Executive Director, Program Strategy Leadership (HBV Cure)

The Program Strategy Leader (PSL) is accountable for leading a cross-functional team to advance one or more programs through clinical and technical development; regulatory submission; manufacturing; and commercialization. The PSL serves to integrate cross-functional input, synthesize team recommendations, and direct the program through corporate governance, while maintaining adherence to timelines and budget.  Lastly, PSL is expected to maintain consistent, multi-level communication with Development Team Members, Commercial Team Members, Manufacturing Team Members, and others including Senior Management, and the Executive Team.

Specific Responsibilities:

• Partner with cross-functional leaders to develop comprehensive product development and lifecycle management plans (Non-Clinical, Clinical, CMC, Regulatory, Commercial) that optimize: value, time, resources, risk, and alignment with business objectives

• In collaboration with cross-functional team and working closely with Project Management:

  • Develop and implement product development and lifecycle management plans

    • Develop vision and strategy for the asset and a plan to achieve potential

    • Identify and manage critical path activities and resources

    • Identify and manage interdependencies and hand-offs

    • Identify and proactively mitigate roadblocks

    • Identify and document risks, likelihoods, severities, and key mitigations

    • Lead contingency planning

    • Capture and communicate progress; escalate potential delays with proposed solutions

  • Direct programs through corporate governance to ensure that:

    • Projects have adequate resources and technical expertise to meet strategic objectives

    • Issues are raised, discussed, and resolved in a timely manner

    • Project teams receive management decisions in a timely manner

    • Programs adhere to agreed-upon scope, timelines, resources, and budget

  • Communication

    • Accountable for clear and timely communication about the program throughout the enterprise such as via: agendas, minutes, townhalls and other communication methods

    • Responsible for facilitating Program Strategy Team meetings and working with Development Team Leader, Commercial Team Leader, and other Sub-team Leaders to ensure sub-teams and PST are working in alignment on strategic and operational topics.

    • Present project updates, strategic issues, options, and recommendations to the Portfolio Committee

  • Coaching

    • The PSL is responsible to contribute to the development of cross-functional team members; to freely share expertise and help identify opportunities for team members to grow as leaders

• The PSL must have the ability to drive the development of drug candidates into therapeutics that can be filed, approved by regulatory agencies, manufactured, and successfully commercialized.

Additional Responsibilities:

• May work with Development and Commercial Therapeutic Area Leaders to define the disease area strategy for discovery and early development in that area and execute on a business plan with clear deliverables and resource needs. This includes defining priorities and an approach to leveraging external opportunities in close collaboration with External Innovation, Business Development and academic experts.

• Drive close alignment among research, development, and commercial groups to ensure the focus and prioritization of assets that are considered to provide the greatest clinical/medical as well as commercial value in the long-term.

• Communication: Advocates on behalf of Gilead and effectively communicates scientific/medical/clinical concepts in both written and oral communication to both internal and external stakeholders

Capabilities and Requirements:

• Strong leadership skills from leading cross-functional teams in a matrix organization, with highly collaborative instincts and a track record of resolving conflicts within the team

• Ability to communicate clearly and effectively with clinical scientists, biologists, manufacturing experts, as well as with regulatory and commercial colleagues at all levels of the organization

• High degree of organizational awareness and understanding of change management and leading innovation

• You have significant depth and breadth of experience including that enable you to immediately bring considerable strategic value to a project

• You have robust drug development experience and understand what it takes to shepherd a molecule through its lifecycle to realize maximum value for its targeted population(s) and Gilead

Education and Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in a scientific discipline; advanced or professional degree highly desirable (e.g., PhD, MD, or MBA)

• 10+ years of bio-pharmaceutical industry experience with at least 8 years of relevant work experiences in the biotech/pharmaceutical industry

• Must demonstrate knowledge of the overall drug development process relevant to biotech/ pharmaceutical companies; early drug development experience is highly desirable.