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Salary: USD 165,000 - 220,000 / annual
Alto Neuroscience is seeking a Senior Director of Procurement to lead the global vendor contracting and management function across research and clinical operations. This is a strategic leadership role that owns procurement end-to-end, from strategy and policy through complex supplier negotiations and financial management.
Key Responsibilities:
Strategy & Leadership: Build and execute a global procurement strategy aligned with the company's research, clinical, and commercial roadmap. Lead, develop, and scale a high-performing procurement and contracts team. Establish procurement policies, delegation-of-authority matrices, and SOX-compliant purchasing controls. Serve as a trusted advisor to the executive team on supplier risk and spend management.
Contracting & Legal: Draft, review, and negotiate complex agreements including CDAs, MSAs, CRO/CDMO/CMO agreements, clinical supply contracts, consulting agreements, and SaaS contracts. Negotiate key terms such as indemnification, limitation of liability, IP ownership, AI clauses, confidentiality, data privacy, warranties, and termination rights. Build and maintain a library of preferred contract positions and approved fallbacks, leveraging AI tools for efficiency. Partner with Legal, Finance, Quality, Operations, and Compliance to establish contract templates and negotiation playbooks. Ensure supplier contracts support GxP, FDA/EMA, HIPAA, GDPR, and FCPA compliance.
Sourcing & Supplier Management: Run RFI/RFP processes and supplier qualification with cross-functional stakeholders. Build supplier relationship management programs, performance scorecards, and business reviews for critical vendors. Identify and mitigate supply chain risk, including single-source dependencies and geopolitical exposure.
Financial Management: Own the purchase order process, including creation, approval workflows, three-way matching, and timely closure. Track budget-to-actual spend by department and category, flagging variances and forecasting risks to Finance monthly. Partner with FP&A on annual budgeting and quarterly reforecasting. Support month-end close with accurate accruals. Manage prepayments, milestone payments, and payment terms for major vendors.
Requirements:
- 10+ years of progressive procurement experience in biotech, pharmaceutical, or life sciences companies, including 5+ years in a leadership role
- Significant hands-on legal experience drafting and negotiating contracts such as MSAs, CRO/CDMO agreements, and licensing-adjacent supply terms
- Bachelor's degree in business, supply chain, life sciences, or related field (MBA or advanced degree in supply chain management preferred)
- Professional certification such as CPSM, CPPO, or CIPS (preferred)
- Experience supporting a company through clinical-stage to commercial transition, IPO, or acquisition (preferred)
- Familiarity with IP, licensing, and technology transfer terms in supplier and collaboration agreements (preferred)
- Experience with NetSuite (preferred)
- Global sourcing experience across US, EU, and Asia-Pacific; knowledge of GDPR a plus (preferred)
