Town of Hillsborough, NC

Planned and executed 3 successful at-large campaigns (2 contested, 1 uncontested), including community engagement and outreach and fundraising. Mayor Pro Tem (2015 – 2017). Leader of $34M Budget/120 Employees/10,000 resident, full-service municipal government that is the county seat of Orange County, NC. Establish strategy, policy, and ordinances for town governance and implementation; identify and engage community residents, businesses, and stakeholders. Oversee and evaluate Town Manager performance. SME for designated policy areas.  Represent the Town on local, regional, state commissions and boards.   

Service Focus: Homelessness Prevention & Affordable Housing; Regional Collaboration; Smart Planning, Sustainability, & Resilience; Community Re-Entry of Justice-Involved Individuals; Mental and Public Health; Substance Misuse Reduction and Recovery; Local Business Retention, Growth, and Recruitment; Transparency and Participation in Governance; Civic Civility and Collaboration.

Commissioner, Former Mayor Pro Tem

Bamboo Spirit, LLC

•	Proposal, budget, and contract development, optimization, and bid defense support.
•	Pricing model and budget grid development and optimization.
•	High volume review of presentation content for CE/CME compliance and credit.
•	Strategic plan facilitation and stress testing
•	Coaching for performance, career change, and business planning.

Principal

ICON plc

•	Proposals, budgets, and contracts SME. Role eliminated during corporate labor rebalancing.
•	Planned, organized, and implemented proposal, GSA and MSA contract and work order delivery processes for standalone biometrics, SRC/DMC/DSMB, regulatory (ISS/ISE, MAA/NDA/BLA, Policy 70 and Health Canada data anonymization) services (project-based and FSP). 
•	Developed delivery strategy and pricing for 400+ full-service clinical study proposals, contracts, and change orders annually across 21 therapeutic areas and Phase 0 – 4 regional and global projects.
•	Tracked and reported department KPIs. Decreased functional budget review and update cycle times by >70%. Increased post-award recoverable scope >10%-25% per project.
•	Exceeded service area internal marketing and revenue goals.

Senior Director, Proposals

IQVIA

Dedicated Pharmacovigilance / Lifecycle Safety Pricing Model SME. Role eliminated during COVID 19 pandemic.
•	Designed a scalable, fit-for-purpose pharmacovigilance and safety lifecycle pricing methodology, structure, algorithms, and defaults.
•	Developed and delivered pricing model training to 50+ functional SMEs.

Director, Customer Delivery

•	Developed practice’s first resource and study budget estimating tool. Reduced plan-to-actual variance from 48% to 1%. Role eliminated during restructure. 
•	Streamlined utilization and rolling forecast activities from 27 processes to 2 practice-wide workflows. 
•	Built practice’s first resource planning database for 30/60/90-day reporting (MS Access). 
•	Provided CRO governance resource planning and oversight.

Workforce Planning and Performance Lead

Proposal, budget, and contracts group lead supporting Global Biometrics, Safety Oversight, Medical Writing, and Regulatory business units. Service lines SME.
•	Grew team from 1 to 6 service line product specialists and proposal, contracts, and budget SMEs (U.S., India, & South Africa), responsible for ~50% of IQVIA R&D Data Sciences, Safety, and Regulatory (DSSR) division net new business from Global, Regional, US and ex-US Government, Non-Profit, Biotech, and Pharma sponsors (fee for service, unit-based, FSP, and hybrid models). 
•	Planned, organized, and implemented proposal, contract, and work order delivery process. Developed strategy, scopes, and budgets for 500+ proposals, contracts, and change orders annually. Represented functions in 60+ annual bid defenses, client presentations, and business process optimization workstreams. Developed proposals and contracts department capabilities, processes, libraries, and tools.
•	Reduced uncompensated service delivery by $20K-$1.5M+ per project. Reduced bid/WO scope and budget development and review times by >50%. 
•	Led organizational restructure that improved operational efficiency and cost to deliver proposals.
•	Tracked and reported department KPIs. Exceeded net new business targets 3 consecutive years.  Increased eTMF net new business by 200% within 1 year.

