She has been an APMP ANZ committee member since 2016 and the Chapter Chair since 2019. This year, the chapter won the 2020 Stephen P. Shipley Chapter of the Year award.

Suzanne Jones, CP APMP Fellow, has made her career as a capture/proposal professional.  She is a Proposal Director and Business Winning Leader for one of the top U.S. defense contractors. Her winning record includes many billions in new and hyper-competitive wins in three top-ranked companies.

In 18 years, Suzanne has proven to be a capable leader in a complex industry.  While gaining valuable experience, Suzanne has given back to the profession by volunteering her time to the APMP.  She served on the Board of Directors (BOD) of the Nor’easters chapter for 4 years (1 as Secretary, 3 as President). During that time, she was instrumental in growing their membership and event attendance, and leading their award-winning annual symposia. In 2013, Suzanne won Chapter President of the Year.

Suzanne also served on the APMP International BOD for 5 years, 3 of those as an Officer [COO (2014); CEO (2015); and Past CEO (2016)] during a major time of transition.  Under her leadership in 2015, APMP membership increased by 19%, one of the highest years to-date. That same year, she introduced the popular Ignite Talks as part of the annual Bid & Proposal Conference (BPC) agenda, which was a fresh, new idea that received rave reviews.  The Writing Bids & Proposals for Dummies book was also another significant project during that year.

Suzanne remains an active APMP member and certified Practitioner. In addition to her corporate and APMP awards, in 2017, Suzanne earned a seat in the first ever 40-under-40 class, and that same year earned the designation of APMP Fellow, the association’s highest honour.  Just a few months ago, in May 2020, she was presented the APMP Proposal Executive of the Year award.

Suzanne holds a Bachelor’s degree from Liberty University. She cherishes time with family and friends, and enjoys travel, sports, and exercise.

Sunil has over 18 years of experience in Defence, IT & Telecom and Facilities Management sectors and has worked with MNCs like Thales Group, Ericsson and ISS A/S. Sunil is currently, the Head of Commercial Excellence (APAC) at ISS A/S, a facility management company headquartered in Denmark. At ISS A/S, Sunil established the Commercial Excellence function which encompasses of Bid Management, Price Management, CRM Administration, Graphics Designing and Knowledge Management. As a member of the ISS Asia Pacific Commercial Leadership Team, he supports the development and execution of the regional commercial strategy and governance, associated reporting and commercial model sign-offs.

Prior to his Corporate stint, Sunil has served as an officer in the elite Indian Air Force for 10 years. Sunil is the Chair of APMP India and a member of the Intentional Career Path Committee of APMP International. He is part of APMP 40 Under 40-Class of 2020 and was a Blue Ribbon Panel member for the APMP-BoK. Sunil holds Bachelors’ degree in Electronics Engineering, a post-graduate diploma in Business Administration along with professional accreditations in Aeronautical Engineering and Strategic Management. Sunil likes to travel and spend time with his family, when he finds time from his work or studies.

Neal Levene, CPP APMP is the Director of Proposal Management, Siemens Government Technologies. He has 30 years of sustained, progressive, and successful proposal development experience. He was previously the President and CEO of two small businesses, a 20-person, Data Warehouse company and a sole practitioner Proposal Management consultancy. He first caught the proposal bug shortly after graduating college when he was first asked to help out on resume preparation, and he never looked back. He is serving his third year on the Board of the National Capital Area Chapter of APMP, currently as the Technology Chair. He appreciates the opportunity to give back to the industry that has given him so much. Neal has been an active member of APMP since 2010, and he recently presented at the 2017, 2018, and 2019 Bid & Proposal Conference. In addition to APMP’s Professional Level Certification, Neal also holds a Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification from the Project Management Institution (PMI). Neal lives in Ashburn, Virginia with his wife Diane. He has two grown daughters, one pursuing a history Ph.D at the University of Wisconsin, the other a Junior at Carnegie Mellon studying Engineering.

Mairi Morrison originally started her working life as a graphic designer, moving into bid and proposal management 18 years ago. She’s an all-rounder in the profession, with an excellent track record of proposal management – winning complex multi-million global bids for corporate companies; bid writing – helping clients focus their words on the customer, as well as successfully hitting the dreaded word and character count, and bid strategy. She’s worked across most sectors, in the UK and the US, and worked on specific deals in Greece, Kuwait, Norway and South Africa. Having worked her way up the ranks from small company to corporate life, she now works for Strategic Proposals.

