Strategy Lead, RWD Commercial Strategy & Innovation

Strategy Lead, RWD Commercial Strategy & Innovation

Company: Norstella

Location: Remote, United States

Date Posted: Jun 1, 2026

Employment Type: Full Time

Job ID: R-1997

Description

About Norstella:

Norstella is a premier and critical global life sciences data and AI solutions provider dedicated to improving patient access to life-saving therapies. Norstella supports pharmaceutical and biotech companies across the full drug development lifecycle — from pipeline to patient. Our mission is simple: to help our clients bring therapies to market faster and more efficiently, ultimately impacting patient lives.

Norstella unites market-leading brands - Citeline, Evaluate, MMIT, Panalgo, Skipta and The Dedham Group and delivers must-have answers and insights, leveraging AI, for critical strategic, clinical, and commercial decision-making. We help our clients:

• Accelerate the drug development cycle

• Assess competition and bring the right drugs to market

• Make data driven commercial and financial decisions

• Match and recruit patients for clinical trials

• Identify and address barriers to therapies

Norstella serves most pharmaceutical and biotech companies around the world, along with regulators like the FDA, and payers. By providing critical proprietary data supporting AI-driven workflows, Norstella helps clients make decisions faster and with greater confidence. Norstella’s investments in AI are transforming how data is consumed and decisions are made, disrupting inefficient legacy workflows and helping the industry become more efficient, innovative, and responsive to patient needs.

The Role: Strategy Lead RWD, Commercial Strategy & Innovation

The RWD Strategy Lead / Senior RWD Strategy Lead owns the front-end shaping of real-world data opportunities. This role is responsible for translating client needs into clear, compelling, and executable RWD scopes that drive deal quality, deal velocity, and long-term account health. The RWD Strategy Lead operates at the intersection of commercial strategy, data feasibility, and storytelling, ensuring that what we sell is differentiated, credible, and aligned to downstream delivery.

This role is accountable for pre-sales influence, strategic framing, and commercial outcomes.

Why this Role Matters:

The RWD Strategy Lead / Senior RWD Strategy Lead is a critical force multiplier for the RWD Strategy and Innovation team. By owning the front end of RWD opportunities and grounding strategy in real data fluency, this role ensures we sell work that is both compelling and executable, strengthens client trust, and directly contributes to bookings growth and long-term account success.

Core Responsibilities:

• Owns end-to-end scoping for RWD opportunities, from early client conversations through final proposal alignment

• Partners closely with Commercial to shape deal strategy, pricing logic, and packaging that supports bookings growth

• Leads feasibility thinking across RWD assets, including claims, EMR, lab data, unstructured clinical notes, and trigger-based datasets, with oversight from Subject Matter Experts to help navigate new opportunities and shape the story

• Evaluates data coverage, refresh cadence, linkage potential, and analytic limitations to set realistic scope boundaries

• Translates ambiguous client questions into well-defined use cases, scopes, and narratives that resonate with Medical Affairs, HEOR, Clinical, and Commercial stakeholders

• Serves as a thought partner to clients during pre-sales, helping refine objectives, sharpen the “so what” of the work, and design solutions that help meet client needs

• Develops and communicates clear assumptions, guardrails, and scope definitions to clients to prevent downstream delivery risk

• Uses SQL proficiency to interrogate data as needed, validate feasibility, sanity-check assumptions, and guide analysts on what to query and how to structure analyses

• Provides hands-on analytical direction to cross-functional internal teams without owning execution, ensuring outputs ladder to the intended story

• Creates repeatable scoping frameworks, templates, and narratives that improve speed, consistency, and quality across deals

• Strategizes scalable packaged, multi-source data solutions tailored to diverse stakeholder needs

• Actsas a connective tissue between Strategy, Delivery, Analytics, Product, and Data Science during the shaping phase

• All other duties, as assigned

What Success Looks Like:

• Clear, executable scopes grounded in real data feasibility

• Strong deal quality with scope clarity ahead of post-sale handoff

• Faster deal velocity driven by confident data-backed storytelling

• Increased average deal size through thoughtful packaging and expansion opportunities

• High trust from delivery and analytics teams due to well-defined assumptions and guardrails

• Recognition by clients as a credible, data-fluent strategic partner who clearly communicates insights and recommendations

• Build strong, trusted client relationships by deeply understanding stakeholder needs and ensuring solutions are well-aligned and fit for purpose

Qualifications:

• 3–6+ years of experience in life sciences consulting, solutions consulting, research, or analytics

• Strong familiarity with real-world data modalities, including open and closed claims, EMR structured data, lab results, unstructured clinical notes, and linked datasets

• Working proficiency in SQL to explore data, validate assumptions, and guide analytic direction

• Experience shaping or supporting pre-sales RWD, HEOR, analytics, or evidence-generation engagements

• Ability to assess data strengths, limitations, bias, and gaps, and translate those into clear scope decisions

• Strong analytical intuition paired with executive-level communication skills

• Comfort operating in ambiguity and helping clients clarify objectives before jumping to analyses

• Experience collaborating cross-functionally without direct ownership of delivery execution

• Strong written and verbal communication skills, particularly for client-ready decks, scopes, and proposals

Location: Remote US

Benefits:

• Medical and Prescription Drug Benefits

• Health Savings Accounts (HSA) or Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)

• Dental & Vision Benefits

• Basic Life and AD&D Benefits

• 401k Retirement Plan with Company Match

• Company Paid Short & Long-Term Disability

• Paid Parental Leave

• Open Vacation Policy & Company Holidays

Please Note - All candidates must be authorized to work in the United States. We do not provide visa sponsorship or transfers. We are not currently accepting candidates who are on an OPT visa.

Norstella is an equal opportunity employer. All job applicants will receive equal treatment regardless of race, creed, color, religion, alienage or national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, physical or mental disability or handicap, medical condition, sex (including pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions), marital or domestic partner status, military or veteran status, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, genetic information, reproductive health decision making, or any other protected characteristic as established by federal, state, or local law.

Sometimes the best opportunities are hidden by self-doubt. We disqualify ourselves before we have the opportunity to be considered. Regardless of where you came from, how you identify, or the path that led you here- you are welcome. If you read this job description and feel passion and excitement, we’re just as excited about you.

All legitimate roles with Norstella will be posted on Norstella’s job board which is located at norstella.com/careers. If a role is not posted on this job board, a candidate should assume the role is not a legitimate role with Norstella. Norstella is not responsible for an application that may be submitted by or through a third-party and candidates should proceed with extreme caution if a third-party approaches them about an open role with Norstella. Norstella will never ask for anything of value or any type of payment during or as part of any recruitment, interview, or pre-hire onboarding process. If you are aware of or have reason to believe a job posting purportedly for a role with Norstella is fraudulent or otherwise not authorized by Norstella, please contact the Company using the following email address: [email protected] .

Norstella is an equal opportunity employer. All job applicants will receive equal treatment regardless of race, creed, color, religion, alienage or national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, physical or mental disability or handicap, medical condition, sex (including pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions), marital or domestic partner status, military or veteran status, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, genetic information, reproductive health decision making, or any other protected characteristic as established by federal, state, or local law.