Executive Director, Contracts

Job Requirements

• Serves as the Department Head for Contracts, designing, managing, and driving effective solutions for the development, negotiation, and execution of all study-level contracts.
• Partners collaboratively with Business Development, Operations, Finance, and Legal to ensure the contracting lifecycle process is efficient and effective supporting complex contractual negotiations with customers and sites as required. 
• Develops, updates and maintains metrics and dashboards to ensure executive leadership visibility into performance.
• Communicates contract and budget negotiation progress to internal and external stakeholders focusing on identified revenue priorities for the organization. 
• Responsible for strategy, oversight and management of the Grant Budget function for the organization, including directly responsible for Grant Budget team and pricing strategy. 
• Collaborates with Operations Finance to ensure budgets and contractual terms meet financial objectives. 
• Supports Legal with review of finance terms in master-level agreements ensuring appropriate financial posture is maintained broadly. 
• Serves as pricing approver and signatory for the organization.  
• Ensures contract management tracking systems and repositories are maintained, improving tools to support contract and revenue visibility for the business. 
• Establishes and maintains study-level contractual templates providing continuity in contractual terms across all business lines. 
• Supports its direct managers in hiring, developing, and engaging a cohesive and highly skilled contract team.? Ensures team is trained with necessary skills including knowledge of contractually significant elements of clinical research protocols; reviewing and understanding clinical trial agreements; preparing Work Orders; Amendments; Change Orders; Third-Party Vendor Agreements, and negotiating Investigator grant budgets based on the protocol and study operational requirements. Directly supports team in contract development, negotiation, and execution, as required. 
• Harmonizes the integration of legacy processes, streamlining contractual terms, maximizing efficiencies, and providing an end-to-end contracting solution across all business areas.

• Holistic accountability for employee productivity, utilization, and compliance, evaluating volume against full-time equivalent metrics set for the department. 
• Assessing the teams’ individual and collective performance identifying areas that need improvement and addressing sub-standard performance providing constructive feedback and development as necessary. 
• Supporting line managers in the day-to-day management and prioritization of contractual inventory. 
• Establishing and communicating departmental goals for performance and deadlines aligning with the company’s plans and vision, in addition to departmental objectives. 
• Ensuring that business goals, deadlines, and performance standards are met according to set benchmarks and established company policy. 
• Ensure adherence to legal and company policies and procedures and partner with TalentServices to undertake disciplinary actions if needed. 

• Subject matter expert in the field of contract negotiation, with a focus on finance terms ensuring cash neutrality for the organization.  
• Clear and concise written and oral communication skills, including the ability to present ideas and suggestions clearly and effectively. 
• High attention to detail ensuring top quality in the contractual documents effectuated within the company. 
• Excellent interpersonal and leadership skills, including organizational and prioritization: ability to accomplish multiple tasks within the agreed-upon timeframes through effective prioritization of duties and functions in a fast-paced environment.? 
• Ability to work with functional groups and different levels of employees throughout Elligo to achieve business results effectively and professionally. 
• Self-motivated; able to work independently to complete tasks respond to department requests and collaborate with others to utilize their resources and knowledge to identify quality solutions. 
• Proactive and timely follow-up skills: the ability to organize applicable department timelines and follow up with internal and external stakeholder needs as needed. 
• Proven track record of building and maintaining solid relationships with both internal and external stakeholders. 

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Finance or related field. 
• 15+ years of experience directly related to contract management in the clinical research industry. 
• 7+ years of direct managerial experience required. 
• Excellent negotiation and drafting skills.
• Demonstrated strong proficiency with word processing, spreadsheet, database, presentation software (MS Office applications such as Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and SharePoint), and Salesforce.