[Hiring] Global Account Director @Certara

Role Description

The Global Account Director (GAD) is the commercial owner and client advocate for an assigned portfolio of accounts and prospects within a defined geographic territory. This includes existing Certara clients, former clients, and organizations with which Certara does not yet have a commercial relationship.

The role is responsible for:

• Developing trusted client relationships
• Creating new opportunities
• Growing existing accounts
• Bringing the breadth of Certara's scientific, software, and services capabilities together around the client's most important drug development decisions

Success requires:

• Curiosity
• Commercial judgment
• Understanding client needs and decision-making processes

Responsibilities

• Own the Territory and Client Relationship
  • Serve as the primary commercial owner and client advocate for assigned accounts and prospects
  • Develop and execute territory and account plans that identify opportunities for retention, expansion, new business, and strategic relationship development
  • Build relationships across scientific, clinical, regulatory, operational, procurement, and executive stakeholders
  • Develop a strong understanding of client's pipeline, development priorities, business objectives, and organizational dynamics
  • Maintain regular, meaningful client engagement, including in-person interaction across the territory
  • Build Certara's presence within the local biopharmaceutical ecosystem and actively develop relationships with prospective clients
• Discover and Qualify the Right Opportunities
  • Lead discovery conversations that identify the business and scientific context behind client needs
  • Understand the critical decisions clients are trying to make and the confidence required to make those decisions
  • Identify the stakeholders involved in the decision and the client's priorities, constraints, and timelines
  • Distinguish between stated requests and the underlying problem Certara can help the client solve
  • Qualify opportunities based on strategic fit, client value, Certara differentiation, likelihood of success, and appropriate use of Certara resources
  • Be willing to challenge, reshape, or walk away from opportunities where Certara is not positioned to create sufficient value or win successfully
• Orchestrate Certara Around the Client
  • Bring together the appropriate scientific, software, services, and commercial expertise based on the client's needs
  • Ensure internal participants understand the client context, meeting objectives, stakeholders, and desired outcomes before client engagement
  • Lead client conversations while enabling Certara's scientific and technical experts to provide the depth and credibility appropriate to the opportunity
  • Connect capabilities across Certara to create greater client value
  • Maintain clear commercial ownership as opportunities move across teams and capabilities
  • Create a consistent client experience regardless of which Certara teams are involved
• Create and Grow Business
  • Generate new opportunities through proactive territory development, account penetration, referrals, networking, and engagement with the local life sciences ecosystem
  • Identify whitespace within existing accounts by understanding client pipelines, priorities, and unmet needs
  • Develop opportunities across Certara's portfolio
  • Build compelling value propositions based on the importance of the client's decision, Certara's differentiation, and the value of reducing risk, uncertainty, time, or resource requirements
  • Develop and execute opportunity strategies that address competitive position, stakeholder alignment, value, commercial structure, and path to decision
  • Lead commercial negotiations in collaboration with appropriate internal stakeholders
  • Meet or exceed territory bookings and growth objectives
• Protect and Expand Client Relationships
  • Maintain awareness of active engagements and overall client experience
  • Proactively identify relationship risks, delivery concerns, and potential barriers to future growth
  • Coordinate appropriate internal resources to resolve issues quickly and communicate clearly with clients
  • Ensure lessons from client feedback, wins, and losses are shared internally
  • Look beyond individual transactions to build durable, expanding relationships with clients
• Maintain Commercial Discipline
  • Maintain accurate account, opportunity, pipeline, and activity information in Salesforce
  • Develop credible forecasts based on demonstrated client evidence and clearly understood next steps
  • Maintain sufficient qualified pipeline to support territory and corporate objectives
  • Establish clear next actions, owners, and timelines following meaningful client interactions
  • Collaborate effectively with Software Specialists, Portfolio Teams, scientific experts, marketing, operations, and other commercial colleagues
  • Contribute market, competitive, and client insights that improve Certara's commercial strategy

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required; scientific or life sciences education strongly preferred
• Demonstrated success in business development, account management, consulting, scientific sales, or another client-facing commercial role within biopharma, biotechnology, CRO, life sciences software, or a related industry
• Strong understanding of the drug discovery and development process and the challenges facing biopharmaceutical companies
• Scientific curiosity and sufficient technical fluency to engage credibly with drug development professionals
• Experience developing new business as well as expanding established client relationships
• Demonstrated ability to uncover client priorities and translate complex scientific or business challenges into commercially actionable opportunities
• Strong executive presence and ability to engage effectively across scientific, operational, procurement, and C-suite stakeholders
• Ability to lead through influence and coordinate multidisciplinary teams in a matrix organization
• Strong commercial judgment, including opportunity qualification, competitive strategy, value positioning, and negotiation
• Demonstrated ability to build trusted relationships while constructively challenging clients and internal stakeholders when appropriate
• High level of curiosity, accountability, and initiative with a strong bias toward client engagement and action
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Ability and willingness to spend significant time engaging clients and prospects in person across the assigned territory

What Success Looks Like

Successful Territory Managers become trusted advocates for their clients inside Certara and trusted representatives of Certara with their clients. They know their territory, understand the organizations and drug development programs within it, create opportunities rather than waiting for them, and focus Certara's resources on work where we can deliver meaningful value and win.

Clients experience one Certara, regardless of how many scientific, software, or services teams are involved. Internally, the Territory Manager provides a clear view of the client: what matters to them, what decisions they face, where Certara can create value, what could put the relationship at risk, and what needs to happen next.

The result is sustainable territory growth built on stronger client relationships, better-qualified opportunities, and work where Certara is differentiated and positioned to succeed.

Certara bases all employment-related decisions on merit, taking into consideration qualifications, skills, achievement, and performance. We treat all applicants and employees without regard to personal characteristics such as race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, nationality, marital status, pregnancy, physical or mental condition, genetic information, military service, or other characteristic protected by law.