Fractional Director of Engagement Operations

Own the authoritative view of project status, responsibilities, deadlines, dependencies, budgets, risks, and information access across our concurrent client engagements.

~10–20 hours per week, variable around research launches

Remote; all services performed from within the United States

$125–$175 per hour, depending on experience

Reports to the Founder and President.

Sigla Sciences is a senior-led life sciences consulting firm supporting biotechnology, pharmaceutical, medical-device, and healthcare clients. Our work may involve market access, health economics and outcomes research, evidence strategy, commercialization, qualitative research, competitive intelligence, scientific communications, and related strategic consulting.

Our delivery model is intentionally flexible. Engagement teams may include internal leaders, independent subject-matter experts, boutique consulting firms, solo consultants, analysts, creative partners, vendors, and 30–50 external experts or interview participants working across different organizations, systems, time zones, and contractual arrangements.

The Fractional Director of Engagement Operations will maintain operational command across multiple concurrent client engagements. This is not a project-software implementation or project-coordinator position. The successful contractor will personally establish and maintain the authoritative view of project status, responsibilities, deadlines, dependencies, budgets, risks, and information-access requirements.

The role requires judgment, discretion, persistence, and the ability to coordinate senior professionals who do not report to the project manager and may participate only briefly in an engagement. Project-management software may be used internally, but the operating model must not depend on universal adoption by consultants, subcontractors, or external experts.

• Maintain an accurate portfolio-level view of all active and upcoming engagements.
• Translate statements of work into practical workplans, milestones, dependencies, review sequences, acceptance criteria, and individual responsibilities.
• Establish internal production deadlines that preserve time for scientific, strategic, editorial, quality, and client review.
• Confirm that every material activity and deliverable has one accountable owner.
• Identify schedule, resource, budget, scope, quality, and compliance risks before they become client-facing problems.
• Follow up directly with contributors and resolve unclear, missed, or conflicting commitments.
• Maintain concise risk, decision, action, issue, and dependency logs, and exception-based status updates.
• Escalate issues with a recommended course of action rather than merely reporting a problem.
• Coordinate final-deliverable production, review, approval, submission, and closeout.

• Coordinate work across independent SMEs, boutique consulting firms, solo consultants, and specialist vendors.
• Convert broader project requirements into defined work packages, deliverables, deadlines, dependencies, and acceptance criteria.
• Manage handoffs between firms and individuals that may not communicate directly with one another.
• Ensure each contributor receives the information necessary to complete their work, but no broader access than required.
• Track subcontractor scopes, hours, budgets, invoices, deliverables, and change-order triggers.
• Identify duplicated work, analytical gaps, inconsistent assumptions, and conflicting instructions; maintain version control.
• Support onboarding and closeout of external consultants, including documentation, access, and return…