Bid Writer Spotlight: Elizabeth Hibbert, CGI
Introduction
Meet the experts elevating the craft of bid writing. Our Bid Writer Spotlight series profiles members of the Focus Group, sharing the personal stories and professional insights of the people dedicated to the art of the win. Discover the passion, the skills, and the faces behind the UK’s most successful proposals.
Professional background and route into bid writing
I didn’t come into bid writing straight from university or with a clear sense that this was a defined career path. My early career was in sales and marketing roles, followed by ten years at a recruitment marketing agency where I worked my way up to agency director. New business development was always central to what I did, and I spent a lot of time writing proposals, tenders, sales letters, and marketing materials, even if they weren’t labelled as bid writing at the time.
After taking a break to start a family, I moved into freelance copywriting. I worked with small businesses on branding, websites, sales copy, direct mail and blogs, and I also ghostwrote extensively for CEOs and senior professionals, particularly for LinkedIn profiles, articles, and thought leadership pieces. Looking back, the common thread through all this work was purpose driven writing. Everything I wrote was designed to win business, influence decisions or achieve a very specific outcome.
The pivot into bid writing came after nearly fifteen years of freelance work. I felt ready for a change, wanted to work as part of a team again, and noticed that traditional copywriting roles were becoming less common. I started seeing more bid writing roles advertised, particularly in large organisations, and although I didn’t fully understand the discipline at that point, I could see a strong overlap with my experience. Although I felt some trepidation, encouraged by a (bossy) friend, I applied by mapping my transferable skills as clearly as possible to the job requirements, and that’s how I joined CGI.
Finding information and preparing for the role
When I was exploring bid writing as a career, I didn’t find a huge amount of accessible information about what the role involved or what good practice looked like. I focused more on understanding the companies I was applying to and aligning my experience with their job descriptions.
During the interview process at CGI, APMP was mentioned, which prompted me to look it up. Before I even started the role, I ordered the APMP Body of Knowledge and essentially taught myself the fundamentals. Arming myself with as much knowledge of the terminology and frameworks as possible gave me confidence going into the role and helped me orient myself quickly.
Once in post, I had to learn Shipley terminology and governance processes, including reviews and gate stages. While the names and structures were new, the underlying concepts weren’t unfamiliar. In my copywriting business I had developed my own thorough client briefing process which was critical to successful copy. This was essentially storyboarding. And I would press clients on the painpoints, hot topics, challenges and worries of their customers. In other words, identifying hot buttons. Exploring every possible selling point, benefit, outcome, evidence and wrapping these up in strong impactful sales messages was my version of developing win themes and statements. And I had always worked with drafts, feedback cycles, and structured development, but bid writing introduced a much more formalised and disciplined approach.
Current role and responsibilities
CGI is a very large organisation, and my role sits within a specific business unit aligned primarily to media, telecoms, and some utilities. I’m responsible for the written proposal, but always as part of a wider bid team. Our bids are typically large and complex, involving bid managers, solution architects, technical SMEs, and other specialists.
My work starts early in the process. I develop storyboards, populate them with research and early thinking, and attend solution workshops and market engagement briefings where possible. Sometimes I write first drafts myself, particularly for more generic or management focused questions. For highly technical responses, SMEs often lead the initial drafting, and I focus on shaping, editing, and weaving the content into a coherent, compelling narrative.
I’m also heavily involved in capture activities. That includes competitor analysis, identifying client hot buttons, helping to define win themes, and developing theme statements that anchor the proposal from start to finish. Maintaining consistency of message throughout the bid is a big part of my role.
Alongside this, I support reviews, resolve comments, coordinate with SMEs, proofread, and sometimes step in to support other teams by running page turns or setting up storyboards even when I’m not on the bid end-to-end. The role is varied and often spans strategic, analytical, and delivery focused tasks.
Influence, stakeholder engagement, and judgment
Influence in my role comes largely through building strong relationships. CGI is a big organisation and knowing who to speak to is critical to success in my role. I place great importance on building trust with SMEs and bid colleagues, understanding their pressures, and positioning myself as someone who can take the burden off them rather than add to it.
If SMEs know they’re in safe hands and that I’ll turn their expertise into a strong response, they'll naturally engage and it will be a productive and enjoyable process. That trust builds over time, and it directly affects the quality of the bid.
Judgment and problem solving are also central. Early on, I assumed bid writing would be mostly about writing. What I’ve learned is that writing is only part of the job. A lot of the real work is understanding what sits beneath the question, what the evaluator is really looking for, and how to structure a response to score well. In many ways, it feels like analysing an exam paper and working backwards from the marks.
Skills that matter most
Questioning and analysis are the most important skills in my view. If you don’t know what to ask, you won’t get the information you need. Storyboarding sessions are only effective if you can extract the right insights from SMEs, and that relies on asking good questions and listening carefully.
Writing matters, of course, but it comes after the thinking. Preparation, research, problem solving, and structuring are what make the writing effective. In practice, in the early stages of a bid, writing accounts for a minority of my time compared to meetings, workshops, analysis, and coordination.
