by Rachel Brunger

We wanted to shine a light on some of the roles we have at Gatehouse ICS, starting with that of the Project Manager and Research Lead as part of our senior team.

If this type of role sounds interesting to you and you would like further information and a person specification, we’d love to hear from you either by email hello@gatehouse-ics.com or give us a call on +44 0 1269 240100.

JOB TITLE: Senior Team Member (Project Management and Research Lead)

MAIN PURPOSE OF THE ROLE
Gatehouse predominantly works for other consultancies. This role might act as a Senior Team Member on outsourced market research for the consultancies, where the end client is pharma. This role might also oversee lead generation campaigns for the consultancies. A smaller sector of our market research is for health innovators, Universities, Public Sector or early stage products/companies.

All types of projects involve duties under three domains:

• Project Management: client liaison, internal team leadership, QC, keeping project momentum, documenting time and activities into our project management system (full training given) and using this to plan or adjust the project.
• Research: interviews with clinicians and payers to understand treatment pathways/response to product variables; pragmatic desk based internet market research to understand the market for a product or a consultancy. Interviews with consultancies to understand their selling proposition. Writing Word / PowerPoint reports (often quantitative in nature from qualitative research) and/or summaries of findings (here the ability to identify the key findings more than presentation design skills is sought). NB. Typically recruitment of interviewees, transcription of interviews, extraction of answers into a spreadsheet and first pass numeric analysis is done by the research team, but the Senior Team Member may oversee these activities, and dependent on team capacity may have to also be involved in them. Input may also be required in literature reviews, competitor and gap analyses and discussion guide / survey creation.
• Commercial: ideally, in the course of every day activities the Senior Team member will identify opportunities to optimise new and existing client relationships and write proposals. The first two domains (project management and research) are a higher priority than this domain if time is a limiting factor.

LOCATION: Ammanford office, Carmarthenshire, South Wales. Remote or hybrid working considered.

REPORTS TO: Head of Projects.

RESPONSIBLE FOR: No direct reports.

HOURS/DAYS OF WORK: 3-4 days per week (7.5 hours a day), Monday-Thursday.

SALARY: To be discussed (depends on experience and ability to work across the domains described).

MAIN DUTIES

1. Project Management
   1. First review contracts, confidentiality, data processing etc (Head of Operations responsible for full review/executing these)
   2. Prepare, attend and share as appropriate learnings from remote Gatehouse ICS Strategic Insights Panel (SIP) meetings
   3. Management of, and involvement in as necessary, projects from start up to project close
   4. Development and delivery of clear communications for clients and project team briefings and regular updates.
   5. Maintenance of accurate and up-to-date project trackers, records and documentation.
   6. Management of external resources (outsourced partners) where necessary.
   7. Deliver projects to client deadlines and manage internal resourcing needs throughout via our project management system (training given)
   8. Lead project team debriefs to capture learnings and optimise future working on projects, setting actions as necessary
   9. Act as mentor and support to all colleagues
   10. Set client meetings and leading on these, keeping project momentum for timely delivery
   11. Foreseeing and mitigating challenges to timelines, quality or delivery. Seeking support and assistance from director level as appropriate
2. Research
   1. Lead, conduct and participate in interview-based research and scant desk-based research and transcription (transcription, recruitment and basic desk research often conducted by junior colleagues)
   2. Lead on analysis and report writing activities (first pass analysis often conducted by junior colleagues)
   3. Lead, contribute to and co-ordinate team members on the final project reports.
3. Commercial (domains 1 and 2 are a priority if time is restricted)
   1. Write first drafts of proposals, create projects in our project management system, and attend pitch meetings with clients as appropriate
   2. Attend internal pipeline meeting and look for opportunities to sell our services within existing and new clients (an element of key account management strategy required)

ABOUT US

Gatehouse ICS (Independent Commercialisation Support) www.gatehouse-ics.com is best described as a consultancy to consultancies. Our end client is often a Life Science consultancy, where their end client is pharma. This is a niche space, selling into consultancies rather than direct to pharma.

G-ICS was founded by an ex-Sales Director of a multi-national Market Access consultancy. It has other Directors with similar experience and has access to a Strategic Insights Panel (SIP) who are all ex- consultancy/pharma personnel contracted as advisors to brainstorm on G-ICS projects.

We are a privately owned company conducting market research and commercialisation support/business development services predominantly for consultancies. We also have a social mission to increase access to Life Science careers among rural South Wales school leavers. To that end, we have an office in the Amman Valley and prefer our Senior and Leadership Teams to spend some time in the office working alongside our entry level Research Team.

While our main customers are consultancies, we also conduct interview/desk-based market research for new health innovations; often commissioned by University IP programmes and our direct to pharma market research tends to be for small/growing pharma/biotech’s or very early stage projects.

While our senior staff could get involved in all manner of complex and high-cost research and Market Access activities and could sell more widely direct to big pharma we choose not to. We keep ourselves in this unique and ringfenced space to support our chosen model of a blended entry level/experienced team.