Senior Director - Strategic Operations & Insights

Certara is a growing company that provides a dynamic and exciting place to work. Our purpose is to assist in accelerating the development of meaningful medicines that make an impact on our society and the people that need them most. Innovation and creativity are highly valued, and everyone is given the opportunity for training and continuous development. Our portfolio spans the discovery, preclinical, clinical and post-marketing phases of drug development, working with 1,200 commercial companies, 250 academic institutions, and numerous regulatory agencies.

This strategic impactful operations leadership role drives the evolution of the CDDS reporting and analytics capabilities to produce decision-grade insights and optimization of processes to empower practice area/executive leadership to make data-driven decisions. This role will partner with CDDS leadership, including operations and consulting practice leadership to develop tools, reports and capabilities for their consumption on support of their strategic and operational decision-making. This role also focuses on identifying and implementing operational excellence opportunities to ensure efficient, standardized services to all of Certara's internal and external stakeholders.

• Provide leadership and oversight to three key business functions instrumental in the execution of our business operations across CDDS:
• Oversight of Operations Business Partners
  • Oversee a business-partner model designed to drive measurable impact through direct operational support to practice and service line leaders.
  • Ensure consistent execution of operational activities, including portfolio health management, business performance analysis, process improvements, and strategic initiative execution.
• Reporting & Analytics
  • Own and evolve the division's reporting, analytics, and data strategy
  • Manage the consolidated reporting of business performance and frame insights against division goals.
  • Develop and maintain standardized KPI frameworks covering financial, operational, customer, and quality metrics.
  • Deliver real-time business performance dashboards and executive-ready insights to guide decision-making and proactive management.
  • Partner with Finance and divisional operations to align forecasting, data definitions, and reporting cadences.
• Business Insights & Decision Support
  • Identify performance risks, root causes, and levers to improve operational and financial outcomes.
  • Conduct deep-dive analyses on margin, delivery efficiency, resource utilization, and product/customer profitability.
  • Provide analytical support for initiatives that drive incremental revenue, margin expansion, and operational efficiency.
  • Collaborate with commercial, consulting delivery, and product leaders to model strategic decisions and tradeoffs.
• Operational Excellence
  • Lead process standardization, automation, and optimization efforts across functions.
  • Drive cross-functional change management for new processes, systems, and tools.
  • Partner with IT to prioritize operational systems investments (PSA, CRM, analytics tools).
• Coordinate monthly and quarterly business reviews in partnership with Executive Operations.
• Design and run practice- and service line-level operational reviews to ensure visibility into performance and risks
• Develop and manage internal governance processes to support effective execution of internal activities aligned to maximizing business performance

• Undergraduate degree required; MBA preferred.
• Minimum of 10 years' management/leadership experience in business operations.
• Experience working with reporting/analytics across various platforms, including PowerBI/ Tableau. Experience working with data warehouses and other aligned technology platforms a plus
• Experience transforming organizations and managing executive stakeholder engagement, including crafting executive-level presentations.
• Change Management certification or equivalent experience preferred
• 5+ years' experience working on operational excellence, transformation and business process optimization
• Experience working in an operational management role driving business performance, preferably in a services-oriented organization
• 5+ years' experience working in a service/management consulting organization.
• Experience in Life Science industry sector, pharmaceutical preferred.
• Experience leveraging resources to drive significant business value.

Skills & Abilities:

• Excellent reporting skills including detailed analysis and executive presentations.
• Ability to identify gaps and opportunities and drive solutions in a creative way that doesn't rely on exhaustive resources.
• Strong analytical skills required, including a thorough understanding of how to interpret internal/external customer business needs and translate them into application and operational requirements.
• Demonstrated executive presence, innovative, and ability to engage and influence side, down, and upwards.
• Ability to work effectively in a matrix organization.
• Solid organization skills and ability to work across multiple functions.
• Excellent interpersonal and conflict resolution skills.
• Enthusiastic self-starter, can-do attitude with a strong sense of problem solving.

Certara bases all employment-related decision on merit, taking into consideration qualifications, skills, achievement, and performance. We treat all applicants and employees without regard to personal characteristics such as race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, nationality, marital status, pregnancy, physical or mental condition, genetic information, military service, or other characteristic protected by law.