Head of US Finance

Vice President, Head of US Finance

Ascendis Pharma is a dynamic, fast-growing global biopharmaceutical company with locations in Denmark, Europe, and the United States. Today, we're advancing programs in Endocrinology Rare Disease and Oncology.

Here at Ascendis, we pride ourselves on exceptional science, visionary leadership, and skilled and passionate colleagues.

Guided by our core values of Patients, Science, and Passion, we use our TransCon® drug development platform to fulfill our mission of developing new and potentially best-in-class therapies to address unmet medical needs.

Our culture fosters a place where skilled, adaptable, and highly resourceful professionals can truly make their mark. We offer a dynamic workplace for employees to grow and develop their skills.

This position will be a key member of the US Leadership Team and the Global Finance Leadership Team.  As the Head of US Finance, this is a high-visibility, high impact position that will drive and generate critical business and financial decision support and will play an integral role in establishing and driving processes such as in Business Advice, Budgeting/Forecasting, Gross-to-Net, Management Reporting, Government Reporting and ad hoc analyses as the US organization grows.

The team is organized in two categories:

•              Commercial Finance (Gross to Net and Government Pricing), and

•              Business Finance (FP&A)

This leader will also work closely with the US-based Global Finance Operations team, who supports with Financial Accounting (e.g., revenue recognition, reporting, US tax liaison). The role is based in Princeton, New Jersey and will report directly to the EVP, President of US and have dotted line accountability to the SVP Global Finance, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Close collaboration with the Ascendis Pharma CFO, broader global organization, and the US Leadership Team is expected.

Key Responsibilities

• You will lead a skilled team of people and will engage in detail were needed
• Provide financial and strategic business partnership and decision support to the US Organization (marketing, field, access, medical affairs, government affairs, etc.) as well as the Global Finance Leadership Team
• Establish and maintain key US business processes and policies in areas such as: Revenue Forecasting, Operating Expense Forecasting, Pricing/Discounting, Gross-to-Net, Revenue Recognition, Government Pricing, Expense Tracking, etc.
• Make recommendations to President, US and broader US Leadership Team on strategic resource allocation across the US Business Unit, balancing both near-term and long-term priorities of the US Business Unit and Global Enterprise
• Develop, analyze, interpret and present Revenue insights to various stakeholders within the organization, with the ability to adapt messaging depending on the audience, from executive level to the line manager level.
• Support Investor Relations with interpretation on US commercial performance and outlook
• Reporting and Compliance: Interact with group reporting on technical accounting matters, ensure compliance with local reporting requirements, and collaborate with Group Tax on ad hoc basis
• Develop, analyze, interpret and present financial results to various stakeholders within the organization, with the ability to adapt messaging depending on the audience, from executive level to the line manager level.
• Partner with Commercial to lead the development of a Monthly Commercial Business Review process
• Establish and define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) (Business and Financial Metrics) and reports to manage and measure business performance in the most effective manner
• Proactively and creatively seek out opportunities to generate business cases to evaluate various options and assess their respective financial and business impact
• Create and present analyses and recommendation to key Ascendis Senior Management
• Track and understand the competitive landscape
• Help optimize financial processes and planning within the US Business Unit, e.g. based on data provided by external parties or contained within disparate systems
• Support and provide input into Global Financial processes and timelines; actively communicate with US organization to ensure they adhere to requirements
• Key stakeholder for Financial Systems implementations, such as EPM (Enterprise Performance Management), BI (Business Intelligence) and DW (Data Warehouse) tools as part of building out the necessary Finance technology infrastructure

Requirements

• Minimum 15+ years’ finance and leadership experience; must have demonstrable success within commercial stage biotech and/or pharmaceutical industry
• Bachelor’s degree req