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# Interview: Daniel Lee - Clinical Trials Tech CRO ## Metadata - **Date:** January 2, 2026 - **Duration:** 30 minutes - **Interviewer:** Marcus Chen, Regional Sales Director, Salesloft + Clari - **Interviewee:** Daniel Lee, Chief Revenue Officer, Aether Clinical Solutions - **Company Profile:** $140M ARR clinical trials technology and services platform - **Recording:** Yes | **Transcript:** Yes --- ## Interview Transcript **[MARCUS]** Daniel, thanks so much for taking the time today. I know you're incredibly busy running revenue at Aether. Before we dive into anything product-specific, I'm genuinely curious about how your sales organization is structured and what your biggest challenges are right now. **[DANIEL]** Thanks for having me, Marcus. Yeah, it's been a wild year for us. We're at that interesting inflection point where we've got good traction in North America, but we're expanding into EMEA and APAC, and the complexity just multiplies. Honestly, the biggest challenge we face is forecasting. We have 18 to 24-month sales cycles, sometimes longer, and our board wants quarterly visibility. It's... it's a really different conversation when your average deal is 18 months out and you're trying to tell someone whether you'll close it in Q4. **[MARCUS]** That's fascinating. When you say 18 to 24 months, what's actually driving that timeline? Is that the customer's internal process, or is there something about clinical trials that inherently requires that length? **[DANIEL]** Both, honestly. Let me paint a picture for you. A typical customer—let's say a big pharma company or a mid-sized biotech—they're running multiple therapeutic programs in parallel. Oncology, rare disease, CNS, whatever. When they evaluate a platform like ours, they're not just thinking about the software. They're thinking about how it integrates with their existing tech stack, how it impacts their trial workflows, how it changes their data management, their compliance posture across different geographies. The real driver, though, is budget. When a sponsor company wants to adopt our platform, the procurement and budget cycles are brutal. You might have a champion—let's say the VP of Clinical Operations—who absolutely loves what we do. They've done a pilot, they get the value. But then they need budget approval. That might require corporate-level sign-off, especially if it's an international rollout. And timing? Well, a lot of our customers operate on calendar-year budgets. So if you're talking to someone in July about implementation next year, you're potentially waiting until Q4 of the following year just to get to a signed contract. **[MARCUS]** So there's this gap between when you identify the opportunity and when budget actually exists. How many different stakeholders are typically involved in that decision? **[DANIEL]** That's where it gets really complex. There's no single buyer in clinical trials. You've got the Clinical Operations leader—that's usually our champion. But then you need buy-in from Regulatory Affairs, Compliance, IT, Finance, and often your program teams in specific therapeutic areas. So you might have five or six different constituencies that need to be satisfied before a deal can close. And here's the thing that keeps me up at night: those people change. You'll have a great relationship with a VP of Clinical Operations, you'll be tracking a $500K deal for six months, and then—boom—they get promoted, or they move to a different therapeutic area, or they leave the company entirely. Now you have to rebuild the relationships, re-educate the new person on why the solution is valuable. You lose momentum, the deal extends another few months. **[MARCUS]** When that happens—when your champion leaves or moves—how do you maintain deal momentum? Do you have relationships lower in the organization, or do you have to start over? **[DANIEL]** Ideally, you've been engaging at multiple levels. That's what we're trying to do better. We talk about "multi-threading" a lot internally. You should have relationships with the clinical ops lead, yes, but also with the regulatory affairs director, maybe with IT, definitely with their finance partner. The problem is, a lot of our reps get trained to sell to one buyer—the clinical ops person—and when that person disappears, the deal disappears with them. We've had situations where a deal was 80% done—contract was written, just waiting for signature—and then the regulatory lead pushed back on some compliance requirement we didn't anticipate. It turned out there was a global regulatory framework question we never properly explored with that stakeholder. Now you're three months back, renegotiating terms, updating security documentation. **[MARCUS]** This actually relates to something I want to understand better. You mentioned global regulatory fragmentation. How is that impacting your sales cycles? **[DANIEL]** Oh man, this is huge. Clinical trials are governed differently in every major region. FDA in the US, EMA in Europe, PMDA in Japan, NMPA in China, and then you've got COFEPRIS in Mexico, Health Canada, and dozens of others. Each regulator has different data privacy requirements, different audit trail requirements, different security standards. When a big pharma company decides to use our platform globally, they're