Strategic Site Alliances & Strategy Lead

Summit Therapeutics, Inc.; United States; On-site; USD 169,000 - 198,000; Full time

Job summary

Summit Therapeutics Inc. seeks an Associate Director, Site Alliances and Strategy to build and manage strategic site relationships and drive optimized trial execution across external sites and internal teams.

The role focuses on early engagement, site onboarding, contract alignment, and KPI-driven governance to enable scalable, efficient, and inspection-ready trials in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial setting.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent in life science, nursing, pharmacy, medical laboratory technology, or other health/medical-related area required; advanced degree preferred.
• 10+ years of direct or indirect clinical trial operations experience, including clinical trial execution, site management, site engagement, or sponsor oversight responsibilities.
• 3+ years of experience in a site-facing clinical trial role, such as trial manager, CRA, site engagement lead, or equivalent role strongly preferred.
• Experience hiring, developing, mentoring, or actively managing team members directly or through a matrixed structure preferred.
• Experience building and managing strategic relationships with clinical trial sites, site networks, investigators, and external research partners at both strategic and operational levels.
• Strong working knowledge of ICH-GCP, health authority expectations, clinical trial conduct, sponsor oversight, and inspection readiness requirements.
• Ability to travel domestically and internationally, up to 25-30%, as required.

Responsibilities

• Develops and executes site alliance strategies; Build and maintain strong, strategic relationships with clinical institutions, investigators, research staff, and site leadership.
• Leads start-up optimization with internal and external site Study Start-Up teams, driving faster, simpler execution through early engagement, MSAs, standardized budgets and contracts, and streamlined processes.
• Serves as a primary Clinical Operations interface and escalation point for site alliance matters, partnering with study teams, CROs, vendors, and functional leaders to resolve issues and improve performance.
• Partners with Clinical Operations, Medical Affairs, Regulatory, Quality, Data Management, Pharmacovigilance, and external partners to align site engagement with study priorities.
• Develops approaches to identify, onboard, educate, and cultivate new sites that support portfolio needs.
• Develops and monitors KPIs, dashboards, and relationship health measures to evaluate site engagement effectiveness and improve predictability.
• Contributes to portfolio planning, resource forecasting, and operational prioritization to support scalable study execution.
• Contributes to cross-functional Clinical Operations strategy and transformation initiatives to improve study delivery and execution excellence.
• Identifies opportunities to simplify trial processes and improve site and patient experience across the lifecycle.
• Identifies and advances process efficiencies and vendor optimization opportunities to improve quality and timelines.

Skills

Relationship management

Communication skills

Negotiation

Stakeholder management

Travel readiness

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent in life science

Advanced degree preferred

Job description

Summit Therapeutics Inc. seeks an Associate Director, Site Alliances and Strategy to build and manage strategic site relationships and drive optimized trial execution across external sites and internal teams.

The role focuses on early engagement, site onboarding, contract alignment, and KPI-driven governance to enable scalable, efficient, and inspection-ready trials in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial setting.