"Associate Director of Finance (Clinical Trials)"

Position Summary

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey is seeking an Associate Director of Finance (Clinical Trials) within the Office of Human Research Services at the Rutgers Cancer Institute.

The Associate Director of Finance (Clinical Trials), is responsible for developing, coordinating, and analyzing financial information to support the implementation and tracking of the Rutgers Cancer Institute's budget, with a specific focus on clinical trial finances.

This position provides direction and expertise to teams inside and outside of Finance, ensuring accurate and consistent personnel and non-personnel operating budgets across the Institute. The role leverages internal and Rutgers-provided budget and finance systems to ensure financials from sponsored and non-sponsored accounts, particularly those related to clinical trials, are correctly aligned and presented. This ensures accurate and meaningful variance analysis, forecasting, and decision support.

The Associate Director directly manages a team of staff who assist with budget management and works closely with leaders in Administration, Operations, and the Office of Human Research Services to develop and track clinical trial budgets for their respective areas.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Financial Strategy & Planning: Develop and manage comprehensive financial plans, budgets, and forecasts for all clinical trials, including investigator-initiated grants, OHRS fees, and other third-party vendor costs. Partners with the OHRS management team to translate clinical trial protocols into detailed and realistic financial budgets. Provides strategic financial guidance to senior leadership regarding clinical trial investments and resource allocation.
• Clinical Trial Financial Oversight: Oversees and manages all financial aspects of clinical trials, including budget development, contract negotiation support, revenue recognition, and expenditure tracking. Ensures compliance with sponsor requirements and institutional policies.
• Budget and Contract Management: Lead the financial aspects of clinical trial sponsor and site contract negotiations, ensuring budgets are aligned with fair market value and department financial objectives. Collaborate with legal to finalize contracts (i.e., Investigator site agreements, Master Service Agreements). Serves as a liaison to the University Budget Office and Rutgers Health for required sponsored clinical trial budget data uploads.
• Financial Allocation and Reporting: Ensures complete, accurate, and consistent allocation of all revenues and expenses across sponsored and non-sponsored activities. Ensures activities funded through the Continued Service Agreements with RWJ Barnabas Health are reimbursed appropriately. Develop and implement processes for tracking and managing budget variances.
• Team Supervision and Development: Creates effective work plans and supervises staff, addressing their training needs to ensure competency in managing personnel and non-personnel operating budgets, with an emphasis on clinical trial budget and revenue management.
• Forecasting and Financial Modeling: Develops budgets and forecasts for various clinical trial projects. Provides ad hoc financial modeling to senior leadership, including projections for clinical trial portfolios and the impacts of changes in cost-of-living adjustments, fringe rates, and RCM metrics.
• Reporting and Analysis: Prepare and present detailed financial reports and analyses to senior leaders, highlighting key trends, risks, and opportunities. Conduct variance analysis and provide insights into budget performance versus actual spending. Develop and maintain financial models to support long-range planning and new study feasibility assessments.
• Financial Oversight and Operations: Oversee the end-to-end financial lifecycle of clinical trials, including accruals, payments, and financial reporting. Manage the clinical trial revenue process, ensuring accuracy and timeliness for monthly, quarterly, and annual financial closes. Direct the processing and reconciliation of RWJBH site payments, Rutgers payments, and vendor invoices, ensuring compliance with contractual terms. Lead the financial close-out process for clinical trials, including final payments and reconciliation.
• Senior Leadership Support: Provides senior leadership with financial projections, historical data, and analysis for decision support and presentations to various internal and external groups, with an emphasis on the financial performance of the clinical trials portfolio.
• Policy Development and Compliance: Develops, implements, and updates policies and procedures related to budget control to ensure compliance with all regulatory bodies, particularly those relevant to clinical trial finance.
• Staff Guidance and Administration: Directs staff and guides units on fiscal matters, including purchase requisitions and cost center balances. Supervises, trains, and evaluates professional staff, and assists with hiring, promotions, and other personnel actions as needed.

Minimum Education and Experience

• Bachelor's Degree in Finance, Accounting, Business Administration, or a related field is required.
• Five (5) years of professional level progressively more responsible relevant experience in clinical trials budget preparation, administration, and control in a health care/academic environment required. Plus, three (3) years of relevant experience were in a management role.
• Equivalent education, experience, and/or training may be substituted for the degree requirement.