Job Description

JOB SUMMARY:

Join NORC at the University of Chicago as a Contracts Manager, a key leadership role responsible for overseeing a complex contract portfolio while training, managing, mentoring, and developing a team of contracts professionals. This is an opportunity to impact one of the nation's most respected nonprofit, nonpartisan, and objective research institutions. As a Contracts Manager, you will help shape continued organizational growth by ensuring NORC’s legal agreements, risk assessments, and compliance practices are sound, strategic, and aligned with our mission.

Location Hybrid role based in either our Chicago Loop or Washington, D.C. office, with a minimum of six days per month in the office.

DEPARTMENT:

Contracts and Grants, Purchasing

NORC’s Contracts and Grants Department is a growing and collaborative team of contracts and legal professionals that drafts, reviews, and negotiates all of the organization’s legal agreements. Analysis of legal agreements and identifying risks is a critical function of the Contracts department. Contracts also manages and advises on a wide variety of privacy, data governance, audit, and conflicts matters to ensure regulatory compliance. Our Contracts department is a dynamic and highly visible team within a growing nonprofit organization. In taking responsibility for assessing and advising on any potential risk to the organization, we are integral to ensuring NORC’s success.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Lead and supervise other Contracts and Grants staff members including managing a team of direct reports.
• Manage a complex portfolio of contracts and grants.
• Evaluate risk in legal agreements and advise senior management on key contract terms.
• Train, mentor, and support the development of junior level contracts staff.
• Advise project and proposal teams, research and executive leadership, and contracts staff on business, financial, and legal requirements for government and commercial clients.
• Collaborate with NORC’s Purchasing team on complex procurement matters.
• Develop and maintain relationships with counterparts at key NORC clients.
• Contribute to enterprise-wide staff training on contracts, grants, and administrative processes.

REQUIRED SKILLS:

• Bachelor's degree required (MBA, or related advanced degree preferred.)
• At least 7 years of work experience in all aspects of pre/post award administration activities under government funded awards and other client-funded agreements (e.g. commercial clients, state/local government entities, foundations, and other non-federal funders.)
• Demonstrated experience managing, training and mentoring staff.
• Expertise in Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR), working knowledge of Agency Supplements and the 2 CFR 200 (Uniform Guidance); strong familiarity with the full range of federal award types such as. FFP, CPFF, Time and Materials, grants, and commercial contracting.
• Thorough knowledge of a variety of legal agreements, including subcontracts/subawards, vendor/purchasing agreements, nondisclosure agreements, purchase orders, and teaming agreements.
• Strong knowledge of federal cost accounting standards.
• Excellent leadership, communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills.
• Strong organizational, analytical, critical thinking, and time management skills.
• Strong track record in contract negotiation, subcontracting, purchasing, and pricing experience.
• Highly skilled in all aspects of a project lifecycle, including bid development, compliance with proposal and contract requirements, risk analysis, and contract closeout.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite required.
• Experience with enterprise business systems and tools, including Deltek/Costpoint, CRM platforms such as Salesforce, and emerging data or AI-enabled tools that support contract and proposal management a plus.

• Qualified applicants must be eligible to work in the U.S. We regret that we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this position.

SALARY AND BENEFITS:

The pay range for this position is $140,000 - $150,000.

This position is classified as regular. Regular staff are eligible for NORC’s comprehensive benefits program. Benefits include, but are not limited to:

• Generously subsidized health insurance, effective on the first day of employment

• Dental and vision insurance

• A defined contribution retirement program, along with a separate voluntary 403(b) retirement program

• Group life insurance, long-term and short-term disability insurance

• Benefits that promote work/life balance, including generous paid time off, holidays; paid parental leave, bereavement leave, tuition assistance, and an Employee Assistance Program (EAP).

NORC is committed to equity and transparency in its pay practices. We publish salary ranges and benefit information for every job. The listed hiring range reflects what we, in good faith, expect to pay at the time of posting, though actual compensation may vary and may be adjusted over time. A candidate’s placement within the range depends on factors such as competencies, education, qualifications, experience, skills, performance, and organizational needs.

WHAT WE DO:

NORC at the University of Chicago is an objective, non-partisan research institution that delivers reliable data and rigorous analysis to guide critical programmatic, business, and policy decisions. Since 1941, our teams have conducted groundbreaking studies, created and applied innovative methods and tools, and advanced principles of scientific integrity and collaboration. Today, government, corporate, and nonprofit clients around the world partner with us to transform increasingly complex information into useful knowledge.

WHO WE ARE:

For over 80 years, NORC has evolved in many ways, moving the needle with research methods, technical applications and groundbreaking research findings. But our tradition of excellence, passion for innovation, and commitment to collegiality have remained constant components of who we are as a brand, and who each of us is as a member of the NORC team. With world-class benefits, a business casual environment, and an emphasis on continuous learning, NORC is a place where people join for the stellar research and analysis work for which we’re known, and stay for the relationships they form with their colleagues who take pride in the impact their work is making on a global scale.

EEO STATEMENT:

NORC is an equal opportunity employer. NORC evaluates qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, sexual orientation, and other legally protected characteristics.

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