Opportunity Details

On Assignment Senior Manager, Site Start Up Lead (Hybrid)

Cambridge, MA

KPS Life is hiring a Senior Manager, Global Site Start-Up Lead (SSU Lead) to be fully dedicated to our sponsor client and located on site 3 days per week in either Armonk, NY , Cambridge, MA or Warren, NJ.

We are seeking an experienced site start-up leader with proven expertise in driving global site activation for complex, high-profile clinical trials. The ideal candidate will have strong skills in developing site activation strategies, managing CRO performance, leading line management responsibilities, and leveraging data-driven insights to accelerate study start-up while maintaining inspection readiness.

Summary

The Senior Manager, Global Site Start-Up Lead (SSU Lead) is responsible for driving the global execution of site activation for complex, high profile clinical trials, performing the role with a high degree of independence to ensure efficient and compliant processes aligned with sponsor SOPs, ICH-GCP guidelines, and industry standards. Partnering closely with cross-functional teams and Clinical Research Organizations (CROs), this role balances strategic oversight with hands-on leadership to address challenges and deliver study objectives. The SSU Lead develops site activation projections, mitigates risks impacting site activation, and monitors CRO performance by analyzing metrics. Additionally, they lead all aspects of site start-up activities, including fast-track initiation, milestone tracking, and document collection, while ensuring timely submissions and leveraging country intelligence for informed decision-making. This person will also be responsible for direct line management and supporting development of their team.

Job Duties

Site Start-up Strategy

• Develop the site start-up strategy for each study assigned (complex, high profile), outlining all dependencies impacting site activation and actively mitigating and escalating risks.
• Oversee the tracking and analysis of study metrics, including risks and mitigation strategies and to evaluate CRO performance and implement corrective actions.
• Advocate for optimized site selection strategies, leveraging data-driven insights to guide cross-functional teams toward effective decision-making.
• Lead the development, assessment, and alignment of site activation projections, ensuring cross-functional and CRO collaboration to meet strategic objectives.
• Ensure comprehensive and compliant documentation of site start-up materials in the Trial Master File (TMF) to maintain inspection readiness.

Country Start-up

• Partner with cross-functional and CRO partners (where applicable) to develop a comprehensive global country start-up strategy, outlining all dependencies impacting country start-up and actively mitigating and escalating risks cross-functionally.
• Monitor and maintain country intelligence data to support informed decision-making and develop accurate startup projections and strategic plans.
• Support regulatory submissions as needed, including activities such as providing required site documentation, coordinating submissions to Central Institutional Review Boards (CIRBs), supporting sites with Local Institutional Review Board (LIRB) submissions, and handling or supervising Clinical Research Organization (CRO) insurance requests.
• Ensure timely country submission deliverables (ensure task completion; all roles clarity, identification of critical path items, effective communication pathway).

Site Start-up Management

• Lead and oversee all aspects of site start-up activities for complex, high profile studies, including fast-track site initiation, site calls, document collection, and milestone tracking, ensuring timely and efficient completion of processes.
• Serve as the subject matter expert for essential site documents, providing training, guidance, and support to teams and sites on regulatory requirements, document management, and TMF filing.
• Oversee CRO site start-up management or in-house site-facing regional SSU team, where applicable.
• Lead the collection and analysis of site intelligence to support strategic site selection and site start-up.
• Oversee the preparation and approval of site regulatory package, ensuring compliance with country-specific requirements, TMF standards, and ICH-GCP guidelines, while supporting inspection readiness and maintaining high-quality site documentation.

Team Interactions

• Represent SSU on cross-functional teams, providing updates, escalating challenges, and proposing mitigation strategies for site start-up issues.
• Act as the escalation point for CRO and internal team to ensure timely SSU issue resolution.

Process Improvement

• Recommends and drives cross-functional and department process improvements.

Line Management

• Responsible for direct supervision of SSU staff. Line management responsibilities include work assignments, performance management, staff recruitment, professional development, coaching, mentoring, ongoing training and compliance, and study support/oversight.

May require up to 25% travel.

Job Requirements

• Strong interpersonal and leadership skills.
• Ability to provide and implement operational strategic direction and guidance for respective clinical trials.
• Demonstrates strong knowledge and a data-driven approach to planning, executing, and problem solving.
• Strong communication skills via verbal, written, and presentation abilities.
• Proactive and self-disciplined, ability to meet deadlines, effective use of time, and prioritization.
• Ability to influence and negotiate across a wide range of stakeholders.
• Ability to lead and develop productive study teams and collaborations.
• Applies advanced negotiation and interpersonal skills to vendor management.
• Strong technical proficiency in trial management systems (CTMS, TMF) and MS applications including (but not limited to) Project, PowerPoint, Word, Excel.
• Extensive experience in the clinical drug development process, including study start-up.
• Knowledge and understanding of ICH/GCP and regulatory guidelines/directives.
• Strong project management skills, cross-functional team interaction, and organizational skills.
• Line management experience preferred.