Exec Director, Opportunity Strategy Architect

Syneos Health® is a leading fully-integrated life sciences services organization built to accelerate customer success. We partner with innovators at every point across the drug development and commercialization continuum, helping them navigate complexity, anticipate change and accelerate progress. Every day we perform better because of how we work together, as one team, each the best at what we do. We bring together talented experts across a broad spectrum of business critical corporate functions. Every role plays an essential part in enabling our customers to achieve their goals. Our teams are agile, collaborative, and committed to delivering—for each other, for our customers, and ultimately for the people who rely on the services we support.

We are passionate about developing our people, through career development and progression; supportive and engaged line management; technical and therapeutic area training; peer recognition and total rewards program. We are committed to building an inclusive culture - where you can authentically be yourself. Central to this is our purpose - Driven to Deliver - which captures the passion of our colleagues to show up each day and shape solutions that have the ability to dramatically impact someone’s life.

The Opportunity Strategy Architect is the role that forces the organization to ask better questions before the proposal strategy is set. This person does not need to be the therapeutic expert or medical expert. They must understand clinical trials and drug development well enough to identify when the stated approach does not make sense, when the data does not support the strategy, and when the team is defaulting to the traditional answer instead of the best answer.

The Opportunity Strategy Architect is assigned to high-value or strategically important opportunities to assess, qualify, and shape the strategy before proposal and bid defense decisions are locked. The role must be constructively challenging, evidence-based, and commercially practical. Lead structured opportunity interrogation for assigned Category 3/4/5 or strategically important opportunities. Ask simple but powerful questions about client intent, asset strategy, protocol purpose, competitive context, current vendor dynamics, and what the client is really trying to achieve. Pressure-test whether the protocol, enrollment assumptions, country/site mix, patient access plan, recruitment/retention approach, and delivery model are credible. Identify what data and analytics are needed to support or challenge the proposed strategy. Partner with data science, RWD analytics, RWE methods, feasibility, recruitment/retention, patient access, site intelligence, integrated solutions, pricing, proposal teams, BD, DSDs, and therapeutic leaders. Translate insights into an opportunity diagnostic: client intent, asset objective, assumptions, risk hypotheses, data needs, recommended strategy, solution implications, and bid-defense win themes. Influence or elevate through agreed governance when the team is ignoring data, overclaiming evidence, or defaulting to a weak or traditional strategy. Support proposal and bid-defense teams by clarifying the differentiated story, likely objections, and data-backed proof points. Document assumptions and hand off strategy, risks, and mitigation logic to delivery if the opportunity is awarded.

The ideal candidate is a clinical development strategist who brings intellectual curiosity, commercial judgment, operational credibility, data literacy, and the ability to challenge conventional thinking constructively. They should be able to move across client strategy, clinical trial execution, evidence, patient access, proposal strategy, and delivery risk.

• Strategic curiosity: Identifies the client’s trial rationale, asset strategy, and unstated needs in the RFP by asking clear, targeted questions.
• Drug Development lens: Connects the protocol to lifecycle strategy, regulatory commitments, market access, competitive positioning, evidence generation, partnership, or divestiture goals.
• Clinical trial fluency: Understands enough about trial design, feasibility, enrollment, site operations, patient burden, and delivery risk to recognize when something does not make sense.
• Data judgment: Uses data directionally, challenges weak assumptions, identifies gaps and limitations, and prevents teams from ignoring inconvenient evidence.
• Constructive challenge: Can ask hard questions without being abrasive and can influence without direct authority.
• Translation ability: Turns messy, fragmented inputs into a clear strategic point of view and a proposal-ready story.

Professional qualifications include 10-15+ years of relevant experience in clinical development strategy, CRO strategic solutions, clinical operations strategy, portfolio/asset strategy, strategic feasibility, RWE strategy, trial innovation, bid defense strategy, or life sciences consulting. A strong understanding of how clinical trials are designed, scoped, bid, awarded, operationalized, and delivered is essential. Experience supporting RFPs, RFIs, bid defenses, strategic account opportunities, complex proposals, or clinical trial advisory work is required. Demonstrated ability to challenge assumptions and influence cross-functional teams in complex, time-sensitive environments is necessary. Familiarity with feasibility, enrollment modeling, site/country selection, patient access, recruitment/retention strategy, RWD/RWE, decentralized trial solutions, or competitive trial intelligence is preferred. A Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience is required; an advanced degree in life sciences, public health, business, health economics, epidemiology, or related field is preferred.

Personal characteristics include being relentlessly curious and willing to ask obvious questions that others skip. Comfortable saying, "Help me understand why we are going against the data." Pragmatic and commercially minded; not academic for the sake of being academic. Able to challenge with respect, precision, and calm confidence. Uses sound judgment, intellectual honesty, and constructive influence; remains open to being wrong when the evidence shifts. Able to operate with incomplete information and still land a clear recommendation. Strong storyteller who can connect data, client intent, and execution reality. Not attached to legacy ways of working or standard proposal answers. Strong written and verbal communicator with senior stakeholder presence.

Over the past 5 years, we have worked with 94% of all Novel FDA Approved Drugs, 95% of EMA Authorized Products and over 200 Studies across 73,000 Sites and 675,000+ Trial patients. No matter what your role is, you’ll take the initiative and challenge the status quo with us in a highly competitive and ever-changing environment.

Tasks, duties, and responsibilities as listed in this job description are not exhaustive. The Company, at its sole discretion and with no prior notice, may assign other tasks, duties, and job responsibilities. Equivalent experience, skills, and/or education will also be considered so qualifications of incumbents may differ from those listed in the Job Description. The Company, at its sole discretion, will determine what constitutes as equivalent to the qualifications described above.

The Company is committed to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, including the provision of reasonable accommodations, when appropriate, to assist employees or applicants to perform the essential functions of the job.

We are strategic thinkers who actively seek different perspectives, whether across offices or across oceans. Because we solve some of the toughest challenges facing the most prestigious healthcare companies today, you’ll gain exposure and be supported with comprehensive resources including emerging technologies, data, science and knowledge sharing. The diversification and breadth of Syneos Health creates a multitude of career paths and employment opportunities. We’re a growing, global company dedicated to advancing our talent past their initial role.

A career with Syneos Health means your everyday work improves patients’ lives around the world. Selecting us as an employer secures a career in which you’re guaranteed to:

• Partner with the most diverse team of experts in the industry. From the top down, our people are inspiring. Everyone has a voice and is encouraged to use it.
• Work in specialized Syneos Health teams that are therapeutically or functionally aligned for expert collaboration. With this structure, everyone on your team speaks the same language and can deliver unique insights into the therapeutic environment and patient population.
• We are partners with purpose. We integrate seamlessly with our customers and do what’s best for their success. Our people provide the brilliant ideas, valuable insights and endless energy that accelerates the impact of life changing therapies worldwide.