Senior Principal, Operations

Work shouldn't just be something we do; it should have a purpose.

At Envision, we believe in creating life-changing outcomes through the work we do with our clients, giving back to our communities, while creating a company culture where our people thrive.

We believe success starts with a workplace where everyone feels valued, supported, and empowered to grow.

Being part of a collaborative team means there's no limit to what you can achieve. With us, you can be a part of a growing company you want to work for.

Our Vision: To unleash the power of combined intelligence to accelerate patient access to life-changing treatments.

Our Mission: Delivering smarter and faster solutions to create, communicate, and commercialize value for our clients.

Our Values: Excellence, People, Growth

The opportunity

We're looking for a Senior Principal, Operations to take on a key agency operations lead role, providing strategic and operational leadership across the business.

Working closely with the VP, EMC Operations and General Managers, you will be responsible for translating enterprise priorities into an integrated operating model that supports commercial performance, sustainable growth, and high-quality delivery.

As the operational lead for the agency, you will own Envision Medical Communications (EMC) approach to workforce planning, capacity, financial performance, and delivery effectiveness.

You will use commercial and operational insight to anticipate demand, identify risks and opportunities, and advise senior leaders on the resourcing, team structures, and operating models needed to achieve business goals.

Partnering closely with Finance and other cross-functional teams, you will also contribute to procurement and commercial negotiations and help shape the future of EMC's workforce.

This is a highly influential role, requiring the judgement and presence to operate at senior leadership level, influence without direct authority, and drive the decisions and initiatives that enable EMC to scale and perform at its best.

This role is open to candidates based in either the UK or US, with the option of being fully remote or hybrid from one of our office locations.

How will you make an impact at Envision Pharma Group?

• Role responsibilities
• Own the application of EMC's operational frameworks, processes, and governance standards across the agency, influencing enterprise standards where they need to evolve.
• Equip General Managers and leadership teams with the insight and analysis needed to make informed commercial and delivery decisions, interpreting performance and recommending action beyond reporting.
• Lead agency staffing and capacity planning, shaping resource plans and team structures and making the trade-offs needed to maintain healthy utilization and balanced workloads.
• Anticipate, diagnose, and resolve resourcing and delivery risks, using independent judgement to determine when to act locally and when to escalate to the VP, EMC Operations.
• Partner with Finance to assess agency financial performance, including recoverability, utilization, and client performance, and translate insights into clear recommendations for agency leadership.
• Synthesise agency performance, KPI delivery, and forward-looking demand into evidence-based inputs that support procurement engagements and commercial decision-making.
• Shape the agency's commercial narrative for procurement discussions, aligning operational performance, growth ambitions, and market dynamics into a compelling value proposition.
• Contribute to procurement negotiations, bringing operational and financial insight to help secure commercially robust and sustainable outcomes.

Set the standard for operational and financial practices across agency teams and systems, including SPP and SFDC, coaching leaders and embedding practices that support strong commercial performance.

• Lead Operations' contribution to client engagement activities, including Health Checks, remediation, growth scaling, and process or system change, bringing clear recommendations and trade-offs to agency and client leadership.
• Own client recoverability performance against plan, partnering with Client Engagement teams to diagnose underperformance and drive corrective action.

Act as the senior operational counterpart to cross-functional EPG functions, including Human Resources, Finance, Contracts, and Legal, aligning priorities and shaping effective ways of working with the agency.

• Partner with Human Resources to align staffing plans with hiring strategies, workforce trends, talent development, and annual panning cycles, including promotions, merit, bonus, and goal setting.

Manage requisitions and staffing justifications in line with business demand.

• Shape operational governance, reporting, and business planning for the agency, bringing the operational perspective to enterprise planning cycles.
• Sponsor and lead continuous improvement initiatives across the agency, partnering with EMC Operations on enterprise-wide programmes that improve delivery effectiveness, scalability, commercial performance, and growth.
• Share leadership with the other Agency Operations Lead in evolving EMC's workforce models across permanent hiring, freelance, offshore, and strategic partner solutions, ensuring scalability, delivery quality, and long-term competitiveness.
• Contribute to the design and evolution of EMC's workforce planning tools and skills inventory, including Envision Expert and other resource management systems, incorporating industry trends, staffing innovations, and emerging workforce practices.
• Identify opportunities to improve time, cost, and quality across the agency, designing process and system improvements and taking proposals through executive sponsorship and adoption.
• Hold agency leaders accountable for operational consistency and collaboration, modelling behaviours that build a high-performing operational culture.
• Take on other responsibilities as needed.

Do you have what we are looking for?

Skills & expertise

• Recognised expertise in agency operations, developed through significant relevant experience and advanced education.
• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree preferred.
• 10+ years of experience in operations, project operations, resource management, workforce planning, or agency operations within a medical communications, healthcare communications, agency, or professional services environment.
• Proven experience managing complex staffing and workforce models across multiple client teams, including blended approaches such as onshore, offshore, freelance, and strategic partners.
• Experience across client-facing operations, resource and staffing coordination, financial oversight, and delivery operations.

Experience supporting or leading procurement and rate or financial negotiations.

• Experience managing people and/or leading large-scale, cross-functional projects.
• Strong track record of managing utilization, recoverability, staffing, capacity, and workforce planning to support commercial and delivery objectives.
• Proven ability to partner effectively with Finance, Human Resources, Contracts, Legal, and agency delivery leadership.
• Demonstrated ability to manage competing priorities and drive operational improvements in fast-paced, complex environments.
• Experience using operational systems and reporting platforms, including SPP, SFDC, or equivalent tools.
• Strong analytical, organisational, problem-solving, and stakeholder management skills.
• #Together We Discover

Do you have the experience we are looking for?

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