Senior R & D Project Manager

Location: Waukegan, IL

Zifo is searching for an experienced Project Manager to manage one of Zifo’s strategic multi-year programs for their customers based out of the Chicago area. The Senior Project Manager will be accountable as well as responsible for helping customers envision, plan, and implement Informatics solutions for the Research and Development division of pharmaceutical and biotech companies. The SPM will work with Computer Systems Analysts, Business Systems Analysts, Vendor Teams, Portfolio Team, and Customer Business, Lab Informatics, and other IT Teams over the course of the project. The IPM will provide strategic and technical leadership, consulting and program / project management skills required to analyze customer needs and opportunities to ensure the project team successfully delivers a solution meeting the customer goals.

Responsibilities:

• Provide strategic project and program management consultative guidance to customers by proactively identifying business and/or technical challenges or opportunities for improvements
• Bring in though leadership to the customer engagements by offering proactive insights into industrial trends
• Responsible for Project Planning & Resource Management (Internal & Vendor Consultants)
• Responsible for managing Project Budget, Risks, Timeline and Resourcing
• Coordinate with project and vendor teams for Product demos and act as the liaison between the customer and vendor organizations
• Coordinate with resources to ensure project needs are addressed and effectively and assigns tasks and deliverables to team members
• Coordinate with Business Analysts to perform Gap Analysis, Define Future state process workflows
• Create Metrics & Reports & Metrics on Project status
• Manage, motivate, and mentor cross-functional and enterprise project teams across the globe
• Monitor vendor project execution and ensure their alignment for the project portfolio execution plan and adherence to schedule, scope and budget
• Adopt an agile approach to project execution with the objective to improve transparency of program status and reduce operational inefficiencies

Required Skills:

• Strong Written and Oral communication skills
• Strong Understanding of SDLC methodology
• Project Management skills
  • Managing a portfolio of projects
  • Coordinating strategic road mapping
  • Resource & Effort Planning
  • Project Planning & Scheduling
  • Scope & Time Management
  • Vendor Management
  • Risk Assessment
  • Cost/Benefit Analysis
• Experience working with multidisciplinary teams located across varies geographies
• Business / System Analysis Skills
  • Requirements Lifecycle Management
  • Experience in as-is system assessment, gap analysis, business process mapping
• R&D Informatics Skills
  • Prior experience (8+ years) in Pharmaceutical or Biotech Research and Development industry
  • Good Understanding of Drug Discovery & Development processes
• Advanced level knowledge in tools such as JIRA, Smartsheet, MS Project and MS Office Suite
• Strong analytical skills to make decisions with available data/information at hand
• Strong negotiation skills to work with competing business priorities to arrive at an execution roadmap in line with the business strategy and roadmap
• Adept in building relationships across various levels the organization, within and outside of the working groups

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s/Master’s degree or equivalent in a Life Sciences or IT field is mandatory
• Minimum 10 years of experience as a Business Technology Consultant/Project Manager
• Minimum 6 years of experience working with Customer/Client focused delivery model & Global solution deployment, preferably in the pharmaceutical /Life sciences industry
• Previous Experience with large scale implementation of Cloud based COTS systems

• Project Management Certification preferably PMI-ACP, PMI-PgMP or PMI-PMP)
• Minimum of 5 years of experience in executing project in Agile methodologies such as SCRUM and possess expertise on all aspects of Program Management
• Experience working in consultative project management roles and to define project execution strategies
• Experience in preparing status and other operational repo