Senior Director of Grant Management

Position Overview

The Senior Director, Grant Management, is a programmatic leader and individual contributor to the Research Management team. The role drives process improvements within established strategic frameworks and owns end-to-end grant cycle: identifying researchers with transformative ideas, guiding them through application and submission, coordinating expert peer review, and tracking the progress and impact of supported work. Scientific funding decisions are made exclusively by an external panel of scientific research advisors and reviewers.

The Senior Director serves as a critical strategic partner, synthesizing data and managing processes to enable the most informed, rigorous, and unbiased decision‑making possible working within the strategic direction set by Cure Alz leadership.

Our grant management model is intentionally responsive to the evolving needs of the scientific community. Success in this role requires a candidate with a genuine love for science and scientific engagement, is creative and thrives in a dynamic environment that builds flexible, solution‑oriented processes, and has strong organizational skills. The Senior Director, Grant Management, must share this philosophy and demonstrate a track record of building researcher relationships through collaboration and scientific respect.

• Recruitment and Identification:
  Proactively identify research directions and recruit researchers with strong potential, aligned with Cure Alz's scientific priorities. Application Guidance:
  Serve as a knowledgeable, responsive, and trusted point of contact for applicants, guiding them through the Letter of Intent (LOI) and full proposal submission, review and reporting process. Peer Review Coordination:
  Match submitted proposals with expert scientific reviewers; facilitate the review process with attention to both scientific rigor and relationship management. Post‑Award Stewardship:
  Track research progress post‑award; surface notable findings, challenges, or opportunities to the team. Complex Portfolio Development:
  Lead high‑visibility programs and initiatives, ensuring they are managed with care, align with institutional history, and are mission‑focused.

• Pattern Recognition:
  Regularly review incoming applications and the overall portfolio to identify emerging scientific patterns, methodological similarities, redundancies, or gaps. Strategic Summarization:
  Synthesize observations into clear, actionable summaries for the research team, leadership, and external stakeholders (e.g. Board, donors, advisors). Data‑Driven Insights:
  Translate complex portfolio data into narrative insights that frame our investment impact and inform future strategic direction.

• Community Building:
  Identify and connect scientists whose work would benefit from cross‑pollination. Facilitate collaborations and consortium connections to amplify impact. Landscape Monitoring:
  Stay current with evolving Alzheimer's landscape (basic, translational, and clinical); synthesize developments from conferences, publications, and the scientific press for presentation to internal teams. Ambassadorship:
  Represent Cure Alz at scientific conferences and meetings, building relationships grounded in trust and our collaborative ethos. Communication:
  Translate complex science for diverse audiences, including staff colleagues, donors, scientific reviewers, and the broader AD research community, via writing, verbal communication, and presentations. Actively promote accurate scientific information while identifying and debunking misinformation to ensure the community is equipped with reliable, evidence‑based knowledge.

• Internal Partnership:
  Coordinate closely with Grant Managers, Grant Administration, and Business Services teams to ensure seamless handoff between programmatic and operational functions.
• Philanthropy, Marketing and Communications Support:
  Partner with Philanthropy, Marketing and Communications teams to support donor engagement,…