Meti Tebebe

• Manage a team of pricers whose main role is the development of strategic cost and pricing for multiple donor solicitations across different sectors for large, complex bid development, maintaining high quality, competitive, internal, and donor compliant.
• Analyze RFPs/RFQs and provide guidance on new business costs and teaming strategies by ensuring alignment with IRC’s internal policies and donor regulations to balance cost competitiveness and recovery.
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to develop cost application guidance that would serve as a standardized framework and set of guidelines to ensure that cost applications are accurate, consistent, realistic, and aligned with the organizational objectives.
• Collaborate with Finance colleagues in the development and implementation of the profit/surplus tool that enables strategic decision-making during new business cost development, and assess the financial risks tailored to the specific solicitation and operational context.
• Led in the development and implementation of budget preparation tools and templates that ensure accuracy, efficiency, reduce redundancy, and strategic alignment.
• Serve as the Business Development leadership team in contribution to strategic operational execution.
• Identify areas of improvement in operational performance metrics through after-action reviews.
• Analyze donor feedback, conduct post-award hand-offs to refine proposal strategies, document lessons learned, and improve the future proposal framework.

• Responsible for developing a responsive, accurate, compliant budget, and narrative reflective of the technical design within the established proposal timeline.
• Ensured the use of the organizations' best practices and policies, solicitation requirements, and client policies across a range of opportunities, donors, and schedules, especially flagship programs for USAID and USDA, such as Food for Peace and Food for Progress, based on an analysis of specific solicitations.
• Reviewed subaward budgets and narratives to ensure they are complete, accurate to the proposed scope of work, and compliant.
• In collaboration with the Proposal Manager, Proposal Leader, and country staff, direct adjustments to processes and deadlines as needed, based on the specific needs of individual bids, while upholding corporate interests, business needs, and the overall win strategy.
• Escalate identified potential financial risks and factors to proposal leadership, with proposed cost savings, and risk mitigation strategies.
• Obtain appropriate approvals from key stakeholders on an agreed solution.
• Conducted quality control of final budget-required documents, and participated in the Cost Volume page-through.
• Facilitated budget review meetings, including preparing and distributing materials, and facilitating discussions to obtain budget approval by organization leadership.
• I participated and contributed to co-creation with mission staff members.
• Contributed to a proposal capture process, leading up to preparing a rough order of magnitude, and developing budget targets.
• Maintained and documented the Basis of Estimate, supporting the pricing used in the development of a proposal.
• Developed and implemented tools and processes for efficiently mining information for future proposals, such as country cost data.
• Contributed to the development of the cost and pricing policy, and manual.

• Responsible for the development of cost proposal development for multi-million-dollar programs funded by USAID that are in line with the solicitation and consistent with the technical approach by working collaboratively with the technical experts, the field team, and the internal HQ departments (Contracts, HR, Operations, and Finance).
• Participated in proposal kick-off meetings, and contributed to the analysis of the RFP/RFQs for the purpose of identifying risks, trends, and deviations.
• Engaged with subject matter experts to develop cost strategies and establish guidelines for the basis of estimates.
• Assisted in the development of teaming agreements for subcontractors, with a well-defined scope of work.
• Negotiated pricing, review data submitted by the partner for accuracy and compliance, and ensure that it is in line with the scope of work.
• Responsible for writing the budget narratives and justifications to accompany the budget.
• Developed the appropriate pricing models for different types of contracts (CPFF, FFP, T&M, IDIQ).
• Prepared agendas for budget color team reviews, and presented them to senior management for feedback and consent.
• Ensured all components of the price volume are completed in accordance with the donor’s requirements, and that the proposal packet is fully completed, working in conjunction with the contracts team.
• Engaged in the development of different scenarios and strategies, together with the business development managers and technical teams, for anticipated programs by developing rough order magnitudes and conducting desk research.
• Provide financial support to the program unit team in analyzing ongoing project budgets, budget realignment, forecasting, and developing budget trackers.