not thinking about deploying to one region. They want one instance of the system that can support trials across multiple geographies. But that means we have to architect around the strictest requirements. If EMEA requires certain data residency rules and China requires data localization, well, now we're architecting for all of that complexity. From a sales perspective, this means that a deal in the US might look straightforward, but the moment someone asks, "Will this work for our European trials?" everything changes. Suddenly, you need to engage with local compliance experts, local legal, maybe even the customer's European subsidiary. We've had deals stall for 4-6 months while we work through compliance requirements in Germany or France. **[MARCUS]** Are you building out regional expertise on your sales team to handle that, or is it something that only comes in later once a deal is already committed? **[DANIEL]** We're trying to do it better. Right now, we have some regional reps in EMEA, but they're more tactical. What we really need are people who understand both the regulatory landscape AND the sales motion. That's rare. Most people are either regulatory experts or sales people, not both. So we end up bringing in product, legal, and regulatory folks into sales calls way earlier than we probably should. It actually adds time to the sales cycle because now you need three or four people coordinating schedules. But it also adds value because we can actually answer their questions authoritatively instead of saying, "Let me get back to you on the UK data residency question." **[MARCUS]** That makes sense. Let's talk about proof points. When you're selling into different therapeutic areas—oncology, rare disease, rare pediatric disease—are you positioned differently, or do you sell the same product with the same value prop? **[DANIEL]** This is something we've learned the hard way. Early on, we thought we had a universal value proposition. The platform makes trials faster, more efficient, reduces cost, better data quality. That's true, but it means nothing to a VP of Clinical Operations if you can't back it up with proof from their specific therapeutic area. An oncology program might be the gold standard for operational efficiency—you've got dozens of centers, structured protocols, established workflows. But a rare disease program? Three, maybe four sites globally, highly variable patient populations, investigators who've never run a trial before. The pain points are completely different. So we realized we needed to build a reference library that's specific to therapeutic area. We should be able to say to a potential customer in CNS, "We've successfully deployed with these five other biotech companies, all running dementia or Alzheimer's programs, and here's what they achieved." That's credibility that a generic reference just doesn't have. **[MARCUS]** Are you doing that now? **[DANIEL]** We're working on it. Right now, it's inconsistent. Our sales team knows informally who uses us for what, but we don't have a formal system to track it, surface it by therapeutic area, or make it discoverable. This is honestly one of my top priorities for this year. I want every rep to be able to pull up relevant references by geography and therapeutic area within seconds. **[MARCUS]** That would be powerful in those early conversations. "Here are companies like you that have succeeded with us in your space." Let me ask about the deal structure. When you're looking at an 18-month sale cycle, how do you break that down? What are the stages? **[DANIEL]** We've actually been wrestling with this. Our sales team is using something like an eight-stage pipeline right now, but I'm not sure it's actually predictive. The stages are something like: Prospect, Qualification, Needs Analysis, Proposal, Negotiation, Legal Review, Implementation Planning, and Close. But in reality, a deal might bounce between stages. You might go from Proposal back to Needs Analysis because regulatory asked a question you didn't anticipate. You might spend 8 months in Legal Review. **[MARCUS]** So the stages aren't linear? **[DANIEL]** Not at all. That's one of our biggest challenges with forecasting. A deal that looks 80% done might actually take longer to close than one that's 50% done, depending on where the complexity lies. If complexity is in regulatory or legal, you're looking at unpredictable timelines. If complexity is in budget, well, you're waiting for a fiscal year, and you can predict that. **[MARCUS]** When you look at your pipeline today, how many of your deals are actually going to close in the quarter you expect them to? **[DANIEL]** Probably 40-50% at best. And it's not because the deals are falling apart. It's timing. A deal we thought would close in Q3 closes in Q4 because legal took longer. Another one shifts because the customer's budget cycle shifted. It's maddening from a forecasting perspective. **[MARCUS]** What would help you predict better? What are the leading indicators that tell you, "This deal is actually going to close on time"? **[DANIEL]** That's the million-dollar question. I think it's a combination of things. First, budget confirmation. If the customer has formally identified budget and it's allocated to this project, that's a huge signal. Second, multi-level engagement. If we have