Soun Khountham is the Founding Senior Director of New Development for UPMC’s Sponsored Clinical Trials & Partnerships (SCTP) office within UPMC Enterprises, the innovation, commercialization, and venture capital arm of UPMC. She leads enterprise research strategy, operating model design, and industry partnerships across one of the nation’s largest integrated academic health systems, spanning provider, payer, and innovation platforms. Her portfolio includes accountability for enterprise-wide governance, compliance frameworks, and scalable research infrastructure supporting industry-sponsored clinical research.

With more than 20 years of experience across academia, biotech startups, management consulting, and integrated delivery systems, Soun brings deep expertise in building durable, system-level research capabilities and aligning clinical, legal, financial, and innovation stakeholders. At UPMC, she provides executive leadership for more than 600 new trial activations annually across UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh, oversees enterprise research compliance, and advances real-world data programs and strategic clinical trial initiatives. Her work has established preferred engagement pathways for industry sponsors that accelerate study activation, contracting, regulatory integration, and data enablement while preserving rigorous institutional oversight and risk management.

Soun is recognized for a people-first, systems-oriented leadership approach grounded in governance, execution discipline, and enterprise change management. She collaborates nationally with peer health systems, sponsors, and industry partners to strengthen research ecosystems, advance innovation, and deliver sustainable value for patients, providers, and health systems