Sr Officer-Contracts

• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Regular/Temporary: Regular
• Hours Per Week: 35 hrs/wk
• Salary Range: $105,000 - $115,000

Position Summary

Columbia Technology Ventures is the technology transfer office for Columbia University and a central location for many of the technology development initiatives, entrepreneurial activities, external industry collaborations, and commercially-oriented multidisciplinary technology innovations across the university.  CTV’s core mission is to facilitate the transfer of inventions from academic research labs to the market for the benefit of society on a local, national, and global basis. Each year, CTV manages more than 400 invention disclosures, 100 license deals, and 20 - 30 new IP-backed startups, involving over 750 inventors across Columbia's campuses. CTV currently has over 1,500 patent assets available for licensing across research fields such as bio, IT, clean tech, devices, big data, nanotechnology, materials science, and more.   

CTV has extensive experience in funding and supporting technology initiatives to enable promising technologies to accelerate across the “valley of death” and reach the market as quickly and successfully as possible. Many of these initiatives are explicitly multi-institutional, requiring extensive collaboration with our peer universities and their tech transfer offices. A few of the organizations CTV has been instrumental in establishing are the PowerBridgeNY clean energy proof-of-concept center, the NYC Media Lab, and the Columbia Biomedical Technology Accelerator (Columbia BiomedX), formally the Columbia-Coulter Translational Research Partnership. In addition, Translational Therapeutics (TRx) Resource was launched in 2016, in collaboration with the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research and the Clinical Trials Office, to advance novel therapeutics from the lab towards the path of commercialization and clinical implementation.

CTV’s efforts are backed by 45 full-time staff and an additional 30+ graduate student interns (CTV Fellows), providing broad support to the Columbia community and other stakeholders with marketing, legal (patents, contracts, etc.), business start-up help, and administrative tasks. CTV also runs an Executive-in-Residence program, which brings seasoned industry executives, serial entrepreneurs, and investors to campus to support faculty and student entrepreneurial activities. 

CTV is advertising for two Senior Contracts Officers to work as part of our Contracts Team.

Responsibilities

Act as part of the Contracts Team to independently manage various agreement types from initiation to completion in a timely, efficient, and thorough manner. Partners with  Licensing Officers to ensure proper execution of agreements.  This includes activities such as:

• Reviewing agreements to ensure that the terms comply with applicable laws & regulations, Federal guidelines, University statutes, and Office of General Counsel policies, and also to ensure that the terms do not conflict with pre-existing University obligations;
• As necessary, discussing agreement terms in view of the proposed research, nature of material, University’s pre-existing technology portfolio, etc., with University scientists and technology licensing officers in order to fully appreciate University’s obligations under agreements; 
• Redlining necessary changes to agreements;
• Forwarding redlined agreements with comments to outside parties’ tech transfer officers/legal counsel for consideration;
• Negotiating mutually-acceptable changes to agreements with outside parties’ tech transfer officers/legal counsel.
• Ensuring that Columbia’s Office of the General Counsel approves the execution copies (for certain agreement types);
• Coordinating signatures to agreements by the University and outside parties.

Manage the expectations and communications with Faculty and outside parties related to the agreements, both to ensure full completion of the deal, but also to ensure a positive working relationship with those entities going forward.  Keep detailed records of the negotiation progress/agreement status and provide timely and consistent follow-up communication with University scientists, CTV licensing officers, Columbia’s Office of the General Counsel, and outside parties.

Assist in tracking the assignments to the group and the throughput of those agreements, to ensure that all agreements are being moved expeditiously through the process.  The team will share in these duties.

The Senior Contracts Officers will report to the AVP & Senior Director of Contracts and Compliance for CTV, as well as work closely with the Senior Director, Agreement Review and Execution of Contracts & Compliance, and members of the Contracts team, and will receive ongoing coaching in contract interpretation and negotiation. The Senior Contracts Officers will also receive exposure to the full breadth of Columbia’s intellectual property, as part of working on these agreements.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college/university required.  
• At least five years’ experience working in a university contracts-management environment, law firm, or in-house legal department required. 
• Paralegal or legal experience a plus. 
• Comfortable with scientific concepts and terminology; able to understand the significance of various agreement terms in view of the nature of the materials/confidential information to be transferred and proposed research.
• Must possess strong reading and analytical abilities and be detail-oriented and organized.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Able to exercise mature judgment and tact, prioritize and meet deadlines, and adhere to University policies, raising questions when necessary.
• Good negotiation skills.
• Self-motivated and able to work independently with strong administrative/problem-solving skills.
• Team player.
• Strong computer skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Significant experience working with contracts, ideally in the medical or scientific fields, is strongly preferred. 
• Law degree strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with intellectual property concepts and federal laws and regulations, as well as NIH guidelines pertaining to university technology transfer strongly preferred.

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Columbia University is committed to the hiring of qualified local residents.