relationships with three or four stakeholders, not just one champion, the deal is more likely to move. Third, regulatory clarity. If we've done discovery with their regulatory and compliance teams and we've confirmed we can meet their requirements, that reduces downstream risk. And fourth—and I hate that this matters, but it does—proof points. If they've seen other companies in their therapeutic area succeed with us, they're more likely to move forward. It de-risks the decision. **[MARCUS]** So if I'm looking at your pipeline and trying to forecast which deals are real, I should be looking for: formal budget, multi-stakeholder engagement, regulatory alignment, and relevant proof points. Are those things documented somewhere in your CRM? **[DANIEL]** Some of them are. Budget is usually documented. Multi-stakeholder engagement... we try to track that, but it's inconsistent. Regulatory alignment is the one that's hardest to capture. A rep might have a conversation with the customer's regulatory lead that's just a phone call—no notes, no documentation. Then three months later, I'm asking, "Did we ever get regulatory sign-off?" and no one knows. **[MARCUS]** That's interesting. It sounds like there's a visibility problem. You have long sales cycles, multiple stakeholders, and you're losing information along the way. **[DANIEL]** Exactly. And the stakes are high because our average deal is probably $300-500K, sometimes more for big pharma. When you're tracking deals of that size with 18-24 month cycles, you need visibility. We need to know: Who are all the stakeholders? What are their concerns? What have we addressed? What's still open? When did we last touch them? Right now, we use Salesforce, but a lot of that context lives in Slack conversations or in individual rep's heads. If a rep leaves, we lose institutional knowledge. **[MARCUS]** Has that happened? Have you lost deals because a rep left and took critical context with them? **[DANIEL]** Absolutely. We've had reps leave—sometimes to competitors, actually—and deals just stall out. We go back six months later trying to re-engage and we're starting from scratch because we never properly documented what was discussed, what concerns remained, where the deal actually stood. **[MARCUS]** Okay, so beyond the CRM documentation piece, let's zoom out. You've got 18-24 month cycles, regulatory complexity, therapeutic area specialization, and the champion problem. How is your team currently thinking about managing all of this? **[DANIEL]** Honestly? We're not doing great. We have some good reps who've been with us for years and they've developed deep expertise. But they're managing everything in their heads and via email. They're responsive, they know their deals, but it's not scalable. We've recently hired a VP of Sales to bring more structure, and she's been pushing for better processes—better pipeline discipline, more consistent use of CRM, regular pipeline reviews. But cultural change is slow. Reps who've been successful operating intuitively resist the structure because it feels like bureaucracy. **[MARCUS]** What would success look like for you? If you could wave a magic wand, what would change? **[DANIEL]** I want three things. First, I want a CRM that actually reflects reality—where we can look at a deal and see the full history, all the stakeholders, all the concerns that have been raised and addressed. Second, I want a forecasting model that accounts for the non-linearity of our cycles. Something that says, "Based on these factors—regulatory clarity, budget confirmation, multi-threading—this deal has a 60% probability of closing in the next six months." And third, I want our reps to be specialists in therapeutic areas or regions, not generalists. A rep selling into oncology should understand oncology. They should know which companies are running oncology trials, what matters to them, who the key decision-makers are. **[MARCUS]** The forecasting piece is interesting because it sounds like you need something beyond traditional pipeline stage probability. You need probabilistic forecasting that factors in deal-specific complexity. **[DANIEL]** Exactly. Our current model assumes that all deals in "Proposal" stage have the same probability of close. But a proposal to a well-funded biotech with internal budget and buy-in from five stakeholders is a completely different animal from a proposal to a big pharma company with multiple geographies, regulatory complexity, and one weak champion. **[MARCUS]** How are you currently managing this? Are you manually adjusting deal probabilities? **[DANIEL]** Some reps do. Some don't. There's inconsistency. I spend a lot of time in pipeline reviews asking questions like, "This deal is $400K and it's been in proposal for nine months. Why?" And the answer is usually, "Well, they're waiting for budget" or "Regulatory has questions." But I would have liked to know that upfront so I could adjust my forecast. **[MARCUS]** Let me ask about deal structure from a different angle. When you have an 18-month cycle, how do you typically structure the contract? Is it a single, 18-month negotiation, or do you break it into phases? **[DANIEL]** Good question. Typically, there's an LOI early on—maybe 4-6 months into the sales process—that outlines the general terms and the implementation timeline. That gives