Director, Grants & Medical Education

About the Company:

Based in San Diego, California, CovalentCreative is a technology and healthcare information company shaping the future of eyecare. Through leading brands like eyesoneyecare.com, Glance, and npiQ, we deliver innovative web applications, accredited education, and data-driven insights to tens of thousands of eyecare professionals. Our mission is to empower the people who care for vision with the tools, knowledge, and connections they need to excel.

As the Director, Grants & Medical Education at Eyes On Eyecare, you will be the strategic architect of our independent medical education (IME) ecosystem. You will own the end-to-end lifecycle of grant-funded programming—from identifying clinical practice gaps and building high-level relationships with Medical Affairs teams to securing funding and proving educational impact.

This role sits at the critical intersection of clinical strategy, industry partnership, and rigorous compliance. Your mission is to secure funding for high-quality educational initiatives, aligning the needs and gaps in the ophthalmic community with the areas of interest of supporters. You will maintain a strict firewall between promotional activities and accredited education, ensuring that every program we fund meets the highest standards of scientific integrity. You aren't just "writing grants"; you are translating therapeutic-area intelligence into sophisticated educational curricula that improve clinician performance and patient outcomes.

If you are energized by the challenge of building a scalable, compliant grant engine within a modern, data-driven healthcare technology company, this role is your next career home.

Key Responsibilities:

Grant Strategy, Prospecting, and Relationship Leadership

• Own the overall grant funding strategy across therapeutic categories (anterior segment, retina, glaucoma, dry eye, refractive, etc.)
• Develop and maintain relationships with medical education professionals, IME contacts, and industry grant reviewers
• Stay “ear to the ground” regarding supporter priorities, RFP cycles, therapeutic focus shifts, and competitive landscape
• Translate market intelligence into proactive educational concepts before formal RFP release
• Partner with executive leadership to forecast educational capacity and program sustainability based on grant funding cycles and therapeutic-area alignment
• Serve as the primary safeguard of educational independence, ensuring that all grant-funded initiatives are developed independently of the organization’s commercial sales and marketing influence, in strict accordance with ACCME Standards for Integrity and Independence

Grant Development, Writing, and Submission Excellence

• Lead development of high-quality, compliant, and strategically differentiated grant proposals
• Lead the synthesis of proprietary audience insights, clinical literature, and real-world evidence to draft 'high-science' Needs Assessments that define urgent clinical practice gaps for ODs and MDs
• Ensure alignment between proposal narrative, educational design, and measurable outcomes strategy
• Collaborate cross-functionally to gather accurate program data, timelines, faculty plans, and measurement frameworks
• Establish repeatable internal systems that allow us to scale to 10+ high-quality submissions per quarter
• Refine templates, messaging frameworks, and positioning to improve win rates over time

Educational Strategy and Program Design Input

• Conduct proactive gap analyses using survey data, publication insights, and therapeutic intelligence
• Partner with content, events, and clinical teams to shape fundable programming concepts
• Build and maintain relationships with key opinion leaders in the optometry and ophthalmology communities
• Ensure learning objectives and format decisions are aligned with both educational science and supporter priorities
• Protect educational independence while ensuring commercial viability
• Provide strategic input on curriculum structure, delivery format, and faculty selection

Outcomes Measurement and Reporting Leadership

Design and elevate outcomes measurement strategy (up to Level 5 outcomes where appropriate)

• Ensure polling, pre/post testing, and post-event evaluations are aligned with meaningful data collection
• Collaborate on data analysis to produce high-impact outcomes reports with actionable insights
• Review and refine reports to ensure clarity, compliance, and alignment with supporter expectations
• Continuously improve reporting templates and narrative storytelling around educational impact

Compliance and Industry Standards Oversight

• Ensure all grant activity aligns with ACCME, COPE, and relevant industry standards
• Maintain working knowledge of transparency guidelines and separation of education and promotion
• Serve as internal advisor on grant compliance best practices
• Help build documentation systems that reduce institutional risk

Systems, Forecasting, and Cross-Functional Leadership

• Build scalable grant tracking systems (pipeline visibility, submission timelines, renewal cycles)
• Collaborate closely with Content, Events, Clinical Review, Client Services, and Executive Leadership
• Create quarterly grant forecasts and retrospective win/loss analysis
• Establish clear internal rhythms: concept ideation → proposal development → submission → award → reporting → renewal

Who This Role Is Not For:

This role will not be a good fit if you…

• Do not like to travel, attend in-person meetings, and develop relationships
• Want a job that is primarily administrative grant writing without strategic ownership
• Avoid funding conversations or feel uneasy being accountable for funding outcomes
• Struggle to balance commercial awareness with strict educational compliance
• Need highly structured instructions rather than building systems from scratch
• Prefer siloed work instead of partnering across content, clinical, events, and leadership teams
• Dislike negotiation, nuance, or healthy debate in high-stakes funding conversations
• Want predictable, repetitive work rather than evolving strategy tied to shifting pharma priorities

Required Qualifications:

• 7–10+ years experience in independent medical education (IME), CME/CE grant development, or pharmaceutical medical education roles, or are an established clinician who has experience with independent medical education
• Demonstrated experience securing educational grant funding from pharmaceutical or medical device companies
• Strong understanding of ACCME and/or COPE compliance frameworks
• Experience designing or contributing to outcomes measurement strategies
• Proven ability to build and maintain industry relationships
• Strong executive-level writing and communication skills
• Experience managing multiple concurrent grant cycles and deadlines
• Comfortable working with technology tools and project management systems
• Highly organized with strong attention to detail

Preferred Qualifications:

• Existing relationships with eyecare-focused pharmaceutical or device grant teams
• Experience improving grant win rates through template or messaging refinement
• Experience collaborating on Level 4–5 outcomes reporting
• Familiarity with survey-based needs assessments and educational gap analysis
• Experience working in a fast-growing, entrepreneurial healthcare media or education company