Business Development Operations Manager

About the Role

The Manager, Business Development Operations is responsible for the management of our client's proposal and budgeting processes, RFP and RFI responses, collateral development, and tracking and execution of work orders and change orders. This includes updating proposal and change order templates, budget structure and templates, and ownership of the CRM. This role will actively support all commercial activities and is critical to the sales process, working closely with and reporting to the Director of Sales. This is a hands-on, back-end business development operations role, not a client-facing sales position. The successful candidate will be responsible for directly developing and reviewing budgets, pricing models, proposals, SOWs, rebids, RFP/RFI responses, and change orders, and will play a key role in redesigning and cleaning up the company's existing proposal and change order templates, which are due for a refresh. The team is currently small (the Director of Sales plus one other team member), and while this role has no direct reports initially, there is a clear path to building and leading a team as the function grows, with the expectation that this person could be in a team leadership role within approximately five years.

Responsibilities

Business Development Operations

• Manage the sales life cycle and supporting processes, including development, governance, and tracking of proposals and change orders.
• Own and actively develop detailed client-facing budgets, pricing models, proposals, rebids, Statements of Work (SOWs), Work Orders, and Change Orders from initial scope through final submission and execution.
• Redesign and maintain standardized RFP/RFI response, proposal, SOW, budget, and Change Order templates to improve consistency, efficiency, and quality across opportunities.
• Oversee the scoping process, working with and supporting cross-functional teams in development of proposals and Work/Change Orders.
• Oversee tracking and reporting of all contracting, including invoice schedules and payment structures, and the establishment of and adherence to KPIs.
• Maintain relevant tools that support the proposal process, templates, pricing models, and customer discount schedules.
• Facilitate continuous process improvement in proposal development and review efforts.
• Work with Project Managers to identify out-of-scope tasks; develop, prepare, and execute Change Orders.
• Oversee preparation and management of Weekly Pipeline, Monthly Sales, and Pipeline Financial Reporting meetings.
• Assist where necessary in preparation for capabilities, sales, and bid defense meetings, from presentation development to meeting attendance.
• Attend Operational/Delivery project status meetings (internal and external), as necessary.
• Attend product meetings, from focus groups to steering committee meetings.

Business Analytics and Reporting

• Ensure routine communication regarding the status of pipeline opportunities amongst Sales, Clinical, Product, and Delivery.
• Oversee the reporting of sales activities (pipeline, wins, losses), including routine weekly and monthly financial reporting, and quarterly and annual Operating Plan evaluation.

Growth & Team Leadership (Future Scope)

• While this role has no direct reports at the outset, there is a clear growth path to eventually building, staffing, and leading a Business Development Operations team as the function scales.
• Develop and lead training activities to support future team members' development, once the team begins to grow.

Qualifications

EDUCATION

• Bachelor's degree required; MBA is a plus but not required.
• Relevant experience at a CRO or sponsor vendor.

Required Skills

EXPERIENCE

• Knowledge of, and direct experience with, BD Operations supporting professional technology-enabled services to the pharmaceutical drug development industry.
• Approximately 10 years of professional experience, including experience in proposal, pricing/cost budget development; some flexibility on total years of experience for the right background.
• Significant experience with financial modeling and business case development, as well as with key performance indicator (KPI) measurement and analytics.
• Demonstrated proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and SFDC.
• Comfort working hands-on and independently to fix, clean up, and professionalize existing proposal and change order templates and processes.

Preferred Skills

PREFERRED EXPERIENCE

• Experience supporting clinical trials, pharmaceutical drug development, CROs, clinical technology, patient-centered research, or other life sciences services.
• Experience with electronic Clinical Outcome Assessments (eCOA), patient-reported outcomes (PRO), clinician-reported outcomes (ClinRO), observer-reported outcomes (ObsRO), or other decentralized/technology-enabled clinical trial solutions is preferred but not required, provided the candidate is a strong, quick learner.
• Familiarity with clinical trial study designs, protocols, study timelines, sites, patients/participants, data collection, and clinical research terminology.
• Experience developing budgets and proposals for technology-enabled clinical research services is highly desirable.

COMPETENCIES & PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES

• Ownership & Excellence - Takes accountability for getting the job done right, proactively identifying gaps, seeking the right answers, and ensuring all client-facing deliverables meet a consistently high standard of quality and accuracy.
• Trustworthy & Dependable - This role requires someone the Director of Sales can rely on completely to produce accurate, polished, client-ready work without close oversight.
• Interpersonal - Superior interpersonal communication and management skills.
• Problem Solving - Fluency in synthesizing large amounts of complex information into a coherent communication or solution-based plan.
• Entrepreneurial - Ability