Associate Director, Discovery Portfolio Management (Hybrid)

Job Description

Position Description

Associate Director, Discovery Portfolio Management, GPAM (P4)

Global Project and Alliance Management (GPAM) sits in the R&D organization at our company. The Project Managers and Alliance Managers in GPAM are core members of discovery, development, and alliance teams at our company. Project Managers drive these cross-functional teams to deliver projects and products that improve human health and our business, and Alliance Managers ensure successful collaborations with our R&D alliance partners. The GPAM Project Management Office (PMO) is responsible for the development, sustainment, and training of GPAM-owned systems, tools, and business processes as well as alignment with Finance, IT, and functional area operations groups within our company.

Position Description/Summary

The Associate Director, Discovery Project & Portfolio Management, is a core functional area member of Project and Leadership teams in the Discovery and Early Development space. Partnering with therapeutic area and functional area leadership, the Associate Director, Discovery Project & Portfolio Management will help plan and execute discovery, translational pharmacology, development, and in-line portfolio efforts.  Project and Portfolio managers are seen as strategic partners to the Project Leads, Therapeutic Area (TA) Leads and Committee Chairs and may manage multiple cross-functional and/or cross-divisional committees. They are also expected to contribute to ongoing business process improvement and talent development in GPAM. Specific responsibilities may include:

• Maintaining the portfolio view for the breadth of projects within the TA, including timing and anticipated milestones, in partnership with the TA Lead and Discovery Core Team Leads

• Contributing to, synthesizing, and articulating strategy and translating it into execution

• Capturing and communicating various metrics on the portfolio, including resources, project distribution across sites, phases of development, etc.

• Providing organizational and process expertise to teams to enable navigation of discovery, development, and corporate governance, archival and business requirements.

• Collaborating effectively with functional areas, support functions, and alliance partner functions (if applicable) to facilitate project delivery.

• Preparing regular reports that summarize portfolio metrics, issues and documents/presentations for senior management/governance committees/leadership committees.

• Maintaining accurate project data in enterprise databases.

• Managing or administrating strategic, cross-functional or cross-divisional management, governance, or alliance committees

• Preparing for, facilitating, and documenting outcomes of leadership team meetings, ensuring meetings have clear purpose and objectives and that conflict is surfaced and resolved.

• Providing mentoring, coaching, and oversight to Specialist/Senior Specialist project/Portfolio Managers working on common projects

• Actively participating and completing ongoing training and personal development activities to increase leadership competency and to gain knowledge and skill in the discipline of project management and the business and science of pharmaceutical product discovery and development.

• Partnering with Finance to ensure resources/budgets are planned and managed.

Education, Experience, and Skill Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree required; concentration in a scientific or applied discipline strongly preferred

• Minimum of five (5) years of experience in project management or portfolio management or a related role required

• Demonstrated leadership and ethics; demonstrated ability to hold others accountable for delivery

• Demonstrated ability to work effectively in a team setting, including demonstrated experience building and leading teams, committees, task forces, etc.

• Strong collaboration and problem-solving skills; able to establish good working relationships with employees at all levels, resolve conflict and provide feedback, and to devise and implement creative solutions to problems

• Strong communication skills, both oral and written; demonstrated ability to speak up appropriately and to raise issues to teams and management

• Project management certification (PMP), Portfolio management certification (PfMP) and/or formal coursework/training in project or portfolio management

Preferred Qualifications

Advanced degree (e.g., MS, MBA) preferred

Experience in the pharmaceuti