Senior/Executive Director, Discovery-Oncology

Responsibilities

• Leads a global group of approximately 15-30 people (including regular FTEs, temporary contractors and postdoctoral fellows), guiding their science with an emphasis on scientific quality and rigor.
• Creates an environment that values innovation, leadership, scientific excellence, urgency, and personal accountability.
• In partnership with Oncology leadership, including TA head, clinical, strategy and functional leaders, defines the scientific strategy for the TA and develops a portfolio of assets for solid cancer indications.
• Manages resource allocations across programs, including shared resources across labs.
• As a Disease Area Stronghold discovery leader develops the strategy and executes on it for the end-to-end Oncology portfolio.
• Proactively influences across functional areas and external partners to align project activities with strategic goals.
• Establishes internal and external collaborations to facilitate execution of Discovery strategy.
• Partners with external collaborators and innovation centers to evaluate and discover new approaches, technologies, and targets in support of the Oncology portfolio.
• Partners with business development to evaluate external assets and bring new molecules into the pipeline.
• Runs collaborations with both academic and industry partners.
• Provides management oversight including personal talent development, training, coaching and guidance to discovery scientists.
• Ensures compliance with all J&J training, while ensuring safe laboratory working practices for self and reports.
• Ensures consistent experiments/data generation for target validation and progression through discovery stages.

Leadership Priorities

• Overseeing and influencing the initiation and the progression of multiple small and large molecules as well as cell therapy discovery research programs that result in the identification and characterization of Clinical Candidates.
• Setting and executing the scientific strategy for solid tumor indication(s).
• Acts as an ambassador for the respective Discovery Portfolio with frequent interactions with senior internal and external stakeholders.
• Demonstrate excellent managerial skills to enable his/her global team to deliver on their objectives and to develop their careers.
• Provide input on hiring, promotions, resources and budget allocations within the department.
• Directs the proper use and implementation of new technology to establish long-term research plans.
• Identifies novel scenarios and nascent scientific/technical opportunities in a specific scientific area.
• Communicates overall strategy of the projects to others including senior leadership.
• Build collaborative relationships with and influence key stakeholders; internally and externally.
• Create a high-performance work environment that values innovation, leadership, scientific excellence, urgency, and personal accountability.
• Attract and cultivate talent.

Qualifications / Requirements

• PhD with deep content knowledge in Oncology and 12+/15+ years of demonstrated leadership and drug discovery experience in the area of Oncology, preferably in solid malignancies.
• Solid background in cellular, molecular and/or immune tumor biology with a good understanding of the therapeutic landscape in Oncology; experience in bladder or renal cell cancer is a plus.
• Strong record of leading programs to the identification of Clinical Candidates across modalities; drug device work experience is a plus.
• Strong track record of publications in the field.
• Broad scope of impact beyond individual projects such as leading research platforms, target classes, etc.
• Strong external network and being recognized by peers as an expert in the field.
• Demonstrated competence for team leadership and/or people skills to manage a team with members in different continents.
• Leading or being part of a significant organization change.
• Heavy influencing across organization boundaries and without direct authority.
• Enterprise thinking.
• Detail-oriented as well as being able to see the big picture.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills; able to effectively present scientific data and concepts to international standards.
• Shaping and articulating a vision that inspires, engages, and brings others along a change journey.
• Attracting and developing talent.