Director, Contracts Management & Legal Operations

About the Role

We are seeking a Director, Contracts & Legal Operations to join our Legal team. As a newly public clinical stage company advancing toward potential commercialization, we are building the legal, operational and governance infrastructure needed for our next phase of growth. This is a highly visible, business-facing role at the intersection of Legal, Technical Operations, Clinical, Finance and other corporate functions. In this role you will own the company's end to end contracting lifecycle and build the legal operations infrastructure needed for our next stage of growth. The ideal candidate is proactive, confident and direct. They work closely with business stakeholders, push issues to resolution, and use good judgment about when to escalate. Reports to the VP, Legal.

Core Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end contract lifecycle, from intake through drafting, negotiation, execution and post-signature management.
• Draft, review and independently negotiate a broad range of agreements across the business, including CDAs, MSAs, SOWs, consulting, vendor, clinical, manufacturing, supply chain, quality and commercial agreements.
• Serve as the primary contracting partner to Technical Operations, Clinical Operations, Research, Commercial, Finance, and People, working directly with business stakeholders to understand objectives, drive negotiations and escalate material or novel issues as appropriate.
• Identify contractual, operational and business risks and propose practical, business-oriented solutions.
• Train and enable business users on contracting processes, templates and self-service tools.
• Assess and improve end-to-end contracting workflows and CLM processes in partnership with Finance, IT, and other stakeholders, including contract intake, purchase orders, approval and signature authority, and handoffs between contracting and spend management.
• Build and maintain templates, clause libraries, negotiation playbooks, fallback positions and approval matrices.
• Establish legal intake, prioritization, metrics and reporting.
• Track key obligations, milestones, renewals and notice requirements.
• Drive automation, AI adoption and process improvements across the Legal function.
• Support and, as appropriate, lead process design and improvement initiatives such as commercial-readiness contracting and related process design, operational support for public-company governance including proxy and D&O questionnaire processes and corporate records, and scaling legal processes as Obsidian moves toward commercialization.

Core Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and 12+ years of experience in contract management, legal operations or a related legal/commercial function.
• 5-8+ years of experience in the biotech, pharmaceutical or another regulated life-sciences industry.
• Substantial experience independently drafting and negotiating complex life sciences agreements, with meaningful experience supporting CDMO, CRO, ATC, supply chain, and/or technical operations strongly preferred.
• Hands-on CLM experience, including configuring workflows, templates and reporting.
• Track record of building or improving contracting processes, playbooks or legal operations infrastructure.
• Excellent planning, coordination, and time management skills.
• Excellent oral, written, and visual communication skills.
• Proactive ownership: takes initiative and moves work forward without waiting for direction.
• Confident and direct workstyle; communicates clearly with stakeholders at all levels and is comfortable pushing back when warranted.
• Business judgment: balances risk with business objectives and knows when to escalate.
• Builder mindset: does well where processes are still being designed and creates structure where none exists.
• Cultivates collaboration, transparency, and accountability within and across teams.
• Inspires confidence, credibility, and trust internally and externally; recognized for high integrity.
• Operates with urgency, adept at building buy-in and driving alignment within and across teams, senior leadership, and external partners.
• Tenacious and resilient; remains calm under pressure and leads others through complex situations.
• Continuous learner; fosters innovative thinking and adopts novel approaches that are fit for purpose.
• Reflective and self-aware; operates with a growth mindset.

Bonus Qualifications

• Experience supporting commercialization or launch-readiness activities is highly preferred.
• Public-company experience supporting governance, proxy, equity or insider trading processes.
• Experience with AI-enabled contracting tools or workflow automation.