Description
Senior Director, Go To Market SME
Syneos Health® is a leading fully-integrated life sciences services organization built to accelerate customer success. We partner with innovators at every point across the drug development and commercialization continuum, helping them navigate complexity, anticipate change and accelerate progress.
Every day we perform better because of how we work together, as one team, each the best at what we do. We bring together talented experts across a broad spectrum of business critical corporate functions. Every role plays an essential part in enabling our customers to achieve their goals. Our teams are agile, collaborative, and committed to delivering—for each other, for our customers, and ultimately for the people who rely on the services we support.
Discover what your 25,000 future colleagues already know:
Why Syneos Health
- We are passionate about developing our people, through career development and progression; supportive and engaged line management; technical and therapeutic area training; peer recognition and total rewards program.
- We are committed to building an inclusive culture – where you can authentically be yourself. Central to this is our purpose – Driven to Deliver – which captures the passion of our colleagues to show up each day and shape solutions that have the ability to dramatically impact someone’s life.
- We are continuously building the company we all want to work for and our customers want to work with. Why? Because we know that when we bring together smart colleagues from across the world, we can shape the future of healthcare, driving impact for customers and defining the pace of patient progress.
Job Responsibilities
Business Development (BD)-Specific
- Partner with Business Development Strategists to identify opportunities and develop a healthy sales pipeline (e.g., RWLP/RWE in the US and potentially beyond), while influencing prioritization of strategic opportunities across accounts and segments.
- Align with BD to tailor, execute, and track customer outreach and engagement plans as part of broader account planning initiatives, providing expert guidance on approach and positioning.
- Attend customer meetings, as appropriate, and determine the correct SMEs to engage in support of specific opportunities, acting as a senior advisor on complex or high-impact engagements.
- Own follow-through on customer engagements through RFI/RFP stages, ensuring timely coordination and high-quality inputs, and providing expert input on solution positioning and strategy.
- Participate in strategy calls, RFI/RFP responses, and bid defense preparation as needed; contribute content and functional expertise, including guidance on positioning for complex or strategic pursuits.
- Ensure the business/functional area of responsibility is consistently represented across territory and individual account planning efforts, driving alignment with broader go-to-market strategy.
- Work with Account Development Consultants (ADCs/Inside Sales) and BD to build proactive messaging and outreach for targeted customers and prospects, enhancing effectiveness through expert insight and guidance.
- Increasing BD fluency in RWLP/RWE and facilitate the positioning of RWLP/RWE with their customers, through workshops, training sessions and the development of appropriate tools.
Operations (Ops)-Specific
- Align with operational leadership on overall delivery strategy, service model, and capability priorities, influencing direction through advanced expertise and market insight.
- Coordinate with operational experts and Marketing to develop customer-ready collateral that supports business development (BD) engagements, ensuring alignment with strategic positioning and differentiation.
- Support operational counterparts in creating training and onboarding materials for BD representatives and inside sales teams, embedding best practices and scalable approaches.
- Solicit and synthesize feedback from operational colleagues regarding target customers, competitive landscape, and market opportunity for growth, translating insights into strategic recommendations.
- Stay vigilant to emerging market trends; recommend capability enhancements and ensure Syneos offerings remain aligned to market needs, anticipating future trends and driving innovation in go-to-market approaches.
Other / Leadership & Governance
- Attend pipeline meetings with Senior BD and Operations leadership to ensure visibility, alignment, and support for active opportunities.
- Provide senior leadership with insights and feedback to ensure the functional area of responsibility is appropriately represented in account strategies and planning efforts, acting as a trusted advisor on strategic decisions.
- Maintain strong cross-functional alignment among Operations, BD, Marketing, and relevant SMEs to enable consistent messaging and efficient pursuit execution, influencing alignment across functions at a strategic level.
- Track and communicate key market, customer, and competitive insights to inform prioritization, investment decisions, and continuous improvement, supporting enterprise level decision-making.
- Serve as a trusted advisor to senior leadership, providing expert guidance on go-to-market strategy, complex customer engagements, and capability development.
- Lead or significantly influence complex, high-impact initiatives requiring innovative thinking, cross-functional alignment, and advanced business judgment.
Education Requirements
Minimum 4 Year / Bachelors Degree
Preferred Graduate Degree
Advanced degree (MBA, MS, MPH, PharmD) preferred or equivalent experience.
Additional Qualifications
- Education: Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree (MBA, MS, MPH, PharmD) preferred or equivalent experience.
- Experience: 15+ years of relevant experience in strategy, business development, solutions consulting, operations leadership, or related roles within life sciences, CRO/clinical services, or healthcare.
- Go-to-market & sales support: Demonstrated experience supporting sales pursuits, including opportunity qualification, account planning, and contributing to RFI/RFP responses and bid defenses.
- Operational acumen: Strong understanding of service delivery models and the ability to translate operational capabilities into customer value propositions and commercial messaging.
- Travel: Ability to travel as required for customer meetings and internal planning sessions.