• Provided leadership in the start-up of the 20 Million Pounds, DFID-funded Cities, and Infrastructure for Growth program.
• Developed project Operations, Finance, Human Resources, and Procurement manuals, policies, and procedures that are compliant with DFID’s rules and regulations.
• Provided continuous support to project teams and HQ team to execute deliverables and facilitate stakeholder and vendor communication.
• Prepared long and short-term project forecasts based on jointly developed project plans and resource assignments.
• Developed and maintained a tracking system to monitor work plans; the timely submissions of project deliverables and financial reports to DFID, as well as the tracking the program budget and monitored the project expenditures against forecasts containing labor costs, operating expenses and procurement to certify that resources are utilized as agreed and accurately reported.
• Led the in-country branch registration, bank account opening and ensured all legal and financial requirements were met.
• Monitored subcontractors and consultants, reviewed deliverables, invoices; modified contracts; ensured payments are made in a timely manner.
• Organized staff onboarding and conducted the orientations for new staff members.
• Participated in the recruitment process, fine-tuning scopes of works, identifying and screening candidates.
• Set-up the field’s accounting system (Quicken) and created the chart of accounts for the financial tracking of expenditures in accordance with the internal policies and contract regulations.
• Administered the closing of month-ends and reviewed vouchers, cashbooks for accuracy and the timely submission of all financial reports to Headquarters.
• Knowledge of the Zambian labor law, tax, and VAT system.

• Provided financial and administrative oversight for USAID-funded programs exceeding $300 million across countries, including Afghanistan, Botswana, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mali, Somalia, and South Africa.
• Supported Chiefs of Parties in maintaining financial controls, conducting audits, managing payroll, overseeing procurement, ensuring compliance with USAID FAR regulations, and delivering accurate financial reporting and record-keeping.
• Facilitated the development and implementation of finance, human resources, procurement, and operational policies and procedures; this includes systems, manuals, and guidelines to ensure effective internal controls, and compliance.
• Developed uniform financial tracking systems, formats, and processes to ensure accurate financial reporting by country offices that are compliant with donors.
• Collaborated with project management teams in monitoring project activities to evaluate the progress and quality of deliverables, as well as to identify and mitigate risks.
• Oversaw the development of budget realignments based on long-term work plans, forecasted and tracked budgets to assist in evaluating financial key indicators for projects, and budget variance.
• Responsible for preparing and submitting annual and quarterly financial data reports to USAID in a timely manner.
• Reviewed subcontractor agreements, contract modifications, and local staff employment agreements compliant with AECOM, USAID, and the local labor law.
• Delivered training and built the capacity of country finance staff, leveraging subject matter expertise as necessary.
• Resolved billing and cost adjustment entries in coordination with the field and operations staff, and responded to billing inquiries from clients.
• Facilitated project start-ups in Ethiopia and Somalia by developing a plan that details the inception phase of the projects, including key deliverables with associated deadlines, developing financial systems, and establishing effective procurement, operations, and HR processes.
• Led the closeout of projects in Afghanistan and South Africa, ensuring the final financial report, foreign tax report, and final inventory report are in accordance with the donors’ regulations, and submitted to the donor in a timely manner.

• Managed and maintained project budgets of project portfolios ranging from $1 million to $3 million per month in revenue.
• Collaborated closely with program managers regarding contract documents, change orders, and other contract modifications, approvals, and additional services relating to billing.
• Generated and submitted invoices for federal and USAID projects in compliance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) for cost-plus-fixed-fee (CPFF), firm-fixed-price (FFP), and time and materials (T&M) contracts using DELTEK and Microsoft Dynamics Navision; ensured invoices were billed in accordance with contract terms and conditions.
• Analyzed and prepared monthly reconciliation of accounts, including completing reconciliations in advance of Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) audits.
• Closed out projects upon completion to ensure the accuracy of the books.

Supported the development of government contract proposals by conducting market research, analyzing donor requirements, and designing compelling cost models, while ensuring compliance with all necessary criteria while showcasing the organization's capacity and value proposition to successfully secure new business opportunities. Key responsibilities include:

• Gathering information on competitors, market trends, and industry best practices to inform proposal strategy.
• Developing accurate project cost estimates, considering labor, materials, and other relevant factors.
• Ensuring proposals adhere to all government regulations, and RFP requirements.
• Collaborating with cross-functional teams to review and refine proposal documents for quality and consistency.
• Managing the proposal submission process, including final document preparation, and timely delivery.

Oversaw diverse financial and administrative activities for moderate to large programs, ensuring effective support throughout the full contract life cycle. Responsibilities included budgeting, reporting, estimating, cost-to-complete analysis, and program control. Monitored expenses, performed cost and schedule variance analysis, and provided actionable recommendations. Authorized budget expenditures, supported contract deliverables, and prepared detailed financial program reviews, including key performance metrics for organizational leadership. Served as the primary point of contact for internal clients, anticipating needs and ensuring high-quality service delivery.