About the Organization

A philanthropist has established a medical research fund (the “Organization”) whose mission is to improve outcomes for patients diagnosed with urological cancers, with an initial focus on upper tract urothelial carcinoma (“UTUC”) — a rare, aggressive, and chronically underfunded cancer that is underrepresented in the research and clinical trials that have transformed bladder cancer care. The Organization is among the largest venture philanthropy funds in the country dedicated to rare cancers. Scientific direction is guided by the Chief Medical Officer (“CMO”) and a Medical Advisory Committee (“MAC”) of six leading investigators at Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Moffitt Cancer Center, and Trident Health. The Organization is supported by a family office with a Board of Directors that retains final governance authority.

About the Role

The Organization is seeking a Program Manager to serve as the primary operational link between the Organization and its network of advisors and funded investigators. This is a rare opportunity to help build a mission-driven organization at its earliest and most formative stage, see the full lifecycle of research funding from the inside, and play a direct role in meaningfully impacting patient care and outcomes.

The Program Manager supports the CMO and the MAC operationally, ensuring that the Organization's portfolio of research investments stays on track by coordinating across institutions, tracking milestones, facilitating communication between investigators and collaborators, and taking the operational burden off investigators so they can focus on their research. This is not a site-level clinical research position — the Program Manager does not manage day-to-day trial operations, enroll patients, or handle case report forms. The ideal candidate brings strong attention to detail, comfort navigating academic medical environments, and the discretion to work with senior clinicians and industry partners. The Program Manager reports to the Board of Directors.

Areas of Responsibility

• Serve as the primary point of contact for institutional project managers and research teams at funded sites
• Lead intake of proposals submitted through the Organization’s website, triaging submissions, preparing them for MAC review, and maintaining the proposal pipeline tracker to ensure investigators receive timely follow-up on outcomes
• Organize MAC meetings, investigator working sessions, site visits, and CMO briefings, including agenda development, pre-reads and material preparation, decision capture, and follow-up tracking
• Coordinate multi-site operations, including protocol harmonization, amendments, site activation, and shared procedures
• Maintain a master portfolio tracker covering research milestones, deliverables, timelines, and regulatory submissions (IRB approvals and ethics oversight, FDA filings such as INDs/IDEs where applicable, NIH reporting requirements)
• Proactively surface study risks — regulatory delays, site activation bottlenecks, sponsor deliverable slippage — and work with the CMO and investigators to address them
• Drive budget flow between investigators and the finance team, including submissions, updates, disbursement schedules, and spend against milestones
• Partner with legal counsel on contracts, grant agreements, material transfer agreements (MTAs), data use agreements (DUAs), and related documentation, shepherding agreements from draft through execution
• Support investigators working with pharma and diagnostic partners on both new proposals and active partnerships, scheduling meetings, facilitating information exchange, and tracking deliverables and timelines
• Manage the operational aspects of UTUC-focused registry and biorepository efforts, including data contribution timelines, site participation, sample sharing logistics, and harmonization of data collection across institutions

Ideal Candidate

• Bachelor's degree required; degree in health sciences, life sciences, nursing, public health, or a related field preferred.
• 5+ years of clinical research experience, with at least 2–3 years coordinating or managing multi-site studies in an academic medical center, cooperative group, CRO, foundation, or sponsor environment
• Solid understanding of the clinical research ecosystem: IRB processes, GCP and FDA regulatory requirements, agreements (MTAs, DUAs, CTAs), multi-site study logistics, patient registries and biorepositories, and how academic medical centers operate
• Demonstrated project management and organizational skills, with a track record of keeping complex, multi-stakeholder workstreams on schedule
• Confident building processes, trackers, and workflows from scratch as the portfolio scales
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to create presentation decks, briefing documents, and other materials for the CMO, Board, and Advisory Committee, translating complex scientific and operational updates into clear, executive-ready summaries
• Proactive by nature, with a sense of ownership and the ability to manage multiple workstreams independently and drive work to completion without being prompted
• Comfortable engaging directly with senior investigators, institutional research staff, and industry partners in a professional, credible manner
• Willingness to travel periodically for site visits, investigator meetings, and other events
• Discretion and sound judgment handling confidential investigator, financial, and partnership information

Compensation

• Commensurate with experience

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Flexible spending account
• Health insurance
• Health savings account
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Vision insurance

Application Question(s):

• Why are you the right fit for this role? Please explicitly discuss any alignment between your previous experience and the job description,
• What excites you most about this role?

Experience:

• clinical reserach: 5 years (Required)
• managing multi-site studies : 2 years (Required)

Ability to Commute:

• Charleston, SC 29401 (Required)

Work Location: In person