Contracts Manager
QAD Inc., owned by leading private equity firm Thoma Bravo , is a premier provider of cloud-based manufacturing and enterprise software solutions. Together with Redzone—the #1 Connected Worker Platform in manufacturing—we empower shop-floor teams and drive operational excellence worldwide.
Within this high-growth, PE-backed environment, the QAD Legal Department operates as a strategic catalyst for business execution—driving rapid revenue enablement, managing global commercial risk, and pioneering AI-first operational frameworks. As QAD continues to scale its global footprint and product offerings, the Legal team plays a direct, hands-on role in accelerating deal velocity, safeguarding compliance, and building scalable legal operations to support our strategic pillars.
The Contracts Manager will lead QAD’s global day-to-day contract operations and serve as a trusted, solution-minded partner to Sales, Deal Desk, Customer Success, Procurement, Finance, and Professional Services. Positioned ideally in the Eastern Time Zone to extend operational coverage hours across global teams, this role offers a significant opportunity for a forward-thinking contracts leader to transform QAD’s contracting processes and how we manage those contracts, help build a robust contract operations framework, and lead AI-first contracting initiatives across a high-growth software company.
What You'll Do
- Lead Global Contract Operations: Establish and manage the Legal intake queue, triaging requests by type, priority, and risk. Prepare and route customer, partner, and vendor agreements for signature, adhering to delegation of authority policies and service levels.
- Review and Negotiate Commercial Agreements: Review, draft, and negotiate NDAs, customer agreements and CSAs, vendor agreements, SOWs, amendments, and partner documents. Utilize AI-assisted review tools and playbooks, escalating high-risk deviations with clear recommendations.
- Drive AI-First Contracting: Lead the shift toward AI-enabled contract workflows by identifying, testing, and scaling use cases for automated intake, review, and routine query responses. Refine and maintain AI playbooks and self-service resources.
- Scale and Improve Contract Operations: Continuously improve how contract work gets done by refining intake and routing workflows as necessary, maintain standard templates, serve as a power user/admin for legal technology (including CLM implementation), and maintain an accurate, transaction-ready contract repository.
- Cross-Functional Enablement & Risk Protection: Advise business teams on contractual interpretation, support Customer Success and renewals requests, license compliance and audit requests, partner with Finance on collection/dispute workflows and contract rights reviews, and triage legal notices to resolution. Build self-services resources and training that reduce routine requests to Legal.
Who You Are
- Experience: 5+ years of contracts management experience in a fast-paced software/SaaS company (private equity-backed experience preferred).
- Location & Coverage: Ability to work US Eastern Time Zone hours (preferred) to extend coverage across Europe and North America, with flexibility to support APAC business hours, as needed.
- Mindset: Startup mentality—thrives in building, establishing, and scaling new operational processes and playbooks rather than just working within established large-enterprise frameworks.
- AI & Tech Proficiency: Hands-on experience or strong aptitude with AI-assisted contracting tools, CLM platforms, and intake/workflow automation tools.
- Critical Thinking: Anticipates where the business is heading, challenges assumptions, and brings forward better approaches before they are requested
- Commercial Acumen: Strong business judgment with a customer-centric, solution-oriented approach to deal execution and stakeholder alignment.
- Communication: Excellent written and verbal communication skills with a track record of supporting cross-functional business units effectively.