Engagement Manager - R&D

Overview

You’re driven, resourceful, and above all else - remarkably smart.

You love a good challenge. You are the first to roll up your sleeves and work with relentless energy until you solve the unsolvable, beat the unbeatable and you always come out on top. Passable doesn’t cut it – you’ve got fire in your belly to learn more, do more and be more. For you, the sweetest success is shared success and you’re known for your good nature. You’ll fit right in at Syneos Health where we surround ourselves with the most talented and agile professionals in the industry, but we check our egos at the door.

An Engagement Manager is a people manager and project leader with day-to-day oversight of multiple client projects. Expectations include the ability to build relationships (internally and externally), identify client needs, design strategic and innovative solutions, and deliver client contracts on time and on budget. As a member of the management team, an Engagement Manager is responsible for ensuring a superior client experience while developing the skills and supervising the work of consulting staff team members. This practiced professional exhibits decision quality, action orientation, communication savvy, and resourcefulness as the primary steward of consulting projects.

Responsibilities

Productivity

• Builds positive working relationships with clients, consulting staff, managers, leadership, and internal support teams.
• Achieves billable utilization and managed book of business targets in service to client engagements.
• Proactively grows a book of business by building strong relationships with clients and Advisory Group leadership, and securing follow-on opportunities.
• Demonstrates ability to participate in the BD process through writing and pricing full proposals and actively participating in the pitch and negotiation process.
• Contributes active support and subject matter expertise to proposal development, including the building of pricers, anticipated staffing and resource needs, and proposal decks. Champions the selling process by conducting background research, identifying key business questions, and participating in proposals and pitches to win new projects.
• Demonstrated ability to manage heavy workloads and competing responsibilities related to being staffed on multiple projects at the same time.

Delivery

• Collaborates with project leadership to design, manage, and execute all aspects of a client engagement according to the client’s business goals, products, and expectations. Plans and aligns resources to ensure the successful delivery of client contracts. Optimizes work processes to maintain project scope, budget, timelines, and resource allocations. Accountable for project activities and leverages internal tools and tracking systems to ensure project objectives, milestones, and timelines are met. Must be able to quickly adapt to changing priorities to achieve goals and targets.

• Acts as the day-to-day point person for the development of client deliverables and management of the client relationship and contract. Serves as the primary liaison with clients. Establishes a trusted advisor relationship with the client through personableness, trust, credibility, and reliability.

• Displays outstanding research and analytics capabilities. Develops business strategy through conducting and analyzing primary and secondary research, producing comprehensive documentation, and presenting findings and recommendations to team members and clients.

• Strategically identifies and evaluates relevant secondary research data sources (analytically and scientifically based). Using research from competitive pipelines, company websites, prescribing information, epidemiology information, and syndicated reports, an Engagement Manager designs, oversees and supports consulting staff analyses of complex industry, market, client portfolio, and product data and trends to ensure the quality, clarity, and comprehensiveness of key findings and to structure the data into client recommendations.

• Drives consulting staff development of discussion guides for primary interviews (internal and external). Conducts interviews with physicians, payers, patients, key opinion leaders, health care providers, and other stakeholders. Leverages and synthesizes primary research data into strategic recommendations and accompanying documentation for team and client review.

• Demonstrated expertise in leading the management consulting cycle of creating project deliverables, quality checking work, setting expectations with the project team, delivering edits and feedback to consulting staff team members, and driving deliverable completion from start to finish by advising the team on production and delivery best practices through hands-on guidance. Leverages team member strengths and professional development opportunities to assign project roles and responsibilities.

• Demonstrates superior technical skill according to demands of the Advisory Group, in general (i.e., relevant and in high demand from the full mix of clients.) Provides strategic influence on project teams, with clients, and to Advisory Group leadership.

• Delivers superior client experience. Leads professional, positive, and mature interactions with clients. Ensures client satisfaction through project delivery and experience with other team members. Proactively escalates problems as they emerge to project leaders.

• Prepares for, attends, and facilitates client meetings and presentations. Acts as the subject matter expert on data, findings, and recommendations outlined in meeting materials and client deliverables. Responsible for fielding client questions and anticipating client questions and concerns. Demonstrates confidence and credibility through interpersonal skills and content knowledge.

• Supervises consulting staff development of high-quality PowerPoint slides in accordance with Consulting style guidelines and templates, and other project deliverables. Demonstrates a strategic and systematic decision-making approach to communicating data through text, graphics, images, and/or other communication choices. Responsible for all elements of PowerPoint development and presentation, including compelling, structured, and logical storyboards. Influences strategic insight generation and recommendations.

