Contract Negotiation & Finance Operations Manager

PeopleGrove is looking for a detail-oriented and commercially savvy professional to manage contract negotiations with our higher education partners and support key finance operations. Reporting to the Controller, this role owns the end-to-end negotiation process for new sales agreements, renewals, and RFP responses serving as the primary point of contact for partner institutions throughout the contracting lifecycle. Beyond contracts, this person will also lend support to billing plans and collections as needed, giving them meaningful visibility into how deal terms translate into revenue outcomes.

This is a highly cross-functional role that sits at the intersection of sales, legal, and finance. The ideal candidate is comfortable negotiating directly with higher ed procurement and legal offices, can make sound, independent judgment calls on contract terms within established guardrails, and brings the same rigor to billing and collections support when called upon.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead contract negotiations with higher education partners across new sales agreements, renewals, and RFP responses
• Manage the full contract lifecycle: drafting, redlining, negotiation, internal approval, execution, and renewal tracking
• Turn around redlines promptly, balancing legal and business risk against deal velocity
• Make independent, pragmatic decisions on contract terms within established risk tolerances, escalating only when truly necessary
• Serve as the primary liaison with partner institutions' procurement and legal offices, guiding contracts through their internal approval processes
• Build and maintain a system for tracking key contract data (renewal dates, terms, obligations, risk flags) to support proactive account and revenue management
• Partner with the Controller and Finance team to ensure contract terms align with billing, revenue recognition, and budgeting needs
• Support billing plan setup and collections efforts as needed, helping ensure contract terms are accurately reflected downstream
• Maintain and improve contract templates, playbooks, and negotiation workflows over time
• Identify process bottlenecks in the contract-to-cash workflow and recommend improvements

Qualifications Required

• Proven experience negotiating and managing contracts end-to-end, ideally in a B2B, SaaS, or higher education context
• Experience working with institutional procurement and/or legal review processes (higher education experience strongly preferred but not required)
• Strong project management and organizational skills, with the ability to track and report on contract data across a portfolio
• Comfort making pragmatic business judgment calls on contract terms rather than defaulting to escalation
• Exposure to billing, invoicing, or collections processes, or a strong interest in developing this skill set
• Experience with Salesforce (or similar CRM), especially for contract tracking and reporting
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to negotiate confidently with both legal and non-legal stakeholders
• A collaborative, low-ego approach - this role succeeds by removing friction, not adding process for its own sake
• Ability to manage a high volume of concurrent negotiations without losing track of details

About us

PeopleGrove empowers colleges and universities to deliver meaningful engagement and hands-on learning that drives measurable outcomes for students, alumni, programs, and institutions. From mentorship and career readiness to clinical placements and competency management, PeopleGrove helps institutions improve student preparedness, meet accreditation standards, and prove program effectiveness. The platform supports over 500 institutions and 750+ academic programs, including 98% of key clinical programs in the United States.

Learn how PeopleGrove is shaping the future through a comprehensive suite of solutions across the entire learner lifecycle– from student and alumni engagement to clinical experiential education, mentorship, and career readiness. Visit us at www.peoplegrove.com and follow us on LinkedIn.