Walker Freeman is a clinical research executive and founder with deep, hands-on experience spanning site operations, CRO execution, and large-scale clinical staffing across the life sciences ecosystem.

Walker began his career at PPD as a Clinical Trial Assistant, where he built a strong foundation in trial operations and regulatory workflows. He later joined Premier Research as a Clinical Research Associate, supporting gastroenterology and oncology trials, and went on to Parexel as an FSP CRA supporting Moderna, contributing to one of the larger vaccine programs in the industry.

Building on this experience, Walker founded CRO Strategies, a specialized staffing and consulting firm focused on building and scaling clinical operations teams for CROs, site networks, sponsors, biotech companies, and physician-led research organizations.

Through CRO Strategies, Walker has built one of the largest and most active networks of clinical operations professionals in the U.S. clinical research space. He has designed, launched, and scaled multiple U.S.-based monitoring teams across a wide range of therapeutic areas, supporting programs from early-phase through late-phase development.

Currently, 30+ Clinical Research Associates are actively deployed on assignment with CRO Strategies clients, supporting CROs, sponsors, biotech’s, and large site networks nationwide. Beyond these active engagements, Walker maintains a deep and continually vetted bench of clinical operations talent, enabling rapid team buildouts and scalability as client needs evolve.

In parallel, Walker has served in fractional business development roles for several large site networks, driving trial flow, sponsor engagement, and sustainable growth. Over the course of his career, he has helped build dozens of independent research sites across the United States and has played a key role in scaling some of the largest site networks in the industry, supporting leadership hiring, clinical operations, finance, recruitment, and infrastructure development.

Walker is known for his execution-first approach, site-informed perspective, and ability to align sponsors, CROs, and research sites through high-performing teams built to scale.