Sr. Director, Clinical Operations Capabilities and Standards

Legend Biotech US•Somerset, NJ

4h•Hybrid

About The Position

Legend Biotech is seeking a Sr. Director, Clinical Operations Capabilities and Standards as part of the Clinical Operations team based in Somerset, NJ. This role will be responsible for providing strategic leadership and oversight for foundational and centralized trial operations support towards cost-effective scalability of the Clinical Operations department. The Head of Clinical Operations Capabilities and Standards will establish, oversee and grow Clinical Operations capability pillars that include Clinical Trial Planning and Analytics, Clinical Trial Operational Technologies, Vendor Alliance Management, Site Contracts & Payments, and Sample & Imaging Management Operations; including managing and developing staff within each pillar. This position will also be the company subject-matter expert for clinical operations standards applied across the portfolio of Legend IND clinical trials.

Requirements

Minimum degree requirements of a bachelor’s degree (BA, BS) in scientific or health care discipline.
12+ years of progressive experience in pharmaceutical or biotechnology clinical operations, with demonstrated leadership responsibility across global clinical development programs.
Significant experience in establishing, scaling, or transforming centralized Clinical Operations capabilities, including one or more of the following: Clinical Trial Planning & Analytics / Feasibility, Clinical Trial Operational Technologies (e.g., CTMS, eTMF, analytics platforms), Vendor Alliance Management, Site Contracts and Investigator Payments, Sample and Imaging Management Operations.
Proven expertise in end‑to‑end clinical trial conduct, including early‑phase through late‑phase trials, with strong understanding of protocol development, feasibility, start‑up, execution, and close‑out.
Demonstrated strategic CRO and vendor oversight experience, including governance models, performance metrics, financial oversight, issue escalation, and continuous improvement.
Experience acting as a functional or enterprise‑level clinical operations subject‑matter expert, defining standards, operating models, and best practices applied across multiple studies or programs.
Strong background collaborating with Quality, Regulatory, Clinical Development, Data Management, Biostatistics, Medical Writing, Pharmacovigilance, Translational/Bioanalytical, Medical Affairs, Procurement, Legal and IT functions in a matrixed global environment.
Willingness to travel as required (approximately 10%).
Deep knowledge of clinical trial operations frameworks, including industry best practices and regulatory expectations (ICH‑GCP, FDA, and global health authorities).
Strong capability in clinical operations operating model design, including centralization, standardization, governance, and scalability.
Demonstrated leadership in clinical operations technology enablement, including business ownership of systems (e.g., CTMS, eTMF), data quality oversight, technology‑enabled risk management, and inspection readiness.
Expertise in vendor and alliance management, including development of governance structures, KPI frameworks, financial oversight, and performance optimization.
Understanding of clinical trial sample, imaging, and data flows, with ability to design operational controls that reduce patient data risk, site burden, and cycle times.
Ability to translate portfolio‑level strategy into executable clinical operations capabilities, standards, and guidance.
Proven strategic and critical thinking skills, with a data‑driven mindset and ability to anticipate operational risks and mitigation strategies.
Strong experience developing, authoring, and governing clinical operations SOPs, standards, and guidance documents.
Exceptional communication, presentation, and stakeholder influence skills, with the ability to engage senior leadership and cross‑functional teams.
High proficiency with clinical operations–relevant technologies and tools, including MS Office (Excel, PowerPoint, Word) and enterprise clinical systems; ability to leverage analytics for operational decision‑making.

Nice To Haves

Advance Degree Preferred.
Experience participating in and/or supporting regulatory authority interactions (e.g., FDA inspections) related to clinical operations processes, vendors, systems, or trial conduct is strongly preferred.
Demonstrated success leading, developing, and retaining high‑performing teams, including functional leaders.

Responsibilities

Oversee the development and strengthening of the following clinical operations capabilities and functions, with leads/teams in each of these areas: Clinical Trial Planning & Analytics, Clinical Trial Operational Technologies, Vendor Alliance Management, Site Contracts & Payments, and Sample & Imaging Management Operations.
Clinical Trial Planning & Analytics is accountable for end‑to‑end clinical trial feasibility activities, supporting protocol optimization, country and site selection, enrollment forecasting, and risk mitigation across clinical programs.
This function provides data‑driven feasibility insights to enable informed decision‑making during early study planning and partners closely with Clinical Operations Leads, Clinical Development, cross-functional stakeholders and external vendors to ensure trials are designed and placed for successful execution.
This function is responsible for predictive trial performance modeling to enable proactive implementation of contingency plans.
The Clinical Trial Operations Technology function is responsible for the strategic ownership, governance, and optimization of clinical trial operations systems that enable compliant, efficient, and inspection‑ready execution of clinical trials.
This function serves as the business owner for core clinical systems (e.g., CTMS, eTMF, and related platforms), ensuring alignment with clinical operations needs, regulatory requirements, and the company’s development portfolio.
Areas of focus for capability building include leveraging technology to enable cost-efficient trial budget builds and ongoing costs optimization during study execution, enabling tools for targeted clinical operations risk management and technology-enabled eTMF oversight.
Vendor Alliance Management is responsible for the strategic and operational oversight of external clinical operations vendors and CRO partners supporting clinical trials, including coordination of vendor due diligence for vendor qualification.
Ensures vendors deliver high‑quality services in compliance with GxP and contractual expectations, while enabling efficient study execution across one or more clinical programs.
Vendor Alliance Management is the primary interface between internal Clinical Operations Program Leads and external service providers, with accountability for vendor governance, performance management via objective metrics, issue escalation, and continuous improvement.
Site Contracts & Payments is responsible for creating and overseeing a scalable and effective operating model for site contracting visibility, investigator payment operations, serving as a central point of accountability for improving operational control, process effectiveness, financial discipline, vendor performance consistency, and sponsor-CRO-site workflow alignment.
Sample and Imaging Management is responsible for end-to-end sample and imaging oversight across Legend pipeline studies.
To strengthen visibility, accountability, and coordination across sites, CROs, central labs, specialty labs, imaging vendors.
Sample and Imaging Management focuses on system‑level consistency and risk reduction, mitigating against loss of patient data, enabling acceleration of data cleaning and reducing site burden for participation in clinical trials.
Lead business owner for clinical operations standards and practices, including functional owner for clinical operational related SOPs and guidance documents.
Performs other duties as required.

Benefits

Medical, dental, and vision insurance
401(k) retirement plan with a company match that vests fully on day one
Eight (8) weeks of paid parental leave after just three (3) months of employment
Paid time off policy that includes vacation time, personal time, sick time, floating holidays, and eleven (11) company holidays
Flexible spending and health savings accounts
Life and AD&D insurance
Short- and long-term disability coverage
Legal assistance
Supplemental plans such as pet, critical illness, accident, and hospital indemnity insurance
Voluntary commuter benefits
Family planning and care resources
Well-being initiatives
Peer-to-peer recognition programs