Senior Scientific Strategy Consultant

Zifo is looking for a Senior Scientific Strategy Consultant with expertise in the life sciences, pharmaceutical, and/or biotechnology industries to add to the North American Consulting team. This individual will be responsible for delivering strategic projects for clients, heavily focused on the research and development stages of life sciences and helping drive the evolution of the NA Consulting team.  This individual will provide the consulting skills required to analyze customer needs and gaps to propose solutions for the desired future state. S/He will need to collaborate effectively with clients across multiple different levels (SMEs, systems users, lab managers, directors, VPs) in conjunction with the internal Zifo delivery and commercial teams and will serve as a trusted advisor to client stakeholders.

Requirements

• Provide high-level project and client consultation to drive overall engagement success
• Manage internal team and mentor associates from across the Zifo organization to deliver effectively and develop in role
• Drive clear problem elucidation on new and on-going engagements
• Develop recommendations and future state strategy
• Communicate proactively and effectively across multiple stakeholder audiences (internal and external)
• Review and update business processes and systems landscape information
• Provide on-site business analysis support for scientific groups
• Evaluate industry trends to identify areas for optimization
• Perform gap analysis, define business and data process workflows (as-is and to-be) and data models
• Generate audience-appropriate communications and documentation

Required experience and qualifications

• Bachelor’s/Master’s degree or equivalent in a scientific / life science field
• 20+ years’ experience within the pharmaceutical life sciences industry
• Prior experience in a life sciences lab setting, preferably hands-on bench-level research experience
• Prior experience driving life science informatics solution implementation
• Detailed knowledge of data and operational considerations in application landscape development
• 5+ years of people management and a successful track record of associate development
• Experience presenting information in conferences and in large group settings
• Solid understanding and practical application of Pharmaceutical Research and Drug Discovery & Development processes and Biologics workflows

Required Skills

• Well-developed communication skills that enable communicating with junior team members, developers, project managers and stakeholders across various levels of maturity
• Ability to effectively influence and guide clients and internal partners on strategic and tactical efforts
• Demonstrated sense of ownership in the success of engagements with clients
• Strong understanding of key systems and informatics concepts such as SDLC, Agile methodology, ITIL concepts, data modeling and application ecosystem design
• People management and associate development
• Effective problem elucidation skills and setting a strategic approach to challenges
• Deep knowledge of informatics systems and associated application ecosystems in use within life sciences, including eLNs, LIMS systems, lab instrumentation, etc.
• Strategic Consulting Skills

o Develop application and data ecosystem roadmaps

o   Provide strategic vision for systems replacement/implementation

o   Drive enterprise projects/programs

o   Spearhead change management efforts

• Managing teams of business analysts and their deliverables (systems and process requirements, use cases, cost/benefit analyses, etc.
• Project Management skills
• Resource & effort planning
• Task planning & scheduling
• Scope & time management
• Risk assessment and tracking
• Vendor management
• Able to facilitate project meetings, prioritize requirements, guide the development team and remove blockers
• Experience in RFIs / RFPs and engaging with commercial partners preferred
• Experience in coding (SQL, Python, Java) and data / metadata principles preferred

A successful Zifo-ite is:

• Independent, self-motivated & results-driven
• Willing & able to quickly acquire new technical skills & business principles
• A critical thinker who leverages logical reasoning and empathy to effectively communicate
• Innately collaborative and focused on success for the team
• Consistently demonstrating a high sense of ownership
• Curious and always looking for cr