Agreements and Contracts (Contracts Management)

 

• Experience with contract abstracts, administrative tasks, amendments, analysis, annotations, change orders, claims, closeouts, drafting, due diligence, editing, export compliance, invitation to bid (ITB), management, negotiations, revisions, requests for information (RFIs), requests for proposals (RFPs), requests for qualifications (RFQs), requests for solicitations (RFSs) and statements of work (SOWs), for numerous types of contracts and many different types of business entities and business units, such as advertising, cannabis, cell towers, concessions, construction, cyber (operations, payments, security), digital currency, distribution, ecommerce, employment, environmental, events, fashion, fundraising, employment, energy, esports, fashion, finance (banking, derivatives, funds, investments, manufacturing, money services businesses, tokenization), franchising, grants, health (clinical trials, life sciences, managed care, medical devices, payer contracts, pharmaceuticals, pharmacies, pharmacy benefit management, professional services, research and development – R&D), hospitality, human resources (HR), information governance, information technology (IT), initial coin offerings (ICOs), initial public offerings (IPOs), intellectual property (IP), knowledge management, labor, legal operations, logistics, marketing, mergers, acquisitions and divestitures (collectively, M&A), nonprofits, procurement, promotions, real estate, records management, risk management, shop-in-shop, sourcing, startups, tax-exempt organizations, and third-party-collaborations.

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• Compliance with Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) guidelines regarding affirmative action in general (such as may involve: discrimination on the basis of color, disability, gender identity, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or status as a protected veteran; or, wrongful discharge or discrimination against applicants or employees of Federal contractors or subcontractors who inquire about, discuss, disclose or even inquire about their compensation or the compensation of other similarly-situated employees), affirmative action review processes, conciliation agreements (negotiation and drafting), complaint investigations, community linkage agreements, compliance audits, compliance evaluations, compliance monitoring, consent decrees, corporate policies, debarment hearings, negotiations with the Labor Department Solicitor and staff.

 

• Certified in the Icertis Contracts Management System.

 

• Experience with service integration and management (SIAM) and software licensing, particularly as related to cybersecurity, data privacy, information technology, procurement and sourcing.

 

• Reviewed and processed contracts during M&A due diligence, to ensure that the acquired or divested entity had sufficient legal rights under all existing contracts to continue transacting business under such contracts after the close of the acquisition or divestiture transaction.

 

• Provided timely contract abstracts, analysis and updates regarding such contracts in the acquired or divested entity to key stakeholders.

 

• Negotiated with the vendors for any of the contracts from the acquired or divested entity that were unfavorable to the acquiring or divesting entity, to secure more-favorable terms or rights, as required.

 

• Facilitated any necessary negotiations between such vendors and the acquiring or divesting entity.

 

• Maintained preferred vendor database of cloud service providers, cybersecurity providers, hardware, software and other tech-related products and services.

 

• Responsible for engaging all necessary internal personnel to achieve alignment for contract amendments and change orders.

 

• Obtained e- or ink signatures from the specified management personnel on amendments, change orders or contracts, and then processed digital copies of all such documents into the enterprise contract repository database, searchable to all personnel throughout the enterprise, using either an enterprise proprietary contract management system (CMS) software platform or a commercially-available platform.

 

• Experience with contract management for the hospitality industry, for various types of facilities and services, such as for casinos and gaming, concierge services, golf courses, hotels, luxury condominiums, mixed-use resort projects, security services, spas, sports clubs, timeshares and valet services.

 

• Responsible for the entire contract approval, management and review process, for all service provider and vendor contracts.

 

• Served as the point contact within the enterprise for all contracts and supporting documents, and ensured that all contracts were in compliance with the enterprise corporate policies and applicable state and Federal regulations, rules and statutes.

 

• Close collaboration with cross-functional business units within the enterprise, such as accounting, business development, logistics, operations, procurement, sales, sourcing, supply chain and treasury.

 

• Expedited the contract review process, to ensure that all contracts were processed within the timelines established by management and the relevant business units.

 

• Provided reports and recommendations to senior management for improving contract review policies, procedures and practices.

 

• Conducted spot audits to ensure compliance with enterprise corporate contracts management policies, and performed corporate governance functions as directed.

 

• Negotiated and drafted agreements ancillary to active contracts, such as for confidentiality and non-disclosure (NDA).

 

• Liaison to relevant business units, such as claims, data security, human resources (HR), marketing and sales.

