ICON is a global healthcare intelligence and clinical research organisation united by a mission to bring new medicines and treatments to patients faster.
As a values-driven organisation, integrity, collaboration, agility, and inclusion are at the heart of how we work and interact with each other, customers, patients and suppliers.
What You Will Do
You will provide strategic leadership across feasibility and site activation operations, ensuring consistent, high-quality delivery through a team of FSA Managers while supporting broader business and organisational objectives.
Key responsibilities include:
- Leading regional or global FSA Managers responsible for feasibility, country and site strategy, regulatory activation, and study start-up delivery.
- Setting the strategic direction for FSA operations across multiple studies, programmes, or portfolios and ensuring alignment with organisational priorities.
- Driving performance through managers by establishing clear objectives, monitoring operational metrics, and ensuring proactive risk identification and mitigation.
- Partnering with senior functional leaders, project teams, and customers to shape start-up strategies and support successful clinical trial execution.
- Supporting business development activities, including proposals, bid defences, customer governance meetings, and strategic growth initiatives.
- Leading organisational change, process optimisation, and continuous improvement initiatives to enhance efficiency, scalability, and quality across FSA.
- Building leadership capability within the function by coaching, mentoring, and developing FSA Managers and strengthening succession pipelines.
- Ensuring effective resource planning, workforce strategy, and capacity management to meet current and future business needs.
- Acting as a senior escalation point for complex operational, customer, and people-related matters.
Your Profile:
You will be an experienced people leader with demonstrated success in leading teams within a complex global clinical research environment.
Required qualifications and experience:
- Bachelor's degree in a relevant scientific, healthcare, or life sciences discipline.
- Extensive experience in clinical research ideally with significant expertise in feasibility, site selection, country strategy, regulatory activation, and study start-up.
- Proven success managing managers or multiple teams within a CRO, pharmaceutical, or related environment.
- Demonstrated ability to lead large global or regional organisations through periods of growth, transformation, and operational change.
- Strong strategic planning and business management skills with the ability to translate organisational objectives into operational execution.
- Experience partnering with senior customers and executive stakeholders, including participation in governance and business development activities.
- Strong financial, resource planning, and workforce management capabilities.
- Excellent communication, influencing, and leadership skills with the ability to build engagement and accountability across dispersed teams.
- Demonstrated track record of driving operational excellence, standardisation, and measurable performance improvement.
- Willingness to travel as required (approximately 15%).
#LI-MK1 #LI-Remote
Employment with ICON is contingent upon having the legal right to work in the country where the role is based.
Rewards & Benefits
ICON offers a competitive and comprehensive total rewards package designed to support your health, wellbeing, and career development.
Benefits may include:
- Competitive base salary and performance related incentives
- Health and wellbeing programmes including medical, dental, and vision coverage where applicable
- Retirement and pension plans
- Life assurance and disability coverage
- Employee assistance programmes and wellbeing resources
- Learning and development opportunities through structured training and career pathways
Benefits may vary depending on role and location.
Visit our careers site to read more about the benefits ICON offers.
Inclusion and Accessibility
ICON is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building an inclusive and accessible workplace where everyone feels valued and supported.
If you require reasonable accommodations during the recruitment process, please let us know or submit a request here.
Are you a current ICON Employee? Please click here to apply
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in a relevant scientific, healthcare, or life sciences discipline
- Extensive clinical research experience with significant expertise in feasibility, site selection, country strategy, regulatory activation, and study start-up
- Experience managing managers or multiple teams within a CRO, pharmaceutical, or related environment
- Experience leading large global or regional organizations through growth, transformation, and operational change
- Strong strategic planning and business management skills
- Experience partnering with senior customers and executive stakeholders, including governance and business development activities
- Strong financial, resource planning, and workforce management capabilities
- Excellent communication, influencing, and leadership skills
- Track record of driving operational excellence, standardization, and measurable performance improvement
- Willingness to travel approximately 15%
- Legal right to work in the country where the role is based
ICON plc Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about ICON plc and has not been reviewed or approved by ICON plc.
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Healthcare Strength — Benefits are described as comprehensive, with medical coverage and wellness initiatives highlighted. Larger sites are also associated with added wellness supports such as onsite fitness options and access to an employee assistance program.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time-off and flexibility provisions are positioned as a meaningful part of the total package, including vacation/annual leave and flexible work scheduling. Flexibility is sometimes cited as helping offset long hours in certain roles.
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Retirement Support — Retirement and savings support is presented as a core component of the benefits package, including offerings such as pension arrangements in some locations and a U.S. 401(k) plan with company match. Financial planning resources are also emphasized as part of broader security benefits.
ICON plc Insights
What We Do
Since our foundation in Dublin, Ireland in 1990, our mission has been to help our clients to accelerate the development of drugs and devices that save lives and improve quality of life. We do this by delivering best in class information, solutions and performance, with an unyielding focus on quality at all times. We offer a full range of consulting, development and commercialisation services from a global network of offices in 53 countries. We focus our innovation on the factors that are critical to our clients – reducing time to market, reducing cost, and increasing quality – and our global team of experts has extensive experience in a broad range of therapeutic areas.
