Senior Manager, Participant Recruitment Strategy & Transformation
Headlands Research · Remote · $120,000–$150,000 (stated in the posting)
At Headlands Research, we are dedicated to enhancing clinical trial delivery within our communities. As a leading network of advanced clinical trial sites, we leverage cutting-edge technology and exceptional support services to broaden outreach and participation. Founded in 2018, our rapidly growing company currently operates 20+ sites across the US and Canada, with plans for further expansion.
📍 Location: Remote | 🏥 Site Name: Headlands Research Inc | 🕒 Full-Time |
The Company
At Headlands Research, we are working to improve lives by advancing innovative medical therapies. We are a family of next-generation clinical trial sites integrating technology and high-quality support services to make clinical research accessible to participants. Headlands operates clinical research sites across the U.S. and Canada and continues to grow its network and centralized capabilities.
The Role
The Senior Manager, Participant Recruitment Strategy & Transformation, is responsible for developing and leading enterprise-wide participant recruitment strategies designed to improve enrollment performance, accelerate study timelines, and enhance participant engagement across a multi-site clinical research network.
This role serves as a strategic partner to Clinical Operations, Business Development, Marketing, Feasibility, and Site Leadership teams by translating protocol requirements, operational capacity, and market intelligence into scalable recruitment and enrollment strategies.
The ideal candidate brings strong operational expertise in clinical research, combined with data-driven recruitment planning, participant funnel optimization, forecasting, and cross-functional leadership. This individual will focus heavily on enrollment predictability, participant access, recruitment scalability, and enterprise performance improvement initiatives.
Key Responsibilities
Recruitment Strategy & Enrollment Planning
- Develop and implement study-specific participant recruitment strategies across multiple therapeutic areas and research sites.
- Create enrollment forecasting models, recruitment pacing assumptions, and risk mitigation plans to support study startup and ongoing enrollment performance.
- Partner with Feasibility, Clinical Operations, and Business Development teams to support proposal development and enrollment projections.
- Analyze protocol inclusion/exclusion criteria, competitive landscape, and Participant population availability to determine recruitment feasibility and operational risk.
- Identify enrollment barriers and implement strategic interventions to improve recruitment outcomes.
Participant Funnel Optimization
- Analyze network-wide participant recruitment funnel performance from inquiry through enrollment and retention to identify strategic risks, recurring barriers, and cross-functional improvement opportunities.
- Define recruitment business KPI requirements and strategic performance review frameworks in partnership with Systems & Analytics and functional leaders; Systems & Analytics owns technical metric implementation and reporting infrastructure.
- Evaluate trends in lead demand, contact and qualification performance, screening conversion, enrollment velocity, retention, and cost efficiency to refine recruitment forecasts, prioritize strategic interventions, and assess enterprise outcomes.
- Utilize data analytics to improve recruitment efficiency, enrollment predictability, and study-level decision making.
Enterprise Transformation & Program Delivery
- Own cross-functional recruitment transformation roadmaps, project plans, milestones, dependencies, decisions, risks, and delivery status across network initiatives.
- Lead business-side platform rollout planning, including requirements prioritization, operational readiness, workflow validation, user acceptance testing coordination, communications, and adoption measurement.
- Partner with Systems & Analytics on technical solution design and releases; retain business accountability for process definition, readiness, training coordination, and measurable operational adoption.
- Establish standardized study launch recruitment readiness criteria covering lead demand, prescreen workflows, site capacity, referral pathways, participant communications, and internal/vendor handoffs.
- Facilitate cross-functional governance meetings, escalate material delivery risks, and provide executive-level updates on milestones, dependencies, and benefits realization.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Partner with Marketing and Digital Engagement teams to align participant acquisition priorities, audience needs, and lead-quality feedback with study recruitment strategy; Marketing retains campaign execution and spend ownership.
- Collaborate with Site Operations and Recruitment teams to ensure alignment between recruitment strategy and site execution capacity.
- Work closely with investigators and site leadership to optimize local recruitment approaches, referral pathways, and community engagement efforts.
- Lead business requirements, operational readiness, workflow validation, and adoption for participant engagement technologies and recruitment platforms in partnership with Systems & Analytics, which owns technical implementation.
Strategic Innovation & Process Improvement
- Drive development of scalable recruitment infrastructure, workflows, and best practices across the organization.
- Identify opportunities for innovation in decentralized recruitment, digital outreach, participant engagement, segmentation, and predictive analytics.
- Support enterprise initiatives focused on improving participant access, diversity, retention, and study participation experience.
- Lead enterprise-wide recruitment process improvement initiatives focused on standardized workflows, cross-functional handoffs, enrollment predictability, and measurable business impact; functional managers own daily execution.