 

• Provided contracts management for complex advertising, entertainment, esports, IP, media and promotional projects.

 

• Contract management for financial agreements and contracts, such as ISDA, leases, master, master service, direct and indirect purchase and supply, and shareholder.

 

• Keeps current with emerging IT, privacy and data security industry trends, and provides assessments to management regarding their potential impact on enterprise contract management, procurement and sourcing strategies.

 

• Ensured that all contracts with Federal entities complied with Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations (DFAR), Department of Defense (DOD), and Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR), as appropriate.

 

• Provided contracts management training to enterprise management and business partners’ personnel, as required.

 

• Compliance with the Uniform Commercial Code, particularly Article 2, as appropriate.

 

• Very successful collections negotiations to obtain payment of disputed invoices for the enterprise.

 

• Managed multiple collection matters relating to active contracts and projects simultaneously and successfully.

 

• Managed collection litigation, collections subject matter experts (SMEs) and outside counsel.

 

• Preparation of monthly collections spreadsheets and reports to management.

 

• Legal support for the enforcement of restrictive covenants against former employees.

 

• Legal support as required, for all aspects of corporate transactions and projects.

 

• Ensured that the sales teams understand the implications of enterprise goals during negotiations, and prioritized the negotiating strategies as appropriate.

 

• Authored new contracting procedures, forms and templates, and revised existing documents to comply with current enterprise practices.

 

• Maintained corporate minute books and other governance documentation and materials relating to contract management.

 

• Assisted in managing the enterprise insurance portfolio.

 

• Reported claims related to the managed contracts to the relevant insurance carriers.

 

• Ensured contract management compliance with enterprise risk management procedures.

 

• Assisted in managing the enterprise IP portfolio, in collaboration with domestic and international patent counsel.

 

• Authored enterprise contracts management corporate policies.

 

• Responsible for domestic, cross-border (Canada and Mexico) and international contract management for the enterprise, for assigned contracts.

 

• Managed litigation and outside counsel for issues resulting from managed contracts.

 

• Consultation for management regarding antitrust issues in connection with managed contracts.

 

• Management of external legal spend, mindful of the budgets assigned to the various matters.

 

• Responsible for contract compliance, development and management for all assigned contracts and ancillary documents.

 

• Established good working partnerships with internal sourcing professionals and external suppliers and vendors.

 

• Managed multiple concurrent deliverables for active contracts, in a matrixed environment, with constantly fluctuating timelines.

 

• Worked closely with internal enterprise auditors and external supplier auditors to reconcile inconsistencies with deliverables.

 

• Monitored contract renewals and other key contract milestones through the enterprise CMS platform.

 

• Development of complex contract and template form language that reflects current underwriting strategies, loss considerations and state mandates.

 

• Prepared of all required supporting product comparisons, disclosures, documentation and explanatory memoranda.

 

• Provided proposed policy language to support account-specific transactions.

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• Responded to regulatory audits regarding enterprise contract management policies.

 

• Respected the various contracting standards established by the various centers of excellence (CoEs) throughout the enterprise.

 

• Understanding of commercial and financial lines underwriting strategies, insurance industry theories and standard risk management practices.

 

• Developed and managed requests for information (RFIs), requests for proposals (RFQs) and requests for qualifications (RFQs), for contracts related to information technology (IT) procurement and sourcing projects, such as application development, cloud provider services, cybersecurity services, infrastructure as a service (Iaas), platform as a service (PaaS), privacy service provider, software as a service (SaaS).

 

• Coordinated with enterprise vendor managers and procurement and sourcing subject matter experts (SMEs) to ensure that such projects had the correct specifications, conformed to the prescribed enterprise sourcing cycle and were completed within the timelines specified by management.

 

• Reviewed and managed third-party IT spend for each such assigned contract and project.

 

• Performed the end-to-end strategic sourcing analysis for each such assigned contract and project, including analyzing proposed spend and suppliers, developing a sourcing strategy within the guidelines established by the enterprise sourcing SMEs, through negotiations, contract execution and contract closeout.

 

• Proactively planned for upcoming enterprise procurement and sourcing needs through analysis of the quarterly projects of the relevant business units and then outlined proposed specifications and strategies for such procurement and sourcing contracts with the management personnel of such business units.

 

• Continuing familiarity with traditional and emerging trends in contract management best practices, licensing structures and vendor performance models.

