Director – Strategic Collaborations & External Partnerships

We’re here for one reason and one reason only – to cure cancer. Every moment is dedicated to developing treatments and every action moves us one step closer to our goal. We’ve made incredible scientific breakthroughs and our pioneering personalized CAR T-cell therapies have changed the paradigm. But we're not finished yet.

Join Kite, as we make even bigger advances in cancer therapies, and help shape where our business and medical science goes next.

We believe every employee deserves a great leader. People Leaders are the cornerstone to the employee experience at Gilead and Kite. As a people leader now or in the future, you are the key driver in evolving our culture and creating an environment where every employee feels included, developed and empowered to fulfil their aspirations. Join Kite and help create more tomorrows.

Job Description

We are seeking a Director of Strategic Collaborations & External Partnerships for Kite’s Evidence Generation organization. We work with academic partners to deliver data that transforms patient outcomes — driven by scientific excellence, flawless delivery, and empowered teams. This person will take a lead role in defining how our network of external partners can best supplement Kite’s strategic priorities.

The Director will be an individual with a strong track record in strategy, portfolio management and operations. They must have the proven ability to drive and track business objectives effectively, manage complex partnerships, influence stakeholders without authority, and collaborate with executive leaders, all within a dynamic, fast-paced environment.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Framework:

• Establish standard operating model for vetting, initiating and evaluating strategic collaborations

• Partner with Evidence Generation Strategy Leads and Program Managers to define metrics for screening and evaluating proposals, ensure each strategic collaboration has KPIs to demonstrate effectiveness of the partnership, and lead application of best practices

Network Partner Strategy

• Responsible to align product-level evidence generation priorities with objectives for each partnership and partner with program managers to ensure the evidence generation strategic framework is refreshed and communicated consistently

Relationship Management:

• Provide strategic oversight for key collaborations to align on strategic objectives, administer governance activities and support partner-of-choice delivery

• Establish and reinforce standards and expectations for all Kite teams to adopt when interacting with strategic collaboration partners   

Cross-Functional & Cross-Regional Collaboration:

• Collaborate with Alliance Management, Medical and R&D stakeholders to maintain mutual visibility into emerging challenges, risks, and opportunities within external partnerships, fostering proactive issue resolution

• Prepare and present regular reports on the progress, outcomes, and impact of key collaborations to senior leadership and stakeholders

Operations:

• Collaborate with Gilead and Kite to negotiate and manage partnership agreements, ensure compliance and maintain financial discipline

• Contribute new project management approaches, methods, resources, and capabilities as applicable to support evolution of ways of working among the program management team

• Develop reporting and use data to generate insights that inform program KPIs

Basic Qualifications

• Advanced scientific degree (i.e., MD, PharmD, PhD) and 8+ years of biotech/pharmaceutical industry experience OR

• Master’s Degree and 10+ years of biotech/pharmaceutical industry experience OR

• Bachelor’s Degree and 12+ years of biotech/pharmaceutical industry experience

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong scientific understanding/experience in clinical and/or pre-clinical research, or experience in Clinical Research/Development, Medical Affairs

• Experience and proven ability to build effective working relationships with a diverse range of internal and external key stakeholders in a highly-matrixed, rapidly-changing environment

• Solutions-oriented, with strong strategic thinking capabilities and demonstrated experience in developing frameworks that can be applied at scale

• Proactive, self-motivated, and resourceful – able to cultivate path forward in ambiguous circumstances a know when to ask f