The opportunity The Senior Director, Operations drives strategy execution and sets operational direction for the Operations function across Riparian, partnering with senior leadership to shape and translate strategic priorities into actionable initiatives that support a high growth, multi-business-unit organization. Reporting to the President, Riparian, this role participates in development of the function's overall business strategy and leads the Operations team. The Senior Director ensures client opportunities are translated into professional, accurate, and timely proposals and contractual documents at scale, while setting the operating model, talent, technology, and processes needed to support the business's continued growth. The Senior Director also partners closely with Account Management leadership and Commercial Growth to support client satisfaction throughout the account lifecycle, ensuring that commercial commitments made during proposal and contracting translate into strong, well-supported client relationships after the sale. The Senior Director oversees the financial health of the business unit and partners with Finance on invoicing, budgeting, and monitoring of invoice payments and outstanding balances. The role is accountable for embedding AI and automation into how the function operates - using technology to accelerate turnaround, improve quality and consistency, and scale output without proportional headcount growth. The role supports the overall health of the business through financial, operational, pipeline, capacity, and performance metrics, identifying risks and opportunities, and driving resourcing and investment decisions with senior and executive leadership.
How will you make an impact at Envision Pharma Group? Role responsibilities
Support Business Unit Strategy and Direction - Participate in development of Riparian's overall strategy, shaping the operating model, goals, and initiatives that support high growth at scale.
- Leads operational direction of proposal development, SOW development, contracting, budgeting/pricing, and commercial operations, ensuring consistency, quality, and speed across all client-facing materials in partnership with Commercial Growth.
- Define the BU-level KPIs and metrics framework used to measure financial, operational, pipeline, capacity, and performance health across the business, including efficiency gains delivered through automation and AI.
- Set the technology and AI strategy for the function, sponsoring where AI, automation, and content reuse can drive measurable gains in speed, accuracy, and capacity - and securing investment from executive leadership.
Lead the Operations Organization - Lead the Operations organization, ensuring effective coverage and coordination across proposal, SOW, contracting, budgeting, and commercial operations activities.
- Own and evolve the operating model for proposal intake, review, and approval workflows across the organization as the business scales.
- Build organizational capability at scale, including structure, career pathing, and succession planning..
- Coach and develop team, supporting leadership development and career growth across the organization.
Own Contracting, Budgeting, and Financial Health - Own contracting and budgeting processes end to end, ensuring commercial terms, scope, and pricing are accurate, consistent, and aligned with margin expectations across the business.
- Provide executive-level oversight of purchase orders (POs) against approved budgets, monitoring variances and escalating material risk to executive leadership.
- Own pricing frameworks, rate cards, and budgeting tools across the organization, ensuring they reflect current resourcing, margin, and market expectations.
- Oversee the end-to-end invoicing process, including monitoring payments and days outstanding, tracking budgets against actuals, and ensuring timely resolution of outstanding balances and discrepancies.
- Partner with Finance and executive leadership to monitor the financial health of the business, including revenue, cost, and margin performance against plan.
Monitor Performance and Plan Resources - Own the overall health of the business through financial, operational, pipeline, capacity, and performance metrics, identifying risks and opportunities.
- Lead BU-level resource planning across multiple teams, ensuring capacity aligns with pipeline demand and business priorities.
- Use KPI and metric insight to drive resourcing and investment decisions, presenting recommendations directly to executive leadership.
- Drive operational excellence initiatives at scale that improve efficiency, quality, and consistency across the business.
Engage Executive Leadership and Key Stakeholders - Work closely with executive leadership on matters of significance to the organization, including large or strategically important proposals, complex commercial terms, pricing or margin risk, and business financial performance.
- Serve as the primary escalation point for the most complex or high-visibility proposals, SOWs, contracting, and financial situations.
- Partner with Business Development, Finance, Legal, and Delivery leadership at the executive level to align on shared commercial outcomes and ensure sales commitments, project scope, and operational delivery requirements remain in sync.
Support Client Satisfaction and Account Management - Partner with Account Management and Customer Success leadership to ensure a seamless transition from proposal and contracting into active, ongoing client relationships.
- Own the monitoring of client satisfaction signals arising from the proposal, contracting, and onboarding process, and address issues that could affect the broader client relationship.
- Partner with Account Management on contract renewals, scope changes, and amendments, ensuring consistency with original commercial terms and client expectations.
- Drive Technology-Enabled Operational Excellence at Scale
- Set and govern standards, templates, tooling, and AI-enabled workflows that scale proposal and commercial operations across a growing, multi-business-unit client and opportunity base without a linear increase in effort.
- Champion a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, commercial rigor, and responsible adoption of new technology across the function.
Owns SOC1 & SOC 2 Audits - Lead the planning, coordination, and execution of annual SOC 1 and SOC 2 audits, serving as the primary point of contact for internal stakeholders and external auditors.
- Oversee audit readiness activities, including gathering evidence, validating control documentation, and coordinating responses to auditor requests.
- Partner with cross-functional teams to assess the design and operating effectiveness of key controls and address identified gaps.
- Monitor audit timelines, deliverables, and dependencies to ensure audits are completed accurately and on schedule.
- Review audit findings and coordinate the development and implementation of remediation plans, tracking progress through resolution.
- Maintain and enhance control documentation, policies, procedures, and supporting evidence to ensure ongoing audit readiness.
- Communicate audit status, risks, findings, and remediation activities to senior leadership and relevant stakeholders.
- Identify opportunities to improve control processes, streamline audit activities, and strengthen the overall control environment.
- Ensure lessons learned from SOC audits are incorporated into ongoing risk management and internal control initiatives.
Do you have what we are looking for? Education and Experience - Bachelor's degree in Business, Communications, Healthcare Administration, Finance, Project Management, or a related field; advanced degree preferred.
- Extensive experience leading proposal management, commercial operations, contracts, or business operations organizations, including managing Director- and Senior Manager-level leaders.
- Proven experience managing multi-layered teams led by Directors and Senior Managers.
- Experience supporting consulting, healthcare, life sciences, market access, pharmaceutical, or government services organizations preferred.
- Experience with project budgeting, pricing models, and financial analysis at an enterprise or multi-business-unit level.
- Track record of setting the strategy for introducing AI, automation, or digital tooling into a business function and delivering measurable improvements in efficiency, quality, or capacity at scale.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities - Responsible for strategy execution and operational direction of a business function within the local entity/business unit or at the regional level.
- May participate in strategy development for the functional area.
- Works closely with executive leadership concerning matters of significance to the organization.
- Typically manages multiple teams led by Directors and Senior Managers.
- Skilled at building and scaling operating models, teams, and processes across a growing, multi-business-unit organization.
- Sound commercial and financial judgment in balancing client commitments, delivery feasibility, margin expectations, and organizational risk at an enterprise level.
- Skilled at monitoring financial, operational, pipeline, capacity, and performance metrics across a business function to inform resourcing and investment decisions.
- Experience with budget oversight, PO management, and financial health reporting across multiple business units or at a regional level.
The provided salary range reflects the potential base salary for this role in the United States, considering factors such as your professional and academic experience, training, and role responsibilities. In addition to a competitive base salary, we offer an attractive total compensation benefits package designed to reward and support our people.
