Senior / Director of Patient Recruitment

Position Summary

We are seeking an experienced and strategic Senior / Director of Patient Recruitment to lead the development, execution, and optimization of patient recruitment and retention strategies across clinical research programs.

The Director will be responsible for building scalable, patient-centric recruitment strategies that accelerate enrollment while maintaining high-quality patient engagement and retention. This leader will work closely with Clinical Operations, Site Management, Medical Affairs, Marketing, Data & Analytics, and external recruitment partners to identify recruitment challenges, develop innovative solutions, and deliver measurable enrollment results.

The ideal candidate combines deep expertise in clinical trial patient recruitment with strong operational leadership, data-driven decision-making, and a passion for improving the patient experience.

Key Responsibilities

Patient Recruitment Strategy

• Develop and execute comprehensive patient recruitment and retention strategies across clinical trials and therapeutic programs.
• Establish recruitment objectives, enrollment forecasts, KPIs, and performance benchmarks.
• Assess recruitment feasibility and identify patient population opportunities during study planning.
• Develop innovative approaches to patient identification, education, engagement, and conversion.
• Partner with clinical teams to proactively identify enrollment risks and implement mitigation strategies.

Recruitment Operations & Performance

• Lead recruitment initiatives from study start-up through enrollment completion.
• Monitor recruitment performance across sites, regions, therapeutic areas, and patient populations.
• Use recruitment data and analytics to identify trends, bottlenecks, and opportunities for optimization.
• Develop dashboards and regular reporting to communicate recruitment performance to senior leadership.
• Establish best practices and standardized processes that can be scaled across multiple studies.

Site & Stakeholder Partnership

• Collaborate with Clinical Operations and site teams to improve recruitment performance.
• Provide sites with recruitment tools, training, messaging, and resources.
• Partner with investigators and site personnel to understand local recruitment challenges.
• Manage relationships with patient recruitment agencies, technology providers, community organizations, advocacy groups, and other external partners.
• Evaluate and manage external recruitment vendors to ensure quality, compliance, and performance.

Patient-Centric Engagement

• Ensure recruitment strategies are designed around the needs, behaviors, and experiences of patients and caregivers.
• Develop patient-friendly recruitment materials and engagement approaches in collaboration with relevant internal teams.
• Identify opportunities to reduce barriers to clinical trial participation.
• Incorporate patient insights and feedback into recruitment strategies.
• Promote inclusive recruitment practices designed to reach diverse and underrepresented patient populations.

Leadership & Team Development

• Build, lead, and mentor a high-performing patient recruitment organization.
• Establish team goals, performance expectations, and development plans.
• Foster a culture of accountability, innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Provide strategic guidance and recruitment expertise to cross-functional teams.
• Represent Patient Recruitment in leadership meetings and program governance forums.

Budget & Vendor Management

• Develop and manage patient recruitment budgets and forecasts.
• Evaluate recruitment vendors, technologies, and service providers.
• Negotiate scopes of work and monitor vendor performance against agreed-upon KPIs.
• Ensure recruitment investments deliver measurable impact and return on investment.

Compliance & Quality

• Ensure recruitment activities comply with applicable regulations, ethical standards, privacy requirements, and institutional review board/ethics committee requirements.
• Partner with Legal, Regulatory, Quality, and Clinical Operations teams to ensure recruitment materials and programs meet applicable requirements.
• Maintain appropriate documentation and oversight of recruitment activities.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree in life sciences, healthcare, business, marketing, communications, or a related field.
• 8+ years of experience in clinical research, patient recruitment, clinical operations, or a related healthcare/life sciences environment.
• 3+ years of leadership or people-management experience.
• Demonstrated success developing and executing patient recruitment strategies for clinical trials.
• Strong understanding of the clinical trial lifecycle and patient enrollment process.
• Experience working with clinical research sites, investigators, CROs, recruitment vendors, and other clinical stakeholders.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Ability to manage multiple programs and priorities in a fast-paced environment.

Preferred

• Master's degree or advanced degree in a relevant discipline.
• Experience across multiple therapeutic areas.
• Experience with decentralized or hybrid clinical trials.
• Experience using digital recruitment, social media, patient databases, CRM platforms, or other recruitment technologies.
• Experience developing recruitment strategies for difficult-to-recruit patient populations.
• Experience with global or multi-country clinical trials.
• Familiarity with diversity, equity, and inclusion considerations in clinical trial recruitment.

Key Performance Indicators

Success in this role will be measured through metrics such as:

• Patient enrollment rate
• Time to first patient and time to enrollment targets
• Recruitment forecast accuracy
• Screen-to-enrollment conversion
• Site recruitment performance
• Patient retention rates
• Cost per enrolled patient
• Recruitment vendor performance
• Diversity and representativeness of enrolled populations
• Patient engagement and satisfaction
• Achievement of study enrollment milestones

Core Competencies

• Strategic Leadership
• Patient-Centric Thinking
• Clinical Trial Recruitment
• Data-Driven Decision Making
• Operational Excellence
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
• Vendor Management
• Team Leadership & Development
• Communication & Executive Presence
• Innovation & Continuous Improvement
• Change Management
• Problem Solving

Why JCCT?

JCCT has provided exceptional customer service to clients, volunteers, and vendors for the last 20 years. This team effort has resulted in our company getting recognized as one of the best clinical research sites in the United States.

We are actively growing through acquisition and organic growth and need high performing individuals to help support our continued success. Our clients come from all over the world to place a study at our research sites. We are proud of what we have accomplished and invite you to explore career opportunities with us. JCCT makes a promise to support, accept and respect you as an individual, in our family focused environment.

Our vision is to make a difference in our world to help improve the health and wellbeing of others through pharmaceutical research and the processes of drug development. Our impact is driven by genuine care, support and customer service provided to our employees, volunteers, and sponsors.

If you are looking for a positive work environment and the opportunity for personal growth and satisfaction, we encourage you to apply at JCCT. Qualified candidates will be contacted for interviews. Unleash your potential and apply today!

EEO

JCCT provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants. We value diversity at our company, and it is our policy to recruit, hire, and promote qualified individuals without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status