Head of Clinical Operations & Study Delivery

RDI

$150K — $180K *
Pharmaceuticals & Biotech
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5+ years of hands-on experience in clinical research management
  • Proven ability to lead clinical operations team effectively
  • Strong understanding of clinical trial processes from protocol to dataset
  • Experience in managing complex studies with challenging parameters
  • Demonstrable history of building and improving operational systems

Responsibilities

  • Transform study protocols into actionable execution plans
  • Monitor and maintain control over timelines, enrollments, and budgets
  • Anticipate and mitigate potential issues proactively
  • Ensure project status reports are realistic and data-driven
  • Lead and mentor clinical operations team members through hands-on involvement
  • Drive improvements in study management processes
  • Collaborate directly with clients on challenging study issues

Benefits

  • Relocation assistance available
  • Opportunity to build and influence a new Clinical Operations function
  • Hands-on leadership role with direct operational impact
  • Work in a dynamic and fast-paced environment
  • Engagement with high-profile clients and complex studies
Full Job Description
The Role

Can you take a difficult clinical study, figure out what is actually stopping it, and get it under control?

RDI runs diagnostic studies for some of the largest IVD companies in the world. Clients often bring us the hard ones: aggressive timelines, difficult recruitment, unusual sample requirements, complicated site models, or programs that simply need a different approach.

We like that work.

We need another load-bearing operator to own Clinical Operations alongside our CEO and COO and build the team and operating system that let us handle more of it.

This is not a role where you inherit a large department and manage from above. You will lead people, but you also need to understand the work well enough to step into a study, find what is wrong, make the call, and help fix it.

Your job is not to preserve the way RDI operates today. Your job is to make us better.
The Work

You will own clinical study delivery across RDI, including:
  • Turn protocols and scopes into real execution plans.
  • Keep timelines, enrollment, sites, samples, budgets, risks, and client commitments under control.
  • See problems before they become fire drills.
  • Make sure project status reflects reality, not optimism.
  • Lead and develop PMs, CTMs, CRAs, and clinical staff.
  • Decide when to coach, when to delegate, and when to step directly into the work.
  • Improve how we manage study startup, sites, recruitment, monitoring, samples, data, and closeout.
  • Build systems that make accountability and study status obvious.
  • Work directly with clients when difficult programs require senior operational judgment.
  • Build the Clinical Operations organization capable of handling a larger and harder portfolio.
Who We Are Looking For

You have run clinical research yourself. You know what happens between the protocol and the final dataset because you have lived it.

You may come from a CRO, sponsor, research site, laboratory, startup, or academia. IVD and diagnostics experience is valuable, but we care more about what you have personally owned and built than the logo on your résumé.

The strongest candidate is probably a little underleveraged today: highly capable, frustrated by how slowly decisions move, and ready to own substantially more than their current company will give them.

If you have built a research site, laboratory, clinical program, CRO, or operating team, we want to hear about it.
What We Are Not Looking For
  • Someone whose primary skill is managing other senior people.
  • Someone who needs a finished playbook before they can operate.
  • Someone who delegates work they no longer understand how to do.
  • Someone who waits for perfect information before making a decision.
  • Someone looking for a prestigious title, a large staff, and a predictable corporate job.

No leader at RDI gets to stay above the work.
Why Join

Because you want to build a Clinical Operations function rather than inherit one.

Because you want the authority to fix the things you already know are broken.

Because a few years from now, you want to be able to say: I built the clinical operating system that company runs on.

This role is in person at our Los Angeles / Van Nuys office, five days a week. Relocation assistance is available.

If that sounds like a downside, this is probably not the right job.

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