Director, Proposals and Contracts Delivery Strategy and Budget

First non-biostatistician to serve as biostatistical and medical writing proposal and budget service line SME, developer, reviewer. Developed scopes and budgets for 94% of key account proposals. Developed functional change order scopes and budgets for Global Biostatistics and Medical Writing. Backup service line SME for Clinical Operations and Data Management Services. Supported workload, hit, and strike metrics and KPIs. Exceeded net new business revenue targets annually.
•	Led proposal strategy teams. Developed 400+ proposals and contracts scopes and budgets annually. Experience with Commercial, Federal Government, NGO, biotech, and pharmaceutical sponsors across 20+ therapeutic areas. 
•	Led integration of late-phase services into the clinical trial pricing model. Met all targets for specification development, programming, testing, and delivery.
•	Proactively spearheaded department SalesForce data quality compliance program from concept-to-implementation a full year ahead of corporate mandate. Developed multiple services line content for RocketDocs implementation. 
•	Career Development Coach for GSO staff members and SME Best Practices coach for service line SMEs for diverse departments, change order support, and proposal support.

Associate Director, Proposals and Contracts

Led global strategy teams and developing text, assumptions and budgets for $2M-$250M+ proposals. Experience with full-service P1 - P4 projects, regulatory applications. Developed 120+ initial proposals, contracts, and work orders annually for commercial, non-profit, and government funders.  Harmonized processes for newly-merged U.S. and E.U. team of 28 Proposal Managers.
•	Transformed bid-to-bid RFP into competitive advantage for company’s largest project capture to date ($300M+ labor) by writing a bid-to-bid complete operational plan and developing full-service budget within two-day deadline.
•	Supervised work product of Latin America-based proposal and contracts manager. Triaged and assigned department RFP/RFIs. Supported workload, hit, and strike metrics and KPIs. Developed and delivered services and process training for Americas Proposals and Contracts (onboarding and performance improvement plans). 
•	Developed global proposals department capabilities, processes, libraries, and tools. Designated Excel pricing model superuser. 
•	Led change management for adoption of new technology. Co-led creation of gold standard playbook, bidding, and scope definition standards transforming the proposal process from tactical to strategic. Exceeded net new business revenue targets annually.

Manager, Proposals and Contracts

Senior Director, Strategic Planning, Biostatistical Consulting Services at ICON PLC

Dynamic leader with 20+ years of experience in proposal and budget development, contract negotiation, and strategic planning within clinical research and life sciences. Proven ability to implement and optimize scalable processes and pricing models and exceed revenue and efficiency goals.

As an APMP member and proposal professional, I embrace innovation, and am excited about the integration of AI into RFI and proposal workflows. Skilled in leading global, cross-functional teams to consistently improve revenue, client satisfaction, scope recoverability, and operational KPIs.

Adept at building strong relationships from front-line to C-suite, with a track record of professional progression and appointed, and elected public service roles. Committed to service-oriented, results-driven solutions in life sciences proposals, contracts, budgets, and organizational performance coaching.

Whatever the job title, I am viewed as an Energetic Connector, Problem Solver, Troubleshooter, and Coach with Heart. 

𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄: +𝟭 𝟵𝟭𝟵-𝟵𝟮𝟯-𝟱𝟬𝟲𝟬 𝗼𝗿 𝗸𝘆𝗳.𝗰𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗰@𝗴𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Businesses, cities, and towns across the country are going pink and raising money for the American Cancer Society throughout October in observance of National Breast Cancer Awareness month. #PaintItPink #BreastCancerAwareness #MakingStridesAgainstCancer

Where to donate? www.cancer.org! 81% of donations are spent on services and research. #ACS #AmericanCancerSociety

ACS funds services and research for ALL cancers. #AmericanCancerSociety #ScienceMatters #EvidenceBasedResearch 

Why focus on Breast Cancer? It is the most prevalent family of cancers and the second leading cause of death of women. 1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer. I am one of the ones. And it is increasingly hitting men and younger women. #KickCancer

What services does ACS provide—All Free? screenings, rides to treatment, lodging for patients undergoing treatment and their caregivers, help with insurance claims, mental health support, prosthetics and supplies, and more!  #PublicHealth #FreeScreenings 

Where to learn more? American Cancer Society! https://lnkd.in/e2aqWKWQ.   #SupportResearch 

Why it matters? As a 12-year survivor, I am here because of successful, science-based screenings, diagnostics, and treatments developed under ICH-GCP and made available to me at minimum cost. ACS helps make that happen for all regardless of income. #ICH #GCP #Gratitude

Why it Matters More? With the elimination of US federal recognition of and drastic cuts in support of women’s and BIPOC health research, ACS and similar organizations need our money to fill the void in developing and delivering screenings, diagnostics, treatments and support services and research reflecting representative populations and based on best practices trial design, conduct, analysis, and reporting. #HealthcareIsAHumanRight #GoldStandardResearch #ERPositive #PRPositive #ERNegative #PRNegative #TripleNegative #InflammatoryBC #DepoliticizeScience 

#WeAreAllInThisTogether
#LoveOneAnotherAsIHaveLovedYou

Kathleen Ferguson

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