Senior Manager, Contracts and Legal Operations

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Job Title: Senior Manager, Contracts and Legal OperationsLocation: LondonJob Type: Permanent and full time

Agencies: We will only work with recruitment partners on our preferred supplier list and will not engage with speculative CVs submitted.

Are you passionate about making life science life changing and delivering impact for patients? We want to hear from you.

About the role:

The Senior Manager, contracts and legal operations sits within LifeArc's Legal and Governance team which comprises contracts managers, senior and junior lawyers, governance professionals and a team assistant.

The team provides legal and governance advice and documentation across all of LifeArc's activities. This role is particularly focussed on technology transfer and medical research, grant funding and consultancy and confidentiality agreements.

Reporting to the Head of Legal, the role provides leadership for contracts management and optimises the delivery of legal services by ensuring that there are appropriate systems and processes in place to respond to requests and to draft, sign and store documents.

About you:

You will be responsible for the following:

• Managing a team of contracts managers and advisers, supporting their development and performance.
• Ensuring that systems and processes are in place so that requests to the Legal Team from across the organisation are completed accurately and on time.
• Coordinating with IT and within the Legal Team to ensure there are systems that support efficient management and storage of contracts.
• Coordinating contract management work across the Legal Team.
• Working with members of the Partnerships Team (Technology Transfer Services) to provide efficient contracts management support.
• Supporting the successful delivery of LifeArc's strategy through identifying and delivering the contract management needs of the organisation.
• Maintaining an acceptable risk profile through the application of the organisational risk appetite.
• Delivering improvements to systems and processes.
• Managing the recruitment of new permanent and temporary employees.
• Leading potentially complex internal initiatives and projects, including the identification and implementation of new IT systems.
• Using multiple data sources to assess performance and the needs of internal stakeholders to identify how to proactively and pre-emptively manage relationships.
• Managing external suppliers and the associated budget relevant to contract management.

Education and experience required:

• Degree or post-graduate qualifications in law, business or life sciences subject.
• Tech transfer, legal or contracts management qualifications from relevant bodies (including PraxisUnico, AUTM, Chartered Institute of Legal Executives or equivalent) desirable.
• Demonstrable people and team management skills
• Super-user of Legal IT systems; and ability to lead a project to identify and implement a new system.
• Developing and implementing contract management processes and associated templates.
• Drafting and negotiating standard agreements based on model templates, including medical research, grant funding, services, consultancy and confidentiality agreements; analysing and evaluating legal terms and proposing risk-based solutions that balance project needs and risk appetite.
• Stakeholder management and communication skills to explain complex concepts to internal and external stakeholders.
• Intellectual Property, preferably working within or advising research organisations, research funders, higher education institutions or innovation centres.
• Managing competing priorities.

About us:

At LifeArc, our ambition is to make life science life changing. We do this by advancing scientific discoveries beyond the lab, faster, so that they can shape the next generation of diagnostics, treatments, and cures.

Working at the cutting edge of translational science and as the early-stage translation specialists, we progress scientific discoveries on their journey to becoming a medicine, diagnostic or intervention that improve patients' lives. Our work begins by seeking out innovative science, then helping to develop this to a point where there is a clinical and commercial pathway for others to invest the time and money to take it further forward.

What we can offer you:

Focused on finding life changing solutions for underserved patients, our people thrive in an inclusive, and supportive environment that prioritises their health and wellbeing. Our multidisciplinary approach guarantees our people growth opportunities, while our culture of innovation and collaboration drives the impact we make delivering on our purpose of 'putting patients at the centre of everything we do'.

We are dedicated to creating a diverse, flexible, equitable and happy work environment so our colleagues can thrive as their truest selves. We act with courage, curiosity, care & commitment to deliver quality & excellence for our patients and each other Join us, and you'll be given the scope to develop your professional skills and experience in a safe, supportive and challenging environment

Salary will be determined by qualifications and experience along with other exceptional benefits. Because we understand everyone has different requirements, our flexible benefits allow you to choose those which are important to you. Our pension scheme offers employer contributions of up to 12%, private health insurance, and annual leave of 31 days PLUS bank holidays.

Don't meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people from minority ethnic backgrounds, for example, are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At LifeArc we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace, so whatever your background or lived experience, if you're excited about this role but your experience doesn't align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. Our top priority is finding the best candidate, and you may be just right for this or other roles.

We all have potential. At LifeArc, you'll discover what you can really do with it.