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.

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.