Commercial Contracts Administrator

Description Company Overview: Northstar Recycling is a private equity-backed leader in waste diversion and recycling solutions, serving some of the world's most iconic brands in the Food & Beverage sector. As a remote-first, high-performance organization, we combine environmental stewardship with business value to help our clients achieve their sustainability goals while driving operational excellence. With an aggressive growth strategy — including targeted expansion in CPG and Industrials — Northstar is building the operational infrastructure to execute at scale, and the Contracting Administrator sits at the center of that effort. Position Overview: The Commercial Contracts Administrator serves as the operational hub of Northstar's contracting process, ensuring every client and vendor agreement is accurate, complete, and commercially aligned. This role owns the full contract lifecycle from deal initiation through final execution, keeping commercial teams and legal moving in sync. The Commercial Contracts Administrator owns the process and coordination of the full contract lifecycle, while legal interpretation, commercial decision-making, pricing, and approval authority remain with the designated Northstar leaders. This is not a legal role and it is not a sales role. The Commercial Contracts Administrator executes commercial strategy. Pricing, deal structure, and what Northstar is willing to agree to commercially stay with NSR leadership. This role supports the business by improving contracting discipline, reducing administrative burden, shortening contracting cycle time, and ensuring visibility into active agreements and obligations. Key Responsibilities: Contract Lifecycle Management

• Facilitate the full contract process.
• Serve as the process owner for Northstar’s contracting workflow, including intake requirements, approval paths, document controls, stage definitions, escalation protocols, and expected turnaround times. Establish and enforce a consistent process across all participating departments.
• Coordinate with Sales, Client Services, and leadership to move contracts through review, redline, approval, and signature tracking status and ensure nothing sits in limbo.
• Manage the intake and tracking of all incoming MSAs, commercial amendments, Statement of Work, NDAs, and vendor agreements.
• Route contracts for internal review and approval, maintaining clear ownership and timelines at each stage.
• Coordinate signature collection and execute final agreement handoff to Client Services upon execution. Template & Terms Integrity
• Track and enforce consistency of commercial terms across all active agreements.
• Maintain and protect NSR's preferred contract terms; flag and escalate any proposed deviations.
• Maintain a centralized, up-to-date contract repository with clear status, expiration dates, and ownership visible across the team.
• Join external calls to capture notes, ensure documents revisions and redlines are properly captured, and ensure next steps are documented. Revision Control & Pre-Signature Review
• Serve as the final administrative and commercial-completeness checkpoint before signature, confirming required approvals have been obtained and agreed business terms are accurately reflected.
• Identify and reconcile factual or administrative discrepancies and escalate substantive legal or commercial discrepancies to the appropriate decision-maker. Vendor & Client Terms Alignment
• Cross-reference approved client commitments against applicable vendor agreements, identify potential gaps or misalignments, and escalate them to the appropriate commercial/legal stakeholder before execution.
• Maintain ongoing visibility into the alignment between client and vendor agreement obligations across NSR's active book. Contract Operationalization & Obligation Management
• Translate executed agreements into a clear summary of commercial commitments, operational requirements, reporting obligations, key dates, renewal and termination provisions, and accountable internal owners.
• Conduct a structured handoff to the teams responsible for implementing and managing the agreement, confirming that material obligations and exceptions are understood and assigned.
• Maintain a contract calendar and proactively notify accountable leaders of upcoming renewals, expirations, notice deadlines, pricing adjustments, and other time-sensitive obligations.
• Track material contractual obligations through completion or documented acceptance by the responsible functional owner. Reporting & Documentation
• Document and report on contracting trends — common redlines, turnaround times, bottlenecks, and recurring issues.
• Provide regular updates to leadership on contract pipeline status, outstanding items, and agreement visibility.
• Build and maintain systems that ensure no agreement is unknown, untracked, or missing from the repository.
• Relay final terms, requirements, KPIs etc. to appropriate functional areas for compliance.
• Ability to escalate, flag, and resolve meaningful terms, discrepancies, and requirements to the appropriate leaders. Requirements
• Bachelor’s degree in business, Operations, Paralegal Studies, or a related field.
• 3–5+ years of progressive experience in commercial contract administration, legal operations, contract lifecycle management or a related function, including demonstrated experience building or materially improving a contracting workflow.
• Able to effectively identify opportunities to use workflow automation and AI to accelerate document review, compare revisions, extract obligations, improve reporting, and reduce administrative work while maintaining appropriate human review and confidentiality controls.
• Able to effectively develop playbooks, checklists, templates, and training materials that enable commercial and operational teams to participate effectively in the contracting process.
• Exceptional attention to detail — you notice when something doesn't match, and you fix it before it becomes a problem.
• Strong organizational skills and the ability to manage multiple contracts at various stages simultaneously.
• Project Management Skills
• Comfort working across departments (Sales, leadership, Client Services) and keeping everyone aligned.
• Proficiency with document management systems, CRM tools, or contract lifecycle management platforms.
• Clear, professional written communication — you can flag a concern or explain a contract status plainly.
• A process-first mindset: you build systems, you don't let things fall through the cracks.
• Experience in a B2B services environment is a plus; recycling/waste industry experience is not required.
• Experience building or improving contract templates or administrative workflows. Northstar-Specific Performance Competencies: The Commercial Contracts Administrator role at Northstar requires alignment with our core Northstar Performance Competencies, including:
• Excellence: Achieving high standards of performance and creativity, managing tasks effectively, respecting data confidentiality, and demonstrating reliability in attendance and task completion.
• Collaboration: Actively fostering teamwork and a positive work environment, contributing to team efforts, and sharing expertise with colleagues.
• Stewardship & Ownership: Taking full responsibility for work, adhering to company standards, setting clear goals, and seeking solutions proactively.
• Empathy & Passion: Displaying genuine care for others, showing enthusiasm for Northstar's mission, and engaging in professional, meaningful work.
• Humility & Integrity: Demonstrating honesty, self-awareness, openness to feedback, and a commitment to exceeding client expectations through trust and transparency.
• Flexibility & Tenacity: Embracing adaptability, persisting through challenges, and continuously seeking growth opportunities. Performance Metrics: Performance may be measured against the following key indica