Director, Alliance Management

Akebia Therapeutics • Cambridge, MA

94d • $196,697 - $242,979

About The Position

The Alliance Management team at Akebia is seeking qualified candidates to support the management and optimization of strategic alliances with industry partners. This role requires strategic relationship management, creative problem solving, and thorough diligence. The Director of Alliance Management will collaborate closely with Program Management, subject matter experts from various functions, and senior management to support Akebia's existing global alliances through multiple stages of development and commercialization. Additionally, this position will assist in initiating new alliances.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree required
• Minimum of 10 years in biopharma and/or industry consulting
• Previous experience in alliance management
• Experience working directly with partners or third parties and demonstrated interpersonal communication skills with the ability to build and communicate business rationale
• Strong leadership and self-direction, high-capacity for learning quickly
• Experience and comfort working and leading within matrixed organizations
• Excellent PowerPoint and Excel skills

Nice To Haves

• Advanced degree (MS/PhD/MBA)
• Experience reading and synthesizing complicated legal agreements
• Ability to apply good judgment and lead problem solving within the team

Responsibilities

• Ensure that key goals for alliances are achieved, and the relationship remains productive with partners
• Become an internal expert on partner contracts and facilitate contract/partner related questions with appropriate internal stakeholders
• Effectively manage cross-functional governance committees
• Facilitate internal alignment and readiness prior to engaging partners
• Track partnership effectiveness and identify opportunities to improve communication and collaboration
• Communicate effectively and follow up on action items for alliances
• Coordinate and prepare meeting agendas, presentations, meeting minutes/actions along with cross-functional stakeholders to ensure successful team meetings and governance committee meetings with partners
• Identify conflicts and issues as they arise and work diligently with relevant stakeholders to formulate a strategy and drive resolution process in a timely manner, escalating where appropriate
• Build and maintain relationships with Akebia stakeholders from each functional area (i.e. CMC, regulatory, legal, medical affairs, commercial)
• Build expertise about partner companies, including key contacts, company organization/leadership, supply forecasts, financials and strategic priorities
• Facilitate ancillary agreements and contract amendments with internal stakeholders and partners
• Prepare contractual deliverables such as quarterly reports, development plans, commercial launch plans, in alignment with internal stakeholders (i.e. finance, accounting, commercial)

Benefits

• Health care
• Vision
• Dental
• Retirement
• PTO
• Corporate bonus program or incentive compensation program (if applicable)
• Equity

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Industry: Chemical Manufacturing
• Education Level: Bachelor's degree
• Number of Employees: 101-250 employees