Director, Functional Lead, Global Functional Center of Excellence

Key Responsibilities

• Develop & Sustain GTL Capability: lead capability strategies, competency assessments, skill-gap identification, upskilling initiatives, and standardized best practices.
• Define and evolve GTL career architecture, career pathways, mentoring programs, cross-TA development opportunities, and future-ready workforce strategies including AI and automation adaptation.
• Workforce Planning & Capacity: collaborate with OPL Line Manager on GTL capacity planning, skill-to-study matching, workload balancing, deployment, and rebalancing across assigned TA or Pillar.
• Translate portfolio demand and capacity forecasts into resource requirements, hiring plans, hub and location strategies, and future GTL capability requirements.
• Talent Management: recruitment, onboarding, succession and retention.
• Build GTL/GTA Community & Knowledge Sharing: promote continuous learning, provide functional coaching and guidance, and enable partnership and feedback loops across operational and matrix leadership teams.
• Drive Functional Standards & Continuous Improvement: develop, implement, and govern GTL functional standards, playbooks, and ways of working across therapeutic areas and geographies.
• Own functional performance oversight for assigned Pillar by establishing and monitoring KPIs, conducting trend analyses, and translating insights into targeted improvement initiatives.
• Provide strategic leadership for enterprise-wide functional portfolios such as Talent, Capability, Functional Excellence, Resource Management, Digital & Innovation, or Ways of Working.
• Champion transformation, innovation, and organizational effectiveness by driving adoption of digital solutions, AI-enabled capabilities, and simplified ways of working.
• Serve as a functional SME and change leader for process improvement initiatives, support departmental budgeting and resource planning, and partner with the Functional Head to sustain Centers of Excellence.

Qualifications & Experience

• BA/BS in a relevant discipline required; advanced degree in life sciences or healthcare preferred.
• 12+ years in pharmaceutical clinical development or clinical operations, including functional leadership of clinical trial professionals in a matrix environment.
• Hands-on experience leading global trials strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated track record building capability systems at scale: competency frameworks, structured upskilling programs, succession planning and talent pipelines.
• Demonstrated Clinical Trial Delivery process improvement.
• Hands-on experience with workforce planning, capacity analytics and skill-based deployment models.
• Proven change leadership through organizational transformation, including hub build-up or operating-model transitions.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Ability to manage global teams through indirect leadership within a matrix organization.
• Fluency in the GTL role end-to-end and the clinical trial delivery ecosystem.
• Data-driven decision making: workforce analytics, study-level KPI frameworks, dashboarding and trend interpretation.
• Digital and AI literacy sufficient to sponsor adoption within the function.
• Change agility and change management leadership.
• Ability to lead through influence across a matrix of OPLs, TA Heads and enterprise partners.
• Proficient English language skills.
• Travel requirement: up to 20%.