Director, Business Development - Drug Development Services

The base salary range for this position is $159,000 - $215,000 annually. This position is also subject to a performance based variable compensation plan.

Committed to scientific, regulatory and commercial advancement, Certara has organized its capabilities to create impactful patient-focused solutions to optimize the drug development, regulatory and commercial success of its clients. The largest and most comprehensive provider of strategic drug development, modeling and simulation and regulatory science services, Certara partners with its clients for optimizing drug development decisions. We are dedicated to helping our clients develop new therapies and target unmet medical needs, expand the benefits of existing therapies to other populations, communicate scientific information in the language of regulatory success, balance risk profiles, differentiate drugs from a competitive perspective, and unlock millions in R&D savings.

The company includes a total global work force of ~1,300 employees with more than 450 PhD, PharmD, and MD scientists and regulatory writers, working on key drug development projects for biopharmaceutical companies. With each engagement, we provide the data-driven and regulatory science backbone regarding a drug's safety, efficacy, risk/benefit, and comparative effectiveness to increase our client's probability of regulatory and commercial success.

As an integral member of Certara's business development team, your work as Director of Business Development will involve identifying and building relationships with key decision makers both internally and externally. In this role, you will engage with potential drug development executives across the entire drug development continuum, and other key executives to illustrate the competitive advantage that Certara brings to help advance the clients program(s).

The Director can represent the entire range of Certara Services solutions to pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies within a designated region. This is a highly consultative role requiring the Director to uncover customer needs through a deep understanding of their corporate, program-specific, and personal goals and design a customizable solution.

Certara has openings in its exciting and transformational organization for highly motivated and energetic Business Development Professionals with a proven and demonstrated "Hunter" track record for identifying and developing strategic business in new accounts.

Our Director Business Development will be partnering with the BD Team Leaders and with world-class expert drug development consultants in client engagements and be supported during the Business Development process by required expert teams.

Our Director Business Development will be responsible for:

• Identifying, qualifying and pursuing strategic business within the assigned territory:
• Understanding their internal resource expertise, capabilities and capacity, corporate objectives
• Understanding their development program(s) focus, objectives and priorities
• Understanding their critical decisions and challenges and service outsourcing strategies.
• Facilitate and maintain mutual CDA and MSA contract execution for all accounts identified by Director Business Development or scientific consultants.
• Present and refresh Certara capabilities overview to all existing accounts.
• Actively engage with existing account decision makers in closing all CDDS business opportunities

• Informs Commercial leadership on proposal and price quotation development efforts that best address the prospect's needs, while coordinating the involvement of all necessary personnel.
• Within guidelines established by the Head of Business Development, s/he delivers and negotiates proposals and other legal agreements required to achieve sales targets while maintaining appropriate margin levels for each opportunity.
• Presents new/expanded solutions options to prospects by identifying best-fit opportunities for Certara DDS solutions against the prospect's Need-to-Buy, and by developing strategies to communicate an appropriate, compelling message to the prospect.
• Coordinates the seamless transition of newly contracted agreements within existing accounts to the CDDS teams respectively
• Proactively assesses, clarifies, and validates assigned prospects' needs on an ongoing basis.
• Proactively informs the team as to progress against monthly, quarterly and annual performance objectives, financial targets, and critical sales plan milestones.
• Coordinates the involvement of Subject Matter Experts, including Regulatory, and Drug Development Services, Works closely with Proposals and Contracts team, and management resources, in order to meet sales performance objectives and prospects' expectations.

Other Responsibilities:

• To develop the appropriate strategy for discovering existing business opportunities to inform proposal creation.
• Work as a member of the larger Certara Commercial team, including Marketing, Proposals & Contracts, Lead Generation.
• Represent the Company at trade symposia and other professional associations, to promote services, engage with clients and prospects, and collect competitive intelligence.
• Work with the CDDS team to engage subject matter expertise in the pre-sales process leading up to closure, post-close project delivery, and larger account management.
• Work as a self-starter who will collaborate with other Commercial and Services functions that are dispersed globally.
• Coordinate across other Certara businesses including Software, Simcyp, and, Evidence and Access to leverage the Certara's relationships and solutions

• The ideal candidate has a passion for our industry, is solution-oriented, a creative problem solver, and has a tenacious desire to identify and close deals.
• Minimum 3-5 years of outside sales experience in a consultative business-to-business sales environment

• A seasoned and well-rounded biopharmaceutical executive is required with minimum combined business development experience of 3-5 years in a consultative business-to-business sales environment, representing the life sciences vertical, ideally with pharmaceutical drug development experience.
• Able to lead strategic business planning process based on an understanding of industry trends and opportunities and effectively solve strategic challenges.
• Proven ability to lead initiatives: work collaboratively with teams to achieve objectives. Achieves organizational focus on key priorities. Provides clear direction, delegates, actively communicates. Superior project management skills.
• Proven success in working collaboratively with cross functional commercialization teams with a strong business orientation and ability to view issues from multiple functional perspectives.
• Experienced and adept in a variety of negotiating settings. Able to engage effectively; establishes a clear negotiation strategy and manages a tight process. Proven experience in identifying, evaluating, and pursuing business development opportunities within new and existing key markets.
• Experience with developing business cases to recommend and rationalize investments and other strategic actions.
• Demonstrated ability to gain credibility through successful leadership in a matrix environment, across a range of functions, position levels and geography.
• Understanding of pharmaceutical service organizations and their revenue drivers is strongly preferred.
• Strong communication and influencing skills.

• Ability and willingness to travel, domestically and internationally. This position will require frequent travel across the US, Canada, and possibly Europe (candidates must have a valid passport and driver's license).
• Fluent in English. Additional language skills are desirable.

PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES

• High ethical standards and personal integrity
• Highly energetic individual who welcomes accountability, a solid work ethic, and a commitment to quality while constantly looking for ways to contribute
• Strategic thinking and ability to constructively challenge and influence the decision-making process.
• Establishes clear expectations and priorities, drives initiatives to completion. Sets goals and consistently delivers against objectives. Monitors progress and proactively addresses issues and obstacles.
• Ability to effectively translate overall strategies into actionable operational plans and assure implementation.
• Ability to simplify and convey complex concepts and strategies orally and in writing and influence key decision makers.
• Strong analytical skills with a data-driven focus
• Ability to create and share a vision based on corporate mission.
• Flexible and able to adapt to a quickly changing environment.

Certara bases all employment-related decision on merit, taking into consideration qualifications, skills, achievement, and performance. We treat all applicants and employees without regard to personal characteristics such as race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, nationality, marital status, pregnancy, physical or mental condition, genetic information, military service, or other characteristic protected by law.