A typical day
There isn’t really a typical day. If I’m on a large bid, there may be daily stand-ups, multiple workshops, and constant engagement with the team. If I’m supporting several bids at once, my time is split across different priorities.
I don’t have as much control over my diary as I did when I was freelance. Ideally, I’d batch meetings together and protect uninterrupted writing time, but that’s not always possible. One boundary I do try to maintain is taking a proper lunch break, even though that can be challenging at busy times.
An area I’m still developing is being more assertive about boundaries and workloads. Working as the Power Hour Lead for the CGI UK Women’s Network gives me access to a fantastic source of tips from other women at CGI and how they successfully navigate this challenge.
Pressure, wellbeing and sustainability
Bid work can be intense, particularly in the run-up to submission. When pressure peaks, it can be difficult not to feel stressed or overwhelmed. I’m learning that sharing the burden and being honest with colleagues when I’m struggling is essential, as well as reaching out to check on others.
For me, boundary setting works best when it happens early. If people have commitments outside work, we flag them at the start of a bid so the team can plan around them. Equally, there are times when I can be flexible and step in to support the team more heavily. It’s very much about give and take.
I’m conscious that not all bid environments are as healthy, and I think the industry needs to be more open about the pressures involved and how to manage them sustainably.
How bid writing is evolving and the impact of AI
I’ve joined the profession at a point where AI has rapidly moved from being peripheral to central. I have strong views on this. In my role, AI is a tool that supports research, analysis, and early drafting, much like search engines and document libraries did previously. It helps me work more efficiently, but it doesn’t replace the core of what I do.
Strategic thinking, storytelling, understanding the client, and working with SMEs are all firmly human activities. AI can generate content, but it also introduces risks, including inaccuracies, hallucinations, and bland, generic responses. Bid writers are needed to challenge, shape, contextualise and individualise AI output.
From what I see, bid writing is not shrinking because of AI. If anything, it’s growing, and the role is becoming more strategic rather than less.
Career development and future direction
I still see myself as learning, both in terms of bid writing craft and understanding a complex organisation like CGI. My focus is on becoming more confident and proficient technically, while also continuing to develop my role in shaping how we use AI effectively.
I’m particularly interested in coaching and capability building. I already support good practice in storyboarding and writing, and I’d like to do more of that, helping to develop our SMEs’ capability and internal bid writer community to raise standards across the board.
I don’t currently have ambitions to move away from bid writing. My goal is to become a better bid writer and see where the role evolves as AI and the profession continue to develop.
Advice for aspiring and developing bid writers
My first piece of advice is to consider bid writing, especially strong sales or business copywriters. Many people with the right transferable skills might rule it out simply because they’re not aware of it or assume they’re not qualified.
If you’re analytical, enjoy problem solving, like business development and can write clearly and purposefully, bid writing can be a great fit. Job descriptions can be off-putting, particularly when they demand several years of direct bid experience, but transferable skills matter more than people realise.
My own route in came from mapping my experience carefully to what employers were asking for and carefully preparing evidence-based responses to likely questions. Research, preparation, and support from recruiters or professional bodies can make a real difference.
Life outside bids
Outside work, I have two teenage daughters and a dog, Poppy, a black Cavapoo who keeps me company while I’m working. I enjoy walking, reading, and I’m an avid listener of audiobooks from self-help on nutrition and wellbeing, to twisty psychological thrillers.
I also have a slightly obsessive love of jigsaws. I’ve had to ban myself from doing them at times because I stay up far too late trying to finish ‘just one more section’.
Final reflection
Looking back, my career path makes far more sense now than it did at the time. What felt like a series of lateral moves has turned out to be a steady progression towards work that sits at the intersection of strategy, storytelling and judgment. Bid writing has given me a professional home where those skills are not only useful, but essential, and I'm really loving the challenge it gives me.
Bid writing is intellectually demanding, collaborative, and constantly evolving. As the profession continues to mature, and as AI reshapes how we work, I see bid writers becoming more influential, more strategic, and more valued than ever. I’m glad I found my way here, and I’m excited to keep growing with the discipline rather than growing out of it.
Spotlight Snapshot
- Your bidding superpower: Empathy to keep the bid on message with the client’s needs.
- One myth about bid writing you’d love to break: That it’s a lonely role; it involves far more teamwork, interaction and meetings than I ever expected.
- A skill every bid writer needs to develop: Networking and relationships built on trust, to enable you to get the answers you need.
- A tool, habit or technique you couldn’t work without: Handwritten lists with tasks physically crossed out for satisfaction and organisation.
- One book, podcast or resource that’s shaped your thinking: Alchemy by advertising guru Rory Sutherland. It's a fascinating read that turns conventional sales and economic theory on its head.
- Three words colleagues would use to describe you: Collaborative, supportive and trustworthy (I had to ask a colleague!)
- Favourite way to switch off: Jigsaws and audio books.
- Coffee order: Flat white