Leadership & Team Development
- Lead change management with site and central teams by clarifying process ownership, communicating upcoming changes, and coordinating role-based training and reinforcement.
- Coach stakeholders on interpreting recruitment performance, translating data into action plans, and sustaining standardized practices across sites.
- Provide strategic guidance and mentorship on recruitment planning and enterprise improvement initiatives without assuming line management, individual productivity management, or call coaching responsibilities.
- Coordinate role-based training for recruitment strategy, planning, standardized processes, performance interpretation, and change adoption; Contact Center Operations owns recruiter coaching and call-quality training.
- Promote a collaborative, participant-centered culture focused on operational excellence, accountability, and performance improvement.
Role Accountability & Collaboration
- Accountable for recruitment strategy, forecast assumptions, study-level risk response, cross-functional project execution, business requirements, and operational adoption.
- Systems & Analytics owns platform configuration, permissions, integrations, automation, technical releases, data integrity, and reporting infrastructure; this role owns business requirements and use of the resulting insights.
- Contact Center Operations owns daily outreach, prescreening, scheduling, workforce execution, and outsourced partner performance; this role establishes strategic priorities and leads enterprise improvement initiatives.
- Marketing owns campaigns, acquisition channels, spend, and lead generation performance; this role aligns demand planning and lead-quality feedback with study enrollment strategy.
Qualifications
Required Qualifications
- Demonstrated experience leading multi-workstream implementations, enterprise process change, or complex cross-functional programs in clinical research or healthcare operations.
- Ability to manage project governance, risk registers, dependencies, executive communications, and change adoption without direct authority over all participating teams.
- Bachelor’s degree in Healthcare Administration, Public Health, Marketing, Life Sciences, or related field.
- 5+ years of experience in clinical research recruitment, feasibility, Participant engagement, digital recruitment, or site operations.
- 3+ years of leadership, strategic program management, or cross-functional project leadership experience.
- Strong understanding of clinical trial recruitment strategy, participant engagement, enrollment forecasting, and operational execution.
- Experience supporting multi-site clinical research studies and site network operations.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities with experience interpreting recruitment and operational data.
- Excellent communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills.
- Working knowledge of GCP, IRB/ethics requirements, Participant privacy expectations, and compliant participant-facing communication practices.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience within a site network, SMO, CRO, or decentralized clinical trial environment.
- Experience with Salesforce, Marketing Cloud, Tableau, Big Query, CRM platforms, recruitment analytics tools, or marketing automation platforms.
- Background in participant recruitment strategy for CNS, metabolic, obesity, vaccine, or specialty therapeutic areas.
- Familiarity with digital participant acquisition strategies.
- Experience supporting sponsor-facing recruitment planning and feasibility discussions
- Knowledge of AI-driven recruitment technologies, Participant segmentation, and predictive enrollment analytics.
Core Competencies
- Enterprise Program Management & Change Leadership
- Business Requirements, Operational Readiness & Platform Adoption
- Recruitment Strategy Development
- Enrollment Forecasting & Predictive Analytics
- Participant Engagement Optimization
- Clinical Research Operations
- Data-Driven Decision Making
- Cross-Functional Leadership
- Strategic Planning & Execution
- Process Improvement & Scalability
- Executive Communication
- Team Leadership & Mentorship
Success Metrics
- Enrollment forecast accuracy and documented variance analysis; study-level pacing and enrollment goal attainment (shared with site leadership).
- Study recruitment readiness at launch, including documented risk assessments and operational handoffs.
- Strategic project milestone completion, on-time delivery of business workstreams, and resolution of critical dependencies.
- Platform workflow adoption, completion of change-readiness activities, and sustained adherence to standardized recruitment processes.
- Impact of strategic interventions on funnel conversion, enrollment predictability, and recruitment efficiency.
- Impact of cross-functional strategic interventions on lead-to-randomization conversion
- Recruitment strategy effectiveness informed by Marketing campaign efficiency and lead-quality insights (Marketing owns campaign ROI)
- Strategic participant retention improvement opportunities, in partnership with site leadership
- Network-wide recruitment planning consistency and scalability
- Adoption and sustainability of standardized recruitment processes across sites
Headlands Research will never ask a candidate for personal identifiable information (date of birth, social security number, driver’s license information, etc) via email or messenger tools, or for a financial deposit of any kind.
Headlands Research is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetic information, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.
Need Assistance?
Headlands Research is committed to providing access and reasonable accommodation in its employment for individuals with disabilities. To request disability accommodation in the application process, contact recruiting@headlandsresearch.com for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response.