Clinical Sales Capability Recovery Leader — Medical Devices

The mandate

Product certification is completed before representatives enter hospitals, yet field observations reveal inconsistent indication language, weak procedure understanding and poor escalation of clinical questions. Distributor personnel receive condensed training, launch content outruns approved materials, and manager coaching centres on pipeline. The capability leader departed after a compliance review challenged whether certification predicted safe customer interaction.

The ten-month assignment begins within two weeks and covers immediate field containment, one major product launch, two recertification waves and permanent-leader induction. A product approval, label change, safety communication, territory transfer, distributor appointment, prolonged absence or field concern becomes a governed capability event. Six weeks are protected for handover; no extension will cover commercial operations.

Exit requires role and interaction standards, prerequisite knowledge, simulation and observed-conversation evidence, calibrated assessors, distributor equivalence, launch gates, recertification triggers, field-coaching controls and three waves within tolerance. The successor must respond to an unseen label revision during launch and requalify affected populations without using the interim’s personal faculty.

The interim may remove uncertified people from clinical selling activity, suspend weak programmes, require observed practice, redirect R$85 million of authorised capability investment, change temporary faculty and impose field-readiness gates. Medical Affairs retains scientific response; Compliance governs approved conduct; commercial leaders set strategy; managers select and deploy individuals within authorised boundaries.

Sales targets, territory design, incentive plans, promotional approval, medical advice, adverse-event investigation, distributor contracting and individual performance action are outside scope. The leader may restrict customer-facing activity but cannot approve claims or provide clinical guidance. Revenue pressure will not justify memorised scripts without demonstrated judgement or retrospective certification after field exposure.

Why this seat is open

The learning system proved content exposure while clinical and compliance risk arises in live questions, procedural context and judgement about escalation. The leader’s departure left a launch without credible readiness governance. Temporary authority must restore field evidence through real waves and qualify a permanent owner against an unexpected label change.

What you will own

• Define safe clinical and commercial interactions by product, customer, procedure, role and approved information boundary.
• Rebuild diagnostics, learning, simulation, observed conversation, feedback and remediation for field populations.
• Calibrate trainers, field coaches and assessors using difficult questions, borderline claims and escalation cases.
• Establish readiness and recertification triggers for launch, label, safety, territory, distributor and absence changes.
• Compare employees and distributor teams for evidence quality, field behaviour, coaching and customer outcomes.
• Command launch, label revision, unapproved question, distributor substitution and weak manager-coaching scenarios.
• Transfer three complete capability waves and an unseen safety-communication event to the permanent regional commercial capability leader.

Candidate qualifications

• Held commercial capability authority in interventional devices, diagnostics or another clinically complex regulated multi-country launch portfolio.
• Converted approved product and procedure knowledge into observed, compliant field-conversation evidence.
• Recovered certification systems where completion masked weak judgement, escalation and distributor consistency.
• Calibrated faculty and managers across languages, territories, employee and third-party commercial teams.
• Preserved boundaries among learning, Medical Affairs, Compliance, commercial strategy and employment decisions.
• Handed recovered field capability to permanent leadership through repeated live launches, distributor recertification and complex regulated label-change scenarios.

Non-negotiables

• Available within two weeks for São Paulo leadership and eight Latin American field residencies.
• Direct regulated clinical-sales capability recovery is required; general sales training is insufficient.
• Will disclose device, distributor, training, hospital and commercial-assessment relationships.
• Will restrict unready field activity and will not approve claims, provide medical advice or set sales targets.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe a certified representative whose live clinical conversation exposed unsafe capability.
2. 49 words maximum. How did you calibrate distributor and employee assessments across markets?
3. 49 words maximum. Which label-change event must the successor manage before handover?