us some momentum and usually improves forecast accuracy because LOI stage usually means budget is allocated. Then we spend 6-12 months negotiating the full contract with legal and compliance. For some deals, we've structured it as a pilot followed by a full deployment. The pilot is maybe three months, with 5-10 trial sites, and it's a way to de-risk the customer's decision. If the pilot goes well, the pathway to full deployment is clear. That actually compresses the decision timeline because the customer has proven the value internally. **[MARCUS]** Does the pilot approach work better in some therapeutic areas than others? **[DANIEL]** Absolutely. In oncology, we can do meaningful pilots because there are so many sites and programs. In rare disease, a pilot is harder because there might only be 4-5 sites globally and the customer might not want to disrupt their current workflow for a trial run. **[MARCUS]** So therapeutic area really does change the entire go-to-market approach. **[DANIEL]** It does. And I don't think we've optimized for that yet. We have one playbook that we apply across all therapeutic areas, which is probably leaving money on the table. **[MARCUS]** Let's talk about that. If you were to build therapeutic area-specific playbooks, what would be different? **[DANIEL]** For oncology, I'd focus on operational efficiency and scale. Oncology sites are established, they run high volumes, they want to squeeze more throughput out of their operations. Our value prop there is speed and efficiency. For rare disease, it's totally different. There are few sites, protocols are more variable, investigators might be less experienced. The value prop is more about coordination, data quality, and reducing administrative burden on those few sites. For pediatric rare disease—even more specialized. You've got regulatory complexity because it's pediatric, which adds requirements. You've got geographic complexity because there might be only one site per country. You've got clinical complexity because pediatric trial design is different. So if I'm going to market in oncology, my reps should know the major oncology centers, the key opinion leaders in oncology, the competitive landscape. Same for rare disease. Right now, we have some of that expertise, but it's not systematic. **[MARCUS]** How many reps do you have today? **[DANIEL]** We have a team of about 15 people—account executives, account managers, and some sales development reps. We're planning to hire another 10-15 this year as we expand into EMEA and APAC. **[MARCUS]** And of those 15, how many would you say are true specialists in a therapeutic area or region? **[DANIEL]** Maybe three or four. The rest are generalists. They know our product, they can talk about value, but they don't have deep domain expertise. **[MARCUS]** That's probably one of your biggest opportunities. As you scale, building therapeutic area and regional expertise into your hiring and onboarding could be a major competitive advantage. **[DANIEL]** I agree. And I think it becomes even more critical as we expand internationally. Someone selling into EMEA needs to understand European regulatory requirements, but they also need to understand the local market—which sponsors operate where, how procurement works, what matters to them. **[MARCUS]** Let me ask about competitive dynamics. In a 18-24 month sales cycle with multiple stakeholders, how often are you seeing competitive situations? **[DANIEL]** Frequently. Usually by the time we're in Negotiation stage, there's a competitor in the picture. Sometimes it's an established player, sometimes it's a startup with a point solution. The problem is that the longer the cycle, the more time competitors have to get in the door and influence stakeholders. We've had situations where we had a champion, were moving well, and then the customer brought in a competitor for evaluation—even though we thought we had the deal. Now we're in a bake-off, and suddenly the timeline extends because the customer wants to do a full evaluation of both solutions. **[MARCUS]** How do you defend in those situations? **[DANIEL]** Multi-threading helps. If we only have one contact, a competitor can come in and capture the attention of other stakeholders. But if we've already got relationships with regulatory, IT, and clinical operations, the competitor has to work harder to displace us. Proof points help too. "We've already done this for three other companies in your therapeutic area. Here's what they achieved." That's hard for a competitor to counter if they don't have similar proof points. **[MARCUS]** Going back to forecasting, when you see a competitor enter a deal, how does that change your probability assessment? **[DANIEL]** It should drop it significantly, but I'm not sure we're disciplined about that. A lot of reps are optimistic and think they can win even in competitive deals. They don't want to downgrade the deal to a lower probability. I usually try to be more conservative—if there's a legitimate competitor and the customer is running a proper evaluation, I assume 50-50 odds at best. **[MARCUS]** Let me shift gears. Earlier you mentioned sponsor relationships—that these matter in the sales cycle. Can you talk more about that? **[DANIEL]** Absolutely. Our customers are pharma and biotech sponsors who are running clinical