Director, Commercial Excellence - Incentive Compensation

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At Baxter, we believe every person—regardless of who they are or where they are from—deserves a chance to live a healthy life. It was our founding belief in 1931 and continues to be our guiding principle. We are redefining healthcare delivery to make a greater impact today, tomorrow, and beyond.

Our Baxter colleagues are united by our Mission to Save and Sustain Lives. Together, our community is driven by a culture of courage, trust, and collaboration. Every individual is empowered to take ownership and make a meaningful impact. We strive for efficient and effective operations, and we hold each other accountable for delivering exceptional results.

Here, you will find more than just a job—you will find purpose and pride. 

Summary

The Director, Commercial Excellence – Incentive Compensation UCAN is accountable for the end‑to‑end design, governance, and execution of Baxter’s incentive compensation programs across assigned commercial businesses. This role leads a high‑performing team and serves as the enterprise expert on incentive compensation strategy, ensuring programs are aligned with business objectives and delivered with accuracy, compliance, scalability, and operational excellence. The role partners closely with Sales Leadership, Finance, HR, IT, and Analytics to translate commercial strategy into clear, executable incentive plans that drive performance, transparency, and accountability.

This role is critical to enabling Baxter’s commercial transformation—ensuring incentive programs evolve alongside changing business models, systems, and growth priorities while maintaining clarity, trust, and disciplined execution across the field.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Strategic Partnership & Advisory
  Act as a trusted advisor to commercial leadership, Finance, and HR by translating business strategy into effective incentive plan designs that balance growth objectives, simplicity, risk management, and field motivation.
• End‑to‑End Incentive Compensation Ownership
  Own the full incentive compensation lifecycle, including plan design support, scenario modeling, approval governance, system configuration, quota and territory alignment, payout calculation, validation, and payment execution.
• Team Leadership & Development
  Lead, coach, and develop a global or regional incentive compensation team, building strong technical expertise, commercial understanding, accountability, and a culture of continuous improvement.
• Governance, Controls & Compliance
  Establish and maintain robust governance frameworks, controls, documentation, and audit‑ready processes to ensure accuracy, SOX compliance, and adherence to internal policies and external regulatory requirements.
• Operational Excellence & Continuous Improvement
  Drive standardization, simplification, and scalability of incentive compensation processes by leveraging automation, best practices, and data‑driven insights to improve cycle time, accuracy, transparency, and user experience.
• Systems, Data & Analytics Enablement
  Partner with CRM, incentive compensation systems, and analytics teams to ensure strong system integration, data integrity, and reporting capabilities that provide timely, decision‑support insights.
• Change Management & Communication
  Lead change management and communication strategies for new or evolving incentive plans, systems, and policies to ensure strong field understanding, adoption, and confidence.
• Stakeholder Management
  Coordinate effectively with commercial leaders and cross‑functional partners including Finance, HR, Legal, IT, and external vendors to resolve issues, manage dependencies, and deliver against commercial timelines.
• Transformation
  Lead the team through IT systems and process transformation initiatives to meet the needs of a changing organization and support future growth.

Qualifications

• Deep expertise in incentive compensation plan design, operations, and governance
• Strong people leadership skills with the ability to build, inspire, and manage high‑performing teams
• Advanced critical thinking and problem‑solving capabilities, with the ability to navigate ambiguity and complex trade‑offs
• Strong financial and analytical acumen, including modeling and scenario analysis
• Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders and operate effectively in a matrixed environment
• Demonstrated experience driving process standardization, automation, and operational rigor
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate complex concepts into clear, actionable messages
• High attention to detail with a strong control, risk, and compliance mindset
• Pro