Ask The Expert

Charlotte has a wealth of bid management experience leading multidiscipline proposals within the Engineering, Construction and Professional Services industries, and is now a Bid, Pursuit and Operations Manager, at Ashurst.

Starting as one of the world’s first Bid and Proposals Apprentices, she is passionate about personal development, creating diverse bid teams and the importance of wellbeing. She has experience in creating and promoting approaches that will encourage best practice and drive change, including developing best practice tools and team initiatives to create an inclusive and considerate bidding environment.

She is the Founding Director of WIBAP (Wellbeing and Inclusion in Bids and Proposals), a professional network which was created after digging into research showing clear inequalities in the bid and proposals profession (such as the Bid Solutions Salary Survey) and working closely with a number of people in the industry targeting diversity challenges. Alongside the WIBAP team, she aims to create a positive and inspiring network of professionals who can provide guidance to each other, and to achieve a more equal and diverse workforce within the industry.

In 2017 she was also part of the Strategic Proposals’ Rising Stars award programme which recognised outstanding individuals aged under 30 within bid and proposals and she has completed her APMP Professional qualification.

About WIBAP

WIBAP (Wellbeing and Inclusion in Bids and Proposals) started in 2018 as a direct result of industry research that highlighted gender inequality in our profession. With no good explanation for this, WIBAP created a community of people – from a variety of roles and industries from all over the world – to support anyone within the bidding profession to remove barriers that prevent women from making progress in their careers.

Now focused on all areas of diversity and inclusion, we facilitate networking opportunities to promote conversation and share knowledge and advice about EDI; create tool-kits to help individuals and organisations monitor and embrace diversity within their bid and proposal functions; and highlight the importance of mental health and wellbeing within the profession. Currently, we have over 3,000 members across the world, and hope to continue to expand our network over the next few years. We have also launched the WIBAP Pledge – a pledge for a fairer and more equal profession.