Research Manager / Recruitment and Panel Operations

Role Overview

Darwin Research Group is seeking a Research Manager to lead and scale our recruitment capabilities and manage all aspects of panel operations across our syndicated research, custom projects, and client-facing advisory panels. This is a critical role as Darwin transitions to a systematic, panel-driven intelligence model that will power our products and serve our pharma clients at scale.

You will own the full recruitment lifecycle, from sourcing and vetting executive-level healthcare stakeholders to building and maintaining proprietary panels of Organized Systems of Care (OSC) leaders. You will manage a team and will be responsible for formalizing the workflows, SOPs, and quality standards that will define how Darwin recruits and engages decision-makers across organized systems of care, payers, GPOs, PBMs, federal systems, and the broader healthcare ecosystem.

This role is well-suited for someone who is process-driven, comfortable engaging C-Suite and cross-functional healthcare leaders, and energized by building something from the ground up

Key Responsibilities

1. Recruitment Strategy and Panel Management

• Own the end-to-end recruitment lifecycle for all IDIs, surveys, and advisory panels, including targeting, outreach, screening, scheduling, and panelist management.
• Formalize and maintain SOPs for all recruitment and panel operations workflows, ensuring consistency, scalability, and quality across the team.
• Oversee the health, growth, and engagement of Darwin's executive panel, maintaining a robust pipeline of C-Suite and cross-functional healthcare leaders across all target segments.
• Establish and enforce vetting protocols to ensure all participants meet the qualifications required for pharmaceutical market research.
• Design and manage project-specific screeners for IDIs and surveys in coordination with the research team.
• Manage outreach volume, conversion rates, and panel KPIs in Monday.com, reporting to leadership.

2. Advisory Panel Development for Pharma Clients

• Build and manage client-facing advisory panels composed of OSC leaders, including health system executives, pharmacy directors, clinical leaders, and payers, on behalf of Darwin's pharma clients.
• Design advisory panel structures tailored to each client's commercial objectives, including panel composition, engagement cadence, and session formats.
• Serve as the primary operational point of contact for advisory panel logistics, ensuring panelists are recruited, vetted, briefed, and engaged to the standard Darwin's pharma clients expect.
• Develop and maintain the processes and agreements required to manage advisory panelist relationships compliantly and professionally.

3. Custom and Syndicated Research Support

• Manage recruitment execution for all custom qualitative and quantitative projects from kickoff through field close, ensuring timelines, sample targets, and quality standards are met.
• Support syndicated research projects by maintaining continuous panel access to the health system, oncology, VA and federal, and broader healthcare segments Darwin covers.
• Coordinate with the Research Director and research team on project-specific recruitment requirements, discussion guide logistics, and scheduling needs.
• Oversee field monitoring for surveys, including daily response rate tracking, reminder deployment, and quality control in SurveyMonkey.

4. Team Leadership and Development

• Directly manage team members responsible for recruitment outreach, screening, and scheduling.
• Provide hands-on coaching and mentorship on outreach strategy, professional communication with healthcare leaders, screener design, and recruitment best practices.
• Conduct regular performance reviews and support career development for direct reports.
• Onboard new team members to Darwin's recruitment workflows, SOPs, and platform tools.

5. Operational Excellence

• Partner with the Operations team to integrate recruitment workflows into Darwin's broader production schedule and Monday.com infrastructure.
• Maintain clean, complete, and current panel records in Monday.com, enforcing the record standards established in Darwin's Operations documentation.
• Identify and implement process improvements as Darwin's recruitment model scales.
• Ensure honoraria fulfillment, panel agreements, and data privacy practices are executed in compliance with Darwin's data security and consent standards.

6. Marketing and Brand Amplification

This is a secondary responsibility that complements the core role. When recruitment and panel operations are running well, this person contributes to Darwin's external presence in the following ways.

• Identify key industry conferences and thought leaders for the Sales team and CEO to engage with, ensuring Darwin's presence at the most influential industry events.
• Identify and secure OSC and healthcare thought leaders for the CEO to interview on the Darwin podcast; repurpose insights into marketing briefs and white papers.
• Support the amplification of Darwin's research and profile on LinkedIn and other professional platforms as bandwidth allows.

Qualifications

• Experience: 5 or more years of experience in market research, recruitment, healthcare intelligence, or consulting. Experience in the pharmaceutical or OSC space is strongly preferred.
• Leadership: Proven experience managing teams and a demonstrated commitment to mentoring early-career professionals.
• Subject Matter Expertise: Comfortable engaging C-Suite and cross-functional healthcare leaders directly, with the ability to represent Darwin credibly in those interactions.
• Process-Driven: A track record of building SOPs or formalizing previously informal workflows in a fast-moving environment.
• Technical Proficiency: Experience with CRM or recruitment management platforms, ideally Monday.com, to track outreach, manage panelist relationships, and maintain a clean and functional panel database.
• Project Management: Strong organizational and project management skills with the ability to manage multiple concurrent projects across recruitment, panel operations, and client advisory work.
• Communication: Excellent written and verbal communication skills.