Negotiation Governance Lead, Site Contracting

At Bristol Myers Squibb, our employees often ask, “Who are you working for?”—a question that fuels collaboration, accountability, and urgency in our work. Our purpose-driven culture inspires us to discover, develop, and deliver innovative medicines to prevail over serious diseases. We offer uniquely interesting and meaningful work, opportunities for growth, and a supportive environment that values inclusion, wellbeing, flexibility, and comprehensive benefits. This is work that transforms the lives of patients, and the careers of those who do it.

Leads site contract and budget negotiations, manages escalations, ensures legal and budget governance, and implements fallback standards for global clinical trial agreements during negotiations. Acts as the final escalation point for Site contracting Operations and provides training and quality oversight.

Duties/Responsibilities

• Lead the execution of BMS Sponsored Research Agreements with investigators and institutions, focusing on escalated negotiations.

• Develop, negotiate, and oversee site-level and country-level budgets, ensuring alignment with global standards and strategic objectives.

• Develop and execute the global strategy to drive efficiencies and accelerate contract negotiations with clinical research sites – developing master agreements, rate cards, therapeutic area agreements and frameworks.

• Manage the study level contracting strategy to enable faster site activation and enrolment across regions.

• Serve as the final escalation point for legal and budget queries from site contracting operations, providing direct negotiation support in local languages where required.

• Collaborate with global colleagues and external partners to execute site budgets and contracts, ensuring consistency and compliance.

• Monitor budgets and contract status at the study and portfolio level, providing updates and strategic insights to project teams and leadership.

• Develop and maintain negotiation templates, decision histories, and fallback language libraries in partnership with legal department.

• Assure that all contractual terms and provisions comply with corporate processes, guidelines, and policies.

• Identify, drive, and implement process improvements, including automation, template standardization, and governance enhancements.

• Escalate significant legal or financial risks to appropriate BMS colleagues and ensure timely resolution.

• Ensure proper filing, documentation, and status reporting of all agreements within approved company systems.

• Provide training, mentorship, and quality oversight to team members, fostering continuous improvement and knowledge sharing.

• Lead initiatives and manage projects aimed at enhancing governance, compliance, and operational excellence.

Qualifications

Specific Knowledge, Skills, Abilities

• Deep expertise in site contract and budget negotiation for clinical trials

• Advanced understanding of global contracting standards, governance frameworks, and fallback language libraries.

• Strong knowledge of legal, financial, and compliance requirements in clinical research agreements.

• Excellent stakeholder management and conflict resolution skills.

• Ability to lead, mentor, and train team members in negotiation and governance best practices.

• Strategic thinking and process improvement orientation.

• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, including multilingual capabilities.

• Proficiency in contract management systems and Microsoft Office Suite.

Education/Experience/Licenses/Certifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Law, Business Administration, Life Sciences, or related field.

• Minimum 7 years of direct clinical contract negotiation experience, preferably in the pharmaceutical industry.

• Experience in leading teams and managing complex projects.

• Certifications in contract management or legal compliance (preferred).

Travel

• Up to 20% travel may be required for stakeholder meetings, training, and global alignment.

We hire for skills and capabilities, not just credentials – if this role excites you, but doesn’t perfectly match your resume, we encourage you to apply anyway.

How We Work

Where you work matters – because collaboration, innovation and patient impact happen in many settings. Our roles are structured across four work models: site-essential, site-by-design, field-based and remote-by-design. The model assigned to this role is based on its core responsibilities. Learn more at https://careers.bms.com/ways-of-working.

Supporting People with Disabilities

BMS is dedicated to ensuring that people with disabilities can excel through a transparent recruitment process, reasonable workplace accommodations/adjustments and ongoing support in their roles. Applicants can request a reasonable workplace accommodation/adjustment prior to accepting a job offer. If you require reasonable accommodations/adjustments in completing this application, or in any part of the recruitment process, direct your inquiries to adastaffingsupport@bms.com. Visit careers.bms.com/eeo-accessibility to access our complete Equal Employment Opportunity statement.

Candidate Rights

BMS will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, pursuant to applicable laws in your area.

For roles based in Los Angeles County only: If you live in or expect to work from Los Angeles County if hired for this position, please visit this page for important additional information: https://careers.bms.com/california-residents/

Data Protection

We will never request payments, financial information, or social security numbers during our application or recruitment process. Learn more about protecting yourself at https://careers.bms.com/fraud-protection.

Any data processed in connection with role applications will be treated in accordance with applicable data privacy policies and regulations.

If this posting is missing required information required by local law or incorrect, contact BMS at TAEnablement@bms.com with the Job Title and Requisition number. Do not send application-related inquiries to this email. To check your application status, please login to your Candidate Home Account.

R1607080 : Negotiation Governance Lead, Site Contracting