Senior Manager/Director of Contracts and Procurement

About Alto Neuroscience, Inc.

At Alto Neuroscience, you will play a pivotal role in advancing precision psychiatry and improving how mental health disorders are treated. Join us in building the next generation of personalized neuroscience-based therapeutics.

Primary Role

We are seeking a Sr. Manager/Director of Contracts and Procurement to lead global vendor contracting and management across our research and clinical operations teams. This leader will own the procurement function end to end, from strategy and policy to negotiating and structuring our most complex supplier agreements.

The role sits at the intersection of finance, legal, and the business. The ideal candidate brings 10+ years of procurement leadership in biotech, pharma or life sciences, plus deep, hands-on legal experience drafting and negotiating contracts such as master services agreements, CRO/CDMO agreements and licensing-adjacent supply terms.

What you'll do

Strategy and leadership

• Build and execute a global procurement strategy aligned with the company's research, clinical and commercial roadmap.

• Lead, develop and scale a high-performing procurement and contracts function.

• Execute procurement policy, delegation-of-authority matrices and purchasing controls, including SOX-compliant processes.

• Serve as a trusted advisor to the executive team on supplier risk and spend

Contracting and legal

• Draft, review and negotiate complex agreements, including CDAs, MSAs, CRO, CDMO/CMO, clinical supply, consulting, SaaS and similar industry agreements.

• Negotiate key terms such as indemnification, limitation of liability, IP ownership, artificial intelligence, confidentiality, data privacy, warranties, and termination rights.

• Build and maintain a library of the company's preferred contract positions and approved fallbacks, using AI tools where appropriate to improve efficiency and consistency

• Partner with Legal, Finance, Quality, Operations (Clinical, Development, CMC, G&A) and Compliance to set contract templates, fallback positions and negotiation playbooks.

• Ensure supplier contracts support GxP, FDA/EMA, HIPAA, GDPR and anti-corruption (FCPA) requirements.

Sourcing and supplier management

• Run RFI/RFP processes, supplier qualification and selection with cross-functional stakeholders.

• Build supplier relationship management, performance scorecards and business reviews for critical vendors.

• Identify and mitigate supply chain risk, including single-source dependencies and geopolitical exposure.

Financial management

• Own the purchase order process, including PO creation, approval workflows, three-way matching and timely closure of open POs.

• Work with the business operations owner to track budget-to-actual spend by department and category, flagging variances and forecasting risks to Finance each month.

• Partner with FP&A on annual budgeting and quarterly reforecasting for procurement-managed spend.

• Support month-end close with accurate accruals for goods and services received but not yet invoiced.

• Manage prepayments, milestone payments and payment terms for CROs, CDMOs and other major vendors.

• Enforce spend controls so no commitments are made without an approved PO or contract.

Operations and systems

• Oversee procure-to-pay processes, procurement and contract lifecycle management

• Deliver spend analytics, savings tracking and KPI reporting to leadership.

• Drive cost avoidance and savings targets while protecting quality and timelines.

Location

Onsite in Mountain View, CA or Remote

Salary Range

$160,000 - $190,000

*depending on qualifications and experience level

Travel Required

Light Travel Required

Qualifications

Required Skills:

• 10+ years of progressive procurement experience in biotech, pharmaceutical or life sciences companies, including 5+ years in a leadership role.
• Significant legal experience: a substantial track record drafting and negotiating commercial contracts independently, gained as in-house counsel, a contracts lead or a procurement leader with direct contracting ownership.
• Demonstrated expertise with life sciences agreements, including CRO, CDMO/CMO, clinical supply and quality agreements.
• Working knowledge of GxP, FDA and EMA requirements as they apply to suppliers and outsourced activities.
• Experience building procurement policies and controls in a public or pre-IPO company, including SOX.
• Proven ability to negotiate high-value agreements ($10M+) and manage executive-level supplier relationships.
• Strong financial acumen, including total cost of ownership analysis and budget partnership with Finance.
• Negotiation: balances commercial value with legal protection and long-term supplier partnership.
• Legal judgment: spots risk quickly, knows when to hold firm and when to escalate to General Counsel.
• Cross-functional influence: earns trust from R&D, Clinical, Manufacturing, Quality, Legal and Finance.
• Clear communication: turns complex contract terms into plain-language guidance for executives.
• Integrity: upholds ethical sourcing, compliance and confidentiality standards.

Preferred Skills:

• Paralegal/contracts certification.
• Professional certification such as CPSM, CPPO or CIPS.
• Experience supporting a company through clinical-stage to commercial transition, or through an IPO or acquisition.
• Familiarity with IP, licensing and technology transfer terms in supplier and collaboration agreements.
• Experience with NetSuite
• Global sourcing experience across the US, EU and Asia-Pacific, knowledge of GDPR a plus.

Supervisory Responsibilities

• 5+ years in a leadership role

Education and Experience

• Bachelor's degree in business, supply chain, life sciences or a related field.
• MBA or advanced degree in supply chain management.

Alto Neuroscience is an equal-opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of sex, age, race, color, religion, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law. We offer a welcoming and inclusive environment in service to one another, our products, the diverse consumers we represent, and the communities we call home. We do all of this with kindness, empathy and respect for each other. The above is intended to describe the general content of and requirements for the performance of this job. It should not be construed as an exhaustive statement of duties, responsibilities or physical requirements.