Mairi’s been a member of the APMP since 2014 and won the Bid Excellence award in 2015. Holding APMP Professional certification, Mairi now also sits on the APMP UK Board as Marketing & Communications Director. She’s also actively engaged in thought leadership, publishing her research paper on “Mental health and wellbeing in the bid and proposal profession” in May 2020. As well as being an advocate for nurturing good mental health in our profession, she is also a crisis volunteer outside of work, to help those in need. Mairi has also presented at the APMP UK annual conference, and the US Nor’easters conference in 2017.

Jeremy Glover is a TS cleared, certified Project Management
Professional (PMP) with 10 years of proposal and project management
experience with a track record of multiple billion-dollar proposal
wins. Jeremy graduated with a bachelors of arts degree from the
University of Virginia and currently works as a proposal manager lead
for Lockheed Martin. Jeremy is also a 2020 APMP 40 under 40 award winner

Maria Flikkema directs proposal development for IBI Group. With a primary focus on the Canada East region, she has managed large scale proposals across the firm globally and provides strategic direction to proposal teams outside of the Toronto headquarters. Overseeing all aspects of proposal activities, including management of proposal deadlines and progress, and directing the Canada East proposal team, Maria is also responsible for developing a wide variety of customized marketing materials for new pursuits and contract renewals. Having been with the firm for more than 12 years, Maria has a proven track record delivering winning, multi-million to -billion dollar proposals under challenging deadlines for both public- and private-sector clients.

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Sonya Wooley is the President of Mammoth Technologies, LLC, a small boutique proposal firm specializing in proposal management for small business federal contractors. She has over fifteen years of experience in business development, proposal preparation and management, and pricing for federal government opportunities. She has generated proposals valued from $25 thousand to over $1 billion, acting as both Proposal Manager and Capture Manager for small to mid-sized government contracting firms. Sonya has a MA in Behavioral Science from University of Houston-Clear Lake, and received her BA in History from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. She has served as the Chapter Chair for the Lone Star Chapter of APMP for seven years, served on the international board of APMP from 2015 to 2016, and currently serves on multiple APMP committees

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Gareth Earle has been in bid and proposal management pretty much throughout the whole of his career, with nearly 15 years’ experience in managing the submission of winning bids and leading the delivery of projects and programmes to achieve customer and business objectives. He made the conscious decision to specialise in the profession 7 years ago.

Gareth has been on the other side of the table, evaluating proposals and commissioning work for a major technical and social change programme on behalf of the BBC. For the past 5 years, Gareth has worked for TP Group, a specialist engineering and consultancy company, where he has developed and implemented TP Group’s Bidding Process and is the bid and project management office function owner across the Group globally.

Gareth has been a member of APMP since 2015. Ever since joining, Gareth has been a great supporter of APMP, encouraging other bid professionals to join and pursue certification, as well as attending best practice sharing events. This included Gareth being a speaker at the UK’s 2017 conference; only his second conference attendance. Gareth holds Practitioner certification and was awarded recognition for his influence and achievements in the profession under the 2019 40 Under 40 class.

Gareth has been a member of the UK chapter Board since April 2018, and having held the positions of Membership Director, Conference Director and Vice-Chair, Gareth is the current UK Chapter Chair and is a member of the APMP Chapter Liaison Committee.

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Mike Walsh, CF APMP is the current Chair of APMP. Concurrently, he leads the Alumni and Strategic Business Development efforts for EY’s Financial Services Organization. Mike has spent his entire time at EY in Business Development, starting more than 8 years ago as a Communications and Pursuit Strategist then leading the Service Line Enablement team prior to taking his current role. He was first introduced to proposal management while at Odyssey Systems Consulting Group, a midsized defense contractor. His professional career began 24 years ago as an officer in the US Coast Guard, and since then has taken a few twists and turns on its way to Business Development including stints as a Fire Training Captain for the State of New Hampshire, a middle and high school English and History teacher.

Mike received a B.S. in Government from the US Coast Guard Academy and M.S. in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga University. He has been on the Nor’easters board of directors since 2012 and served as the Chair of the Nor’easters Chapter from 2014-2019. Mike began APMP International board service in 2016, serving a 2-year term as Director and is currently in the middle of his 3-year term as Vice Chair, Chair and Past Chair.

As the only named Federal Proposal Manager at Michael Baker International, Valerie leads the proposal team through complex federal and state proposal pursuits as well as facilitating capture planning and strategy meetings on company must-win architecture / engineering / construction efforts worth millions of dollars. Valerie has diverse marketing and communications experience in developing, implementing, and managing large-scale, complex, and multi-million-dollar submittals for federal, state and local, education, aviation, commercial, and defense markets.