• Leverages critical thinking and problem-solving skills to recommend creative ideas based on data analysis, personal experience, and industry best practices. Works with project leadership to challenge and pressure test client recommendations. Anticipates and supports client needs, concerns, and challenges through the design of alternatives and contingency plans. Analyzes the final research reports, presentations, and other project deliverables to ensure that the findings are in accordance with the client's business objectives.

• Uses judgement and discernment to communicate with clients, team members, and project leadership on a regular basis. Proactively communicates when timing is at risk. “Manages up” to keep project leadership informed of activities, team dynamics, project status, scope changes, potential risks, and business development opportunities.

• Navigates and resolves project ambiguity, client changes, delays/expedites, and/or unexpected data findings with maturity and professionalism. Partners effectively and expeditiously with project leadership to propose and agree on recommended next steps.

• Provides training and mentorship to entry-level consulting team members. Responsible for reviewing staff consultant slides, providing constructive feedback, ensuring edits are completed, and incorporating staff work into overall project deliverables.

• Gains depth of experience in a variety of project types, client engagements, therapeutic areas, and Advisory Group service offerings.

• Exhibits professional, positive, respectful, and mature interactions internally & externally. Displays passion and drive while advocating for a superior client experience through project delivery and management.

Community

• Begins taking responsibility for career advising to consulting staff team members as a Development Coach. Gathers project performance feedback, conducts performance reviews, and contributes meaningful feedback to internal promotion calibration sessions.
• Actively participates in, and begins to take on leadership roles, through company-sponsored events, training and professional development opportunities, meetings, and office and Advisory Group initiatives.
• Drives a positive, collaborative, and professional team culture through words, attitude, and actions.
• Understands personal strengths and development needs. Seeks feedback and coaching. Sets annual professional development goals and engages in appropriate developmental stretch opportunities.
• Proactively seeks opportunities to expand knowledge, and develops subject matter expertise, within the biopharmaceutical industry, Consulting service offerings, and industry companies, products, and markets.
• Actively builds professional networks through social media, seminar/conference attendance, and lead/referral generation.
• Demonstrates Syneos Health core values in action and word: challenge the status quo, collaborate to deliver solutions, and passionate to change lives.

Job Requirements

• 
  Master's (or foreign degree equivalent) in business or life sciences related field
• Engagement management experience required
Ability to assess client needs, problem solve, and deliver clear and compelling strategic recommendations
• Must have experience in creating and evaluating commercial strategy for pharmaceutical brands
• Strong interpersonal communication skills
• Strong presentation and business development skills
• Skilled in directing the work of others and driving results
• Displays a strategic mindset and seeks innovative solutions
• Aptitude for translating ambiguity and uncertainty into actionable next steps through resourcefulness, resiliency, and adaptability
• The drive for self-development, the ability to collaborate, and an action-oriented work ethic
• Proficiency with PowerPoint and Excel required
• Ability to travel preferred

Why Syneos Health? Join a game-changing global company that is reinventing the way therapies are developed and commercialized. Here, you’re essential in solving and executing against today’s toughest commercialization challenges facing the world’s leading healthcare companies. From the very beginning, you’ll be supported by team members who, like you, aren’t afraid to try something new. You'll gain exposure and work in a dynamic environment to create better, smarter, faster ways to get biopharmaceutical therapies to patients.

WORK HERE MATTERS EVERYWHERE | How will you accelerate biopharmaceutical commercialization?

At Syneos Health, we believe in providing an environment and culture in which Our People can thrive, develop and advance. We reward and recognize our people by providing valuable benefits and a quality-of-life balance. The benefits for this position will include a competitive compensation package, Health benefits to include Medical, Dental and Vision, Company match 401k, eligibility to participate in Employee Stock Purchase Plan and flexible paid time off (PTO) and sick time. Because certain states and municipalities have regulated paid sick time requirements, eligibility for paid sick time may vary depending on where you work. Syneos complies with all applicable federal, state, and municipal paid sick time requirements.

The annual base salary for this position ranges from $133,056 to $255,400. The base salary range represents the anticipated low and high of the Syneos Health range for this position. Actual salary will vary based on various factors such as the candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies, and proficiency for the role. In addition, some positions MAY include eligibility to earn commissions/bonus based on company and / or individual performance.

Syneos Health has a voluntary COVID-19 vaccination policy. We strongly encourage all employees to be fully vaccinated. Additionally, certain local governments or Syneos Health customers may have vaccine requirements that apply to some of our employees. These employees are required to submit proof of vaccination to Syneos Health and maintain compliance with these requirements.