Director, Medical Chair (Remote)

About the role

The Director, Medical Chair is a senior, enterprise-level leader responsible for setting the strategic medical, ethical, and regulatory direction of WCG’s IRB operations. This role combines executive leadership, deep IRB expertise, and technology fluency to ensure scalable, consistent, and future-ready human research protection across all WCG IRBs.

Responsibilities

• Influence and advise on the strategic medical vision for WCG’s IRB operations, translating enterprise strategy into policies, standards, and multi-year objectives
• Serve as a strategic advisor to executive leadership on medical ethics, regulatory risk, and emerging trends in human subjects research
• Provide guidance and decision making on complex, high-risk, or escalated ethical and medical determinations to the IRB Executive Committee
• Act as a visible external representative and thought leader for WCG in interactions with regulators, sponsors, academic institutions, and industry forums
• Chair Board meetings to ensure compliance with federal and state regulations and WCG IRB policies
• Identify Board and Chair training needs at an individual and group level and prepare and deliver training to Chairs, Board members, outside clients, institutions, and other parties involved in human subject research
• Facilitate high-quality deliberation and model best-in-class ethical and scientific decision making
• Resolve disagreements between Board members and guide consensus-based outcomes
• Review research submissions, identify issues, and guide effective resolution
• Responsible for the strategic and operational leadership of a senior team of Medical Chairs, including being directly accessible to Medical Chairs to assist with day-to-day escalations, difficult determinations, and real-time guidance on complex submissions
• Lead and develop physician and scientist leaders through coaching, feedback, and performance management
• Ensure quality, consistency, and accountability across IRB panels and geographies
• Foster a culture of professionalism, rigor, collaboration, and continuous improvement in conjunction with the ethical review leadership team
• Partner closely with Technology, Product, and Operations leaders to ensure IRB processes are scalable, data-driven, and technology-enabled
• Champion adoption of new platforms, tools, and system enhancements while maintaining regulatory integrity
• Utilize dashboards, metrics, and reporting to improve IRB performance and client outcomes
• Advise clients on scientific, ethical, and regulatory considerations, including direct engagement with sponsors and institutions to work through complex, protocol-specific, or day-to-day issues as they arise
• Support regulatory inquiries, audits, and inspections
• Provide training and education to Board members, staff, and external stakeholders

Qualifications/Experience

• Significant senior-level leadership experience (minimum 5 years), including leading groups of physicians, scientists, and/or senior regulatory professionals in complex or distributed environments
• Demonstrated ability to operate effectively at the Director / executive-adjacent level, with strong executive presence and judgment
• Significant experience chairing IRB meetings with authority, credibility, and regulatory rigor
• Deep IRB and HRPP expertise, including FDA/OHRP regulations and evolving research modalities
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with diverse groups, including clinical professionals, executives, operations leaders, technology and product teams, and external stakeholders
• Technology fluency: ability to partner with Technology, Product, and Operations teams to modernize workflows, leverage data and dashboards, and support scalable IRB operations
• Proven experience using data, metrics, and process improvement methodologies to enhance quality, consistency, and turnaround times
• Ability to analyze complex scientific, ethical, regulatory, and operational issues and present recommendations clearly to senior leaders
• Thought leadership mindset with the ability to influence direction, policy, and future-state design
• Proven ability to lead change and operate effectively under pressure across concurrent, high-impact initiatives

Supervisory Responsibilities

Overall responsibility for leadership, direction, performance management, and development of assigned team, including senior medical leaders.

Travel Requirements

5% to 10%