Principal Pursuit Leader

Arcadis is the world's leading company delivering sustainable design, engineering, and consultancy solutions for natural and built assets.

We are more than 34,000 people, in over 30 countries, dedicated to improving quality of life. Everyone has an important role to play. With the power of many curious minds, together we can solve the world’s most complex challenges and deliver more impact together.

Role description:

Arcadis is seeking a Principal Pursuit Leader to lead pipeline development for some of the firm’s most significant and complex pursuits, including alternative delivery procurements, public-private partnerships (P3), joint ventures, and other multi-partner infrastructure opportunities. The role will manage a portfolio of high-value pursuits at various stages of development, focusing leadership where early positioning, capture strategy, coordinated planning and collaboration across teams can have the greatest impact on winning outcomes.

The successful candidate will play a leading role in developing Arcadis' major-project pipeline and preparing priority opportunities for pursuit. Working well ahead of an RFP, they will help teams understand client and project drivers, assess the competitive and partner landscape, identify gaps and differentiators, and build practical capture plans that position Arcadis to compete effectively when procurements advance.

The ideal candidate is a collaborative and commercially aware pursuit leader with experience shaping large, complex infrastructure opportunities. They combine sound pipeline judgment, client and market insight, strategic planning, facilitation, stakeholder management, and communication skills to turn emerging opportunities into focused, pursuit-ready plans.

Role accountabilities:

This role will provide leadership across the front end of the pursuit lifecycle, from pipeline assessment and early positioning through capture planning and transition into active proposal development. You will work with client-facing leaders, Account and Sector teams, technical specialists, delivery leaders, and executive sponsors to determine where Arcadis should invest and what must be accomplished before an opportunity formally enters procurement.

You will manage and prioritize a portfolio of major-project opportunities, assessing strategic fit, client and project drivers, procurement and delivery model, competitive position, likely partners, available experience and resources, timing, risk, and investment needs. You will establish clear recommendations for which opportunities require active capture, continued monitoring, further qualification, or no further investment.

For priority opportunities, you will lead or facilitate capture planning, including client and stakeholder intelligence, competitor and partner assessments, decision-maker mapping, teaming strategy, project and procurement analysis, gap identification, differentiator development, early win themes, and pursuit readiness planning. You will translate this work into clear actions, owners, milestones, and decision points that keep teams focused and accountable.

Working closely with contractors, concessionaires, external partners, technical teams, commercial, finance, legal and risk teams, you will help build integrated pursuit strategies that reflect client priorities, delivery realities, and Arcadis capabilities. You will facilitate strategy workshops and executive discussions, challenge assumptions, and help teams make timely choices about positioning, teaming, investment, and solution development.

As opportunities move into an active procurement, you will provide a structured handover to the Principal Proposal Leader and proposal team, transferring the capture plan, client and competitor insights, partner strategy, differentiators, commitments, risks, and key decisions developed during the front-end phase. You will continue to support win strategy, governance, interviews, and key decision-making where continuity adds value.

You will maintain pursuit governance and portfolio visibility, ensuring that opportunity status, capture actions, investment decisions, risks, and leadership direction are clearly documented and communicated. You will also promote capture and pursuit best practices, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement while mentoring pursuit professionals and strengthening front-end capability across the organization.

Finally, you will support continuity from capture through proposal and, when appropriate, into handover to project delivery, helping ensure that the client understanding, strategic choices, and commitments established during the pursuit are carried forward.

Qualifications & Experience:

• Experience leading the front end of major, high-value, and strategically significant pursuits within the infrastructure, transportation, water, environmental, buildings, energy, or related sectors.
• Demonstrated experience managing and prioritizing a portfolio or pipeline of complex opportunities involving multiple business units, sectors, partners, contractors, concessionaires, and consultants.
• Experience serving as a Pursuit Lead, Capture Manager, Business Development Leader, Major Projects Leader, or similar strategic pursuit role.
• Strong understanding of alternative delivery and collaborative delivery models, including Design-Build, Progressive Design-Build, CM/GC, P3, DBFOM, or similar procurement approaches.
• Strong knowledge of capture planning, client and stakeholder analysis, competitor and partner assessment, teaming strategy, opportunity qualification, win strategy, and pursuit governance.
• Proven success positioning major opportunities before RFP release and converting early intelligence and strategic planning into actionable capture plans and winning pursuit strategies.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, strategic planning, analytical, and stakeholder management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to influence and collaborate effectively with senior leaders, client-facing teams, technical specialists, contractors, concessionaires, and external partners.
• Demonstrated ability to manage ambiguity, competing priorities, long pursuit horizons, and diverse stakeholder expectations in complex major-project environments.
• Experience mentoring pursuit professionals and contributing to capture and pursuit capability development.
• Proficiency in CRM, pipeline, collaboration, research, and pursuit management tools, including Microsoft Office and related platforms.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent, with relevant professional certification and/or chartered status preferred.
• APMP certification or other relevant capture, business development, or major-project credential preferred.

Why Arcadis?

We can only achieve our goals when everyone is empowered to be their best. We believe everyone's contribution matters. It’s why we are pioneering a skills-based approach, where you can harness your unique experience and expertise to carve your career path and maximize the impact we can make together.

You’ll do meaningful work, and no matter what role, you’ll be helping to deliver sustainable solutions for a more prosperous planet. Make your mark, on your career, your colleagues, your clients, your life and the world around you.

Together, we can create a lasting legacy.

Join Arcadis. Create a Legacy.

Our Commitment to Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging

We want you to be able to bring your best self to work every day. Our ambition is to be an employer of choice and provide a great place to work for all our people. We are an equal opportunity employer. We are dedicated to a policy of non-discrimination in employment on any basis including race, creed, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, citizenship status, disability, veteran status, or any other basis prohibited by law.

Arcadis offers benefits for full time and part time positions. These benefits include medical, dental, and vision, EAP, 401K, STD, LTD, AD&D, life insurance, paid parental leave, reward & recognition program and optional benefits including wellbeing benefits, adoption assistance and tuition reimbursement. We offer nine paid holidays and 15 days PTO that accrue per year. The salary range for this position is $xxx,xxx - $xxx,xxx. Actual salaries will vary and are based on several factors, such as experience, education, budget, internal equity, project and location.