- Experience in real-world evidence / real-world late phase (RWLP), FSP, Patient Services or adjacent evidence generation services.
- Background in developing GTM collateral, playbooks, and enablement content for commercial teams.
- Experience partnering with marketing and operations on positioning, messaging, and campaign development.
- Familiarity with CRM and pipeline management tools; disciplined approach to tracking pursuits and engagement activities.
- Recognized as a subject matter expert with demonstrated ability to influence senior leadership and contribute to enterprise-level strategic initiatives.
Critical Skills
- Communication: Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including presentation development and customer-facing storytelling.
- Collaboration: Proven ability to influence without authority and drive alignment across matrixed stakeholders (Ops, BD, Marketing, SMEs).
- Analytical mindset: Comfort synthesizing market/customer insights, competitive intelligence, and performance data to inform strategy.
- Strategic influence: Ability to act as a trusted advisor to senior leadership, shaping go-to-market strategies and guiding complex business decisions.
- Complex problem solving: Ability to address ambiguous, multi-dimensional business challenges requiring innovative and forward-looking solutions.
Disclaimer
Tasks, duties, and responsibilities as listed in this job description are not exhaustive. The Company, at its sole discretion and with no prior notice, may assign other tasks, duties, and job responsibilities.
Equivalent experience, skills, and/or education will also be considered so qualifications of incumbents may differ from those listed in the Job Description. The Company, at its sole discretion, will determine what constitutes as equivalent to the qualifications described above. Further, nothing contained herein
should be construed to create an employment contract. Occasionally, required skills/experiences for jobs are expressed in brief terms. Any language contained herein is intended to fully comply with all obligations imposed by the legislation of each country in which it operates, including the implementation
of the EU Equality Directive, in relation to the recruitment and employment of its employees. The Company is committed to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, including the provision of reasonable accommodations, when appropriate, to assist employees or applicants to perform the essential functions of the job.
Years of experience required
15+ years of relevant experience in strategy, business development, solutions consulting, operations
leadership, or related roles within life sciences, CRO/clinical services, or healthcare.
Physical Requirements: Position requires: ability to occasionally move about inside the office to access filing cabinets, office equipment, etc. and to move between office locations; ability to maintain a stationary position for prolonged periods of time; ability to occasionally manipulate (e.g., lift, carry, move) office
items and packages of light to medium weights of 10-35 pounds; ability to constantly operate a computer and other office productivity equipment (e.g., scanner, phone, printer, copier); ability to perceive and assess written materials for prolonged periods of time; and ability to frequently communicate with colleagues on the phone, by email, and in-person. Work Environment: This job operates in a professional office environment. This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, photocopiers, and filing cabinets. The noise level in the work environment is low. This is a largely sedentary role.
Get to know Syneos Health
Over the past 5 years, we have worked with 94% of all Novel FDA Approved Drugs, 95% of EMA Authorized Products and over 200 Studies across 73,000 Sites and 675,000+ Trial patients.
No matter what your role is, you’ll take the initiative and challenge the status quo with us in a highly competitive and ever-changing environment. Learn more about Syneos Health.
http://www.syneoshealth.com
Additional Information
Tasks, duties, and responsibilities as listed in this job description are not exhaustive. The Company, at its sole discretion and with no prior notice, may assign other tasks, duties, and job responsibilities. Equivalent experience, skills, and/or education will also be considered so qualifications of incumbents may differ from those listed in the Job Description. The Company, at its sole discretion, will determine what constitutes as equivalent to the qualifications described above. Further, nothing contained herein should be construed to create an employment contract. Occasionally, required skills/experiences for jobs are expressed in brief terms. Any language contained herein is intended to fully comply with all obligations imposed by the legislation of each country in which it operates, including the implementation of the EU Equality Directive, in relation to the recruitment and employment of its employees. The Company is committed to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, including the provision of reasonable accommodations, when appropriate, to assist employees or applicants to perform the essential functions of the job.
Summary
The Go-To-Market (GTM) Subject Matter Expert (SME) serves as a strategic bridge between Business Development (BD), Operations and Marketing to position and translate Syneos capabilities into compelling customer-facing solutions. In this role, the SME acts as a trusted advisor to senior leadership, influencing go-to-market strategy and providing expert guidance on complex, high-impact business opportunities across the organization. This role partners with operational leadership to shape delivery strategy and capability messaging, supports account planning and pipeline development, and contributes to customer engagements through RFI/RFP and bid defense activities. Operating with a high degree of autonomy, the SME applies advanced expertise and judgment to solve complex, multi-dimensional challenges and to guide decision-making in dynamic and evolving market conditions. The GTM SME ensures the functional area of responsibility is consistently represented across territories and accounts, while monitoring market trends to keep offerings aligned to evolving customer needs. Through deep domain expertise and forward-looking insight, this role anticipates market and customer trends, identifies opportunities for differentiation, and contributes to the development of innovative go-to-market approaches and capabilities that enhance the organization’s competitive position.