Valerie developed “Cover Letter/Executive Summary” manual within the Proposal Development (PD) group at Michael Baker. The manual is shared to new hires during their on-board training, as well as to current hires to be used as a refresher in developing strategic narrative content. Additionally, Valerie provides six to eight weeks mentoring and training to new hires, and refresher training to PD staff. Valerie is Winner of APMP® 40 Under 40 2020 Award and earned her CF APMP and CP APMP certification in 2018 and 2019 respectively, and the Shipley Business Development certification, which she received in 2018. Valerie also hopes to pursue her Professional Certification (CPP APMP) in 2021, and to also serve on the board of her local APMP chapter.

Valerie has Bachelor of Arts degree from Lawrence University and Executive MBA from Sullivan University. Starting in January 2020, Valerie began a Master of Science (MSc.) degree in Project Management to enhance her project management and leadership abilities on corporate/companywide must-win pursuits at Michael Baker.

Wolfram Seyring has more than 26 years of experience in business development, sales and sales support with national and international clients.

Wolfram owns Shipley GmbH, Shipley Associates, SEYRING GmbH and co-founder of BidBox GmbH, registered in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 2011. Previously. Wolfram was Global Head of Sales – VimpelCom at NSN, Head of CMO Restructuring –Global at NSN, VP/Head of Global Sales Support – Global at NSN/Nokia, Account Director – France Telecom Germany at Nokia, Global Account Executive – Deutsche Telekom at Ericsson.Wolfram also led diverse workshops on capture and bid management as well as on writing winning proposals and implementing successfully processes in defence, aerospace, telecommunications and transport sectors.Wolfram was co-founder of APMP DACH in 2007. He is also an APMP certified proposal manager. Wolfram Seyring holds a degree in Electrical Engineering (Applied Science, Düsseldorf) and has had considerable additional business education.

Sarah Jones is an APMP-qualified bid consultant with over two decades of experience, she has delivered large-scale proposals and advised businesses on capture, bid and proposal processes. She is adept at coaching and mentoring people at all levels, with standout success helping emerging talent to pass APMP exams and develop exceptional bid management careers.

Previously Global Head of Bid Process, Bombardier Transportation, a multinational leader in the rail industry, Sarah head up its global bid function, motivating a team of 300 and optimising a £100M+ bid budget. As UK Head of Bids, General Dynamics, she built a new proposal management department. Between 2008 – 2013 she supported Shipley Middle East delivering Shipley methodologies to major customers across that region and beyond. In 2006 Sarah moved to Dubai to build the bid function from the ground up for The Olive Group LLC, a security company. This resulted in a major increase in bid win rate, from 8.5% to 48%, delivering combined sales of $400M, and the company’s biggest ever deal, an $88M contract with the US DoD. As a bid manager and coach at Qinetiq Group PLC, leading defence company, she generated major successes, including the £250M European Space Agency contract. Sarah has a BSc Anthropology at University College London.

Roshinee Naidoo is an intrinsically motivated, highly accomplished professional with around two decades of experience in preparing detailed deals for multiple projects and composing & presenting winning proposals. She is an expert in strategizing the different disciplines and departments and implementing bid governance models and best-practice methodologies.
Roshinee has successfully delivered 250+ professionally produced, compliant proposalsis and has worked on tenders ranging from €150K to €20M. She won strategic bids accumulating revenues AED 50M (australian dollars) for her company. Also Roshinee is the first ever and only person of colour with the highest proposal professional accreditation in Africa.

• Winning specific projects and contracts for clients by providing ‘hands-on’ strategic proposal and presentation support in formal procurement and informal / proactive sales scenarios
• Delivering interim management and consultancy services to help organisations to improve their win rates whilst increasing the efficiency of their bid and proposal operations
• Delivering proposal skills development, coaching and APMP accreditation training

Stacey Duwe, CP APMP runs her own consulting business, Write Fit Solutions, helping her clients with all the things she loves about proposals, for clients that range from small, tech based start-ups to non-profits to fortune 100 companies in commercial and government sectors and across a range of industries. Stacey earned her BA in English and women’s studies from Cleveland State University in Cleveland, OH, is APMP certified (Foundation and Practitioner), and was recognized in the inaugural class of APMP 40 Under 40. She is also an active APMP member and has served on the Greater Midwest Chapter Board of Directors since 2017 as the Publications Chair, then Secretary, Vice Chair, and currently as Chapter President.

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