trials. These sponsors often have long-standing relationships with CROs—Contract Research Organizations—who manage the trials on their behalf. Some sponsors outsource most of the trial management to a CRO, others do it in-house. When we're selling our platform, we're potentially disrupting existing relationships with their CRO partners. A sponsor might be running trials through CRO A or CRO B, and they're using that CRO's technology and processes. If we want to replace that, we need to understand the nature of that relationship, whether the sponsor is satisfied, and what it would take to displace the CRO. **[MARCUS]** So the CRO is often an influencer or even a blocker in the deal? **[DANIEL]** Exactly. Sometimes the CRO is a blocker. If the sponsor has a long-term relationship with a CRO and they're happy, they might not want to introduce new technology that the CRO doesn't support. We've had to navigate situations where we need to convince the sponsor that they can actually introduce new tools even if their CRO isn't enthusiastic about it. **[MARCUS]** How do you handle that? **[DANIEL]** We try to position our solution as complementary rather than competitive. We talk about how sponsors often need to work with multiple CROs—different CROs for different therapeutic areas, different geographies. So our platform can sit above multiple CROs and provide visibility and consistency across them. We frame it as something that benefits the sponsor without requiring them to change their CRO relationships. **[MARCUS]** Does that work? **[DANIEL]** Sometimes. But it requires a sophisticated conversation with a high-level stakeholder who has a strategic view of the sponsor's trial ecosystem. If we're only talking to the operational VP of Clinical Ops, they might not have that perspective. We need to get to someone higher up who can see the strategic value. **[MARCUS]** So another stakeholder you need to thread into the deal. **[DANIEL]** Yes. And that's why 18-24 months. You need to identify the right stakeholders, build relationships, help them understand the value, address their concerns, get budget approved, work through regulatory, work through legal, all while keeping sponsor strategy folks engaged and making sure CROs aren't blocking the deal. **[MARCUS]** That's complex. Let me ask: if you could design your ideal sales process, what would it look like? **[DANIEL]** I think it would have clear stages that are actually predictive. Not based just on where we are in the sales process, but on objective criteria. For example: - **Prospecting**: We've identified a sponsor running trials in our target area - **Discovery**: We've had conversations with at least two stakeholders and understand their key challenges - **Value Alignment**: We've demonstrated relevant proof points and they've expressed interest - **Regulatory Clarity**: We've validated that we can meet their compliance requirements - **Multi-Threading**: We have relationships with at least 3 stakeholders, ideally from different functions - **Budget Confirmation**: They've formally allocated budget for this project - **Procurement & Legal**: We're actively negotiating contracts - **Signature**: Contract is signed and we're moving to implementation And each stage would have clear criteria that have to be met before we move to the next stage. A deal doesn't move out of Discovery until we've talked to multiple stakeholders. It doesn't move to Value Alignment until we've actually presented proof points and gotten feedback. **[MARCUS]** That's much more rigorous than most sales organizations I work with. And it would probably help with forecasting too. **[DANIEL]** It would. Because then when we look at a deal, we can ask, "Does this meet the criteria for this stage?" If it doesn't, it either goes back to the previous stage or it stays where it is. And that gives us more accurate visibility on when deals are actually going to close. **[MARCUS]** Do you think your team would buy into something like that? **[DANIEL]** Some would, some wouldn't. The experienced reps who've been successful might push back. But we're planning to hire 15 new reps this year, and I think putting in these kinds of disciplines early—in how they're trained, how they manage their deals—could be really valuable. You don't get bad habits to begin with. **[MARCUS]** Last question: if I could help you with one thing in your sales organization, what would it be? **[DANIEL]** Honestly? Visibility. We need to see our deals clearly. Who are the stakeholders? What are the key risks and blockers? What stage are they actually in? What's our real probability of close? Right now, that information is scattered across Salesforce, Slack, email, and individual rep brains. We need to pull it together. And then on top of that, we need better forecasting. Not just traditional pipeline forecasting, but something that accounts for the complexity and non-linearity of our sales cycles. Something that says, "Based on these factors, here's the real probability this deal closes in this quarter." **[MARCUS]** That makes total sense. I think there's a really interesting opportunity here for you. With Clari's platform, you could actually get that visibility—automatic analysis of all the conversations, the emails, the complexity factors, and then predictive forecasting that accounts for your