 

• Strong focus on risk avoidance and mitigation in contracts management operations, through continuing collaboration with enterprise risk management SMEs.

 

• Structured the bid submissions for each contract and project, evaluated the bids received against a broad set of evaluation criteria established prior to publishing the invitation to bid (ITB), provided recommendations for approved vendor selection, and provided recommendations for the acceptance or negotiation of bids received.

 

• Experience with various industry guidelines and governmental regulations that influence bidding and contracting practices.

 

• Authored various templates for agreements, contracts and documents to expedite the contracts management workflows, such as amendment, change order, cost plus, invitation to bid (ITB), lump sum, request for information (RFI), request for proposals (RFQ), request for qualifications (RFQ), master agreement (MA), master services agreement (MSA), net cost, service level agreement (SLA), statement of work (SOW) and supplemental agreement (SA), all of which could be easily modified to accommodate the requirements for any particular contract or project if necessary.

 

• Assistance to human resources (HR) for sourcing expert contracts management personnel in domestic local and regional labor markets at hourly rate price points aligned with the particular location.

 

• Experience with indirect Sourcing categories, such as consultants, maintenance, project application development, SaaS-based solution implementations.

 

• Translated business and project requirements articulated by management, relevant business unit end-users and SMEs into clear and cogent contract conditions, language, specifications and terms.

 

• Developed enterprise subcontracting corporate policies, procedures, protocols and risk profiles, and a database of previously-utilized subcontractors with their performance data from prior contracts and projects.

 

• Assisted business units such as business development, procurement, project management, real estate and sourcing to draft, negotiate and review various commercial agreements, such as consulting, joint venture, leases, licenses, material supply, non-disclosure (NDA), service level (SLA), subcontracts, supplier, supply chain, teaming, vendor.

 

• Performed legal research to support various contracts management enterprise initiatives.

 

• Assisted accounts receivable regarding contracts compliance, such as deliverables, invoicing, milestones and notices.

 

• Compiled data and prepared regular or special financial records or reports related to contracts management. 

 

• Assisted the accounting department with fiscal year-end activities related to contracts management, such as adjustments to contract ceilings, analysis and posting of expenditure and revenue accruals, reconciling accounts, reversals of expenditure and revenue accruals.

 

• Prepared and reviewed monthly cash expenditure reports related to contracts management.

 

• Processed and reviewing electronic transactions related to contracts management, such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, grants, invoices and purchase orders, through the enterprise financial management system.

 

• Participated in the annual budgeting process related to contracts management.

 

• Collaborated with the finance department to verify the allocation of funding for proposed contracts and projects.

 

• Verified with the health compliance SME that all Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Business Associate Agreements (BAAs) were filed appropriately, including any BAAs embedded in master agreements (MAs) as well as the stand-alone BAA amendments, exhibits or supplemental agreements.

 

• Negotiated and drafted non-standard BAA terms, as required.

 

• Informed relevant stakeholders of the status changes for active contracts and projects, as appropriate.

 

• Prepared the summary sign-off package for any contracts and projects or ancillary documents that required senior management approval.

 

• Distributed digital copies of all countersigned contacts to all personnel identified in the relevant enterprise corporate policies.

 

• Performed data-related tasks, such as analysis, archiving, compiling, governance, entry, mining and validation.

 

• Keyed metadata into the file for each contract in the CMS database, and also verified the file integrity through the .

 

• Developed and implemented institutional group purchasing organization (GPO) contracts, including administration, eligibility, maintenance, membership and pricing.

 

• Compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley (SOx) controls and regulations applicable to enterprise contracts management policies, procedures and processes.

 

• Investigated the eligibility of various entities to receive GPO and Public Health Services Act (PHSA) Section 340B prices.

 

• Maintained membership lists for commercial and governmental GPOs.

 

• Researched and updated PHSA membership discount code eligibility.

 

• Assisted in the investigation and clearing of payment error chargebacks for active contracts caused by customer disputing certain charges to their credit cards.

 

• Conducted user testing of the Model N revenue management system (RMS) and other RMSs, such as SAP Business Intelligence, to facilitate daily reconciliation tracking and validation.

 

• Coordinated with IT to implement electronic document interchange (EDI) 849 (Response to Product Transfer Account Adjustment) standards applicable to certain types of group contracts, and reconciliation tools.

 

• Responded to and input remedy tickets and requests for change (RFCs) relating to the administration of active contracts.

 

• Provided analytical support for SOx inquiries to ensure adherence to SOx controls.

