Staff Interview Name Chris Haynes Job title Group Head of Bids Department/Division Group Bids Date of joining Axis CLC December 2024 Based Stratford
What were you doing immediately before joining us? Construction contractor - ISG Previous experience? I’ve been in bid roles for over 15 years. The largest bid I’ve worked on and secured was a £500m Battery manufacturing facility. Plans for the merged business in outline? Our vision is to be a high performing team, supporting business growth by delivering the best quality submissions in the industry. To utilise data and feedback we receive to create a bidding culture of continuous improvement and to utilise AI and other technology to make us more efficient. We want to attract and retain the best bidding professionals. And I
want to make sure that bidding is fun, and that the team are challenged while enjoying their roles and the part they play in our vision and goals. How will your plans improve our business? These plans will help us win more work and larger projects to deliver our growth targets. Any challenges you would like to share? Recruitment – getting strong bid writers in with sector experience is difficult. We’re making good progress but if anyone has any recommendations, do get in touch! Immediate priorities – what does your day look like? We have lots of bids on at any given time, it’s a constant juggling
act. We currently have large live bids for Norwich CC and Southampton. Securing some of these large bids is critical to business growth. It’s all hands to the deck, from the bid team, ops team and other business experts to make sure we submit the most compelling high scoring bids that stand us out from our competition. What do you need from the business/us to achieve your goals? Ultimately everyone is responsible for delivering bids: share knowledge, ideas that could help us stand out from our competitors, showing what makes us different, whether that’s how we engage with residents or some of our technical solutions.