deal complexity. Combined with better processes and therapeutic area expertise, I think you could materially improve your forecast accuracy and probably compress your cycles too. **[DANIEL]** That would be huge. An 18-month cycle is our current reality, but I think we could probably get that down to 12-15 months if we were more disciplined and had better visibility. **[MARCUS]** Daniel, this has been really valuable. I want to respect your time, but is there anything else you want to cover? **[DANIEL]** No, I think this is good. I appreciate you listening and asking thoughtful questions. This has been helpful for me just to articulate where we are and what we need. **[MARCUS]** Well, thank you. I'm going to follow up with some thoughts on how we might be able to help, and I'd love to connect you with some other CRO leaders I work with who've dealt with similar challenges. **[DANIEL]** I'd appreciate that. Let's stay in touch. --- ## Key Takeaways ### Challenge #1: Unpredictable Sales Cycles - **Problem:** 18-24 month sales cycles don't follow predictable linear paths. Deals bounce between stages based on budget availability, regulatory questions, and stakeholder changes. - **Impact:** Current forecasting accuracy is ~40-50% because deals shift quarters unpredictably, not because they fall apart. - **Opportunity:** Stage definitions based on objective criteria (regulatory clarity, multi-stakeholder engagement, budget confirmation) rather than process steps could improve predictability. ### Challenge #2: Multi-Stakeholder Complexity with High Turnover - **Problem:** Deals require buy-in from Clinical Ops, Regulatory Affairs, Compliance, IT, and Finance. When champions change (promotion, departure, role change), deal momentum stalls and context is lost. - **Impact:** Even 80% complete deals can extend by months when stakeholders change. Institutional knowledge walks out the door with departing reps. - **Opportunity:** Systematic multi-threading with documented stakeholder concerns and buying criteria, supported by CRM visibility, would reduce risk of champion departure. ### Challenge #3: Therapeutic Area Specialization Gap - **Problem:** Proof points are high-impact, but the company lacks systematic therapeutic area-focused references. Market positioning and trial design differ significantly between oncology, rare disease, and pediatric programs. - **Impact:** Reps selling generically rather than with therapeutic area expertise miss opportunities to compress sales cycles. - **Opportunity:** Hiring and training therapeutic area specialists, building reference library by indication, and developing area-specific playbooks could accelerate sales cycles by 20-30%. ### Challenge #4: Global Regulatory Complexity as a Pacing Item - **Problem:** Clinical trials are regulated differently across FDA, EMA, PMDA, NMPA, and 20+ other agencies. Global customers require one platform that meets all standards, which adds months to sales cycles while compliance is validated. - **Impact:** A US-focused deal can stall 4-6 months if the customer asks, "Will this work in Europe?" because it requires new regulatory analysis and stakeholder engagement. - **Opportunity:** Regional compliance expertise embedded in sales team (not just available on demand) would reduce regulatory discovery time. ### Challenge #5: Visibility and Forecasting Infrastructure Gap - **Problem:** Deal context lives in email, Slack, and individual rep knowledge. Salesforce doesn't capture multi-stakeholder details, regulatory concerns, or deal complexity factors that predict success. - **Impact:** Manual forecast adjustments by leadership create inconsistency. Real probability of close is unknown, making quarterly guidance unreliable. - **Opportunity:** CRM discipline (documented stakeholders, conversation summaries, risk factors) + probabilistic forecasting that accounts for deal-specific complexity factors could improve forecast accuracy to 70-80%. ### Strategic Recommendations 1. **Implement deal governance tied to objective criteria:** Move from process-based stages to criteria-based gates (e.g., "Regulatory Clarity" requires documented sign-off from customer's regulatory team). 2. **Build therapeutic area expertise into hiring and enablement:** Next 15 hires should come with or quickly develop domain expertise in oncology, rare disease, or specialty areas. 3. **Create therapeutic area reference libraries:** Systematically document customer proof points by indication, therapy area, and geography to shorten proof-of-concept discussions. 4. **Establish multi-threading discipline:** Train reps to identify and document all stakeholders early, with clear notes on each person's requirements, concerns, and timeline. 5. **Invest in deal intelligence platform:** Implement tools that provide automatic visibility into deal complexity, stakeholder engagement, and probability factors to enable predictive forecasting. 6. **Compress 18-24 month cycles by 20-25%:** With better visibility, therapeutic area expertise, and criteria-based processes, target a reduction from 18-24 months to 12-15 months within 18 months. --- **Interview Conducted By:** Marcus Chen, Salesloft + Clari **Date:** January 2, 2026 **Next Steps:** Follow-up call with Daniel Lee to discuss platform capabilities; introduction to peer CRO leaders managing similar challenges