 

• Familiarity with the “Big 3” drug wholesale distributors (AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson) and their supply chain management models, such as prime vendor systems.

 

• Assisted with chain of custody requirements, document tracking, imaging and media processing.

 

• Assisted in performing quality control (QC) activities for document review, as required.

 

• Reviewed and negotiated various procurement and sourcing proposals and proposed contract terms, to ensure compliance with enterprise corporate policies.

 

• Prepared internal memoranda, presentations and training materials regarding current and proposed contracts management enterprise practices and key contract terms.

 

• Identified existing or proposed flow-down contractual requirements.

 

• Ensured enterprise contracts management compliance with various guidelines and regulations, such as the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations (DFARs), Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations Supplement (DFARS), factory acceptance testing (FAT) – challenging the Functional Specification (FS) derived originally from the User Requirements Specification (URS), Federal Acquisition Regulations (FARs), International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITARs), and site acceptance testing (SAT), as applicable.

 

• Authored comprehensive request for proposal (RFP) documents, including evaluation criteria, form of cost proposal, form of insurance certificates, scope of services, and proposed distribution list.

 

• Coordinated attendance and required personnel for selection committee meetings, to evaluate large-scale submitted proposals.

 

• Compiled and reviewed selection committee evaluation sheets to ensure that selection committee members were concise and informative.

 

• Prepared the award memorandum based on the decision by the selection committee of the approved vendor or provider, and then circulated such memorandum for the appropriate signatures.

 

• Managed vendor oversight documentation, reporting and standardization of requirements.

 

• Consultation for global development operations (GDO) team members and business partners’ personnel regarding vendor oversight.

 

• Training of relevant personnel regarding all vendor oversight processes.

 

• Legal support for corrective and preventive action (CAPA) plans to remedy issues with the enterprise contracts management vendor oversight process.

 

• Worked directly with contract service providers (CSPs), customers, investigators, opinion leaders and SMEs to improve the enterprise contracts management vendor oversight process.

 

• Contract lifecycle management (CLM) software platforms provide full automation over the entire lifecycle of contract development, from negotiations and redlines through execution and dissemination, and then though amendments, tracking, completion and final archiving, and should generally include: an easily-understandable database structure that can be easily-updated by the user, based on user-created categories of agreements, contracts and related documents; built-in capabilities to disseminate documents for external and internal e-signatures and notifications to all parties and stakeholders when each authorized party signs; templates for the most commonly-used types of agreements, contracts and related documents; the ability for the user to create any type of new template for any new type of agreement, contract and related document; full internal and external editing and sharing collaboration capabilities; tracking capabilities to allow the user to set notifications for significant milestone dates, with the ability for the user to send such notifications to external and internal stakeholders; and, the ability for the user to create new capabilities, using scripts provided originally in the CLM software platform.

 

• Research, testing, use, recommendation, specification and procurement of various CLM software platforms, such as A1 Tracker, AAC, Accelo, Aerofiler, Affinitext, Agiloft Contract Management Suite, Akorda Contract Management Software, ALOE, AMC Management, Apttus CLM Matrix, CallidusCloud CLM, Contract Lifecycle Management, CobbleStone Contract Insight Enterprise, Concord, Conga Contracts, Contract Discovery & Analytics, Contract Eagle, ContractInsight, Contract Logix Contract Management, Contract Wrangler, ContractAwesome, Contractbook, ContractClub, ContractRoom, ContractSafe, ContractWorks, ContractZen, Corridor, Coupa, DealHub.io, Determine, Docsmore, DocuSign CLM, DocuVantage, eBrevia Contract Analyzer, Ecteon, Exigent Contract Management Software, ESM Contract Management, Fullstep Suite, Gatekeeper, GetAccept, Gimmal, IBM Emptoris, Icertis Contract Management Software, iContracts, Intellect, Ironclad, Ivalua, Jira, Juro, Kira, Koho Software, Lextree, LinkSquares, Malbek Contrax, MochaDocs, Model N CLM, Newgen Provider Contract Manager, Novatus, Octiv, Oneflow, Onit, Optimus BT eContract, Outlaw, PandaDoc, PaperTracer, Parley Pro, Rform, Salesforce, SAP Ariba, Seal Contract Discovery, Selectica, SMART by GEP, SpringCM, Symfact, Universal Contract Manager, Vortal.

 

    Last updated 201203_1543