It depends what this funding is, what rules come with it and how she is defining the post.
For example, it is possible on a lot of grants to name your team and their skills become one of the things your application is judged on. In that case, your friend could be a named applicant and would not have to apply for a post.
However, some grants specify that all named applicants must hold a post at a recognised HEI, in which case it will depend if your friend meets this criteria. Otherwise, the application would have to go with an unnamed post.
If an application has an unnamed post, there is usually an expectation that this post will be recruited for.
There are specific circumstances where this might not happen, for example, if you plan to draw from a pool of people already employed by or having some other formal relationship with the applicant institution(s) or, in some cases, if it's a very small amount of money. However, in both these cases, these roles are rarely full-time posts, they are more for where you want to bring someone in to do a bit of work alongside other work they are doing.
What you shouldn't do, although if we are honest it does happen, is have an unnamed post and run an open competition knowing you are planning to appoint a specific candidate.