Director, Commercial Lead - epocratesWe are looking for a Director, Commercial Lead to join the Sales team withing our epocrates division. In this role, the Director, Commercial Lead will oversee a portfolio of high-profile pharmaceutical and life sciences accounts while helping shape and expand one of epocrates' most important strategic agency partnerships.
This role is designed for an experienced commercial leader with a strong executive presence, deep pharmaceutical media expertise, and a proven ability to lead complex client and agency relationships. The ideal candidate brings a consultative, partnership-oriented mindset and has experience navigating sophisticated organizational structures across pharmaceutical brands, media agencies, and senior marketing stakeholders.
Beyond managing a book of business, this individual will serve as a strategic commercial leader responsible for driving long-term account growth, strengthening executive-level partnerships, and helping advance epocrates' broader commercial and agency strategy. The Director, Commercial Lead, will play a critical role in developing integrated, forward-thinking media strategies that span endemic digital advertising, sponsorships, programmatic activation, custom solutions, audience intelligence, and emerging AI-enabled engagement capabilities. This role requires the ability to operate at both a strategic and executional level, influencing annual planning discussions, identifying growth opportunities across portfolios, and elevating epocrates' position within the healthcare media ecosystem.
This individual will partner cross-functionally with Sales Leadership, Agency & Business Development, Commercial Growth & Strategy, and fellow Commercial Leads to drive strong client outcomes, strengthen epocrates' market position, and support long-term commercial growth across strategic accounts and partnerships.
The Team: epocrates, Inc., an athenahealth company, is recognized for developing the #1 medical application among U.S. physicians for clinical content, practice tools, and health industry engagement at the point of care. epocrates has established a loyal network of more than one million health care professionals, including 50 percent of U.S. physicians, who routinely use its intuitive solutions to help streamline workflow and improve patient care.
Job Responsibilities- Own and grow a portfolio of pharmaceutical and healthcare accounts with responsibility for revenue growth, retention, and long-term partnership development.
- Serve as a senior commercial lead across pharmaceutical manufacturers and agency relationships, building executive-level engagement across planning, strategy, investment, activation, and procurement teams.
- Lead strategic client discussions around HCP engagement, endemic media, sponsorships, programmatic activation, audience intelligence, and AI-enabled engagement opportunities.
- Develop integrated commercial solutions that align client objectives with epocrates capabilities across direct, sponsorship, custom, and programmatic offerings.
- Lead complex sales cycles from opportunity development through negotiation, execution, and long-term account growth.
- Identify and advance new business opportunities across assigned accounts, agency relationships, and strategic partnerships.
- Operate as a strategic advisor to clients and a market-facing representative of epocrates within the pharmaceutical and healthcare media ecosystem.
Typical Qualifications- Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience.
- 10+ years of experience in pharmaceutical advertising, healthcare media, HCP engagement, agency partnerships, digital media sales, or related commercial leadership roles.
- Strong endemic healthcare media expertise and understanding of HCP engagement environments and clinical workflow-driven marketing strategies.
- Experience working with major pharmaceutical marketing and media agencies, including organizations such as CMI Media Group, Omnicom Group, and IPG strongly preferred.
- Demonstrated success managing complex, matrixed pharmaceutical and agency relationships across brands, business units, and cross-functional teams.
- Strong understanding of programmatic activation, audience targeting, data-driven optimization, and evolving healthcare media ecosystems.
- Experience leveraging AI-enabled tools and engagement strategies to improve campaign performance, workflow efficiency, and commercial outcomes.
- Proven ability to influence executive-level stakeholders internally and externally.
- Strong executive presence, consultative selling, negotiation, communication, and strategic planning capabilities.
- Experience operating effectively in fast-paced, evolving commercial organizations.
- Existing relationships across pharmaceutical manufacturers and Northeast-based healthcare agency ecosystems preferred.
Expected Compensation$147,000 - $249,000
The base salary range shown reflects the full range for this role from minimum to maximum. At athenahealth, base pay depends on multiple factors, including job-related experience, relevant knowledge and skills, how your qualifications compare to others in similar roles, and geographical market rates. Base pay is only one part of our competitive Total Rewards package - depending on role eligibility, we offer both short and long-term incentives by way of an annual discretionary bonus plan, variable compensation plan, and equity plans.
