Associate Director, Pipeline Project Management

Role Summary

The Pipeline Project Manager (PPM) acts as the “COO” of the asset, partnering with project leads to help teams plot the best course and accelerate through complexity and uncertainty with no compromise to quality or safety. PPMs apply established project management practices to plan and deliver pipeline projects with industry-leading performance, helping R&D teams test ideas, optimize strategy, and accelerate critical milestones. This role supports a growing Cambridge, MA presence and involves leading governance, risk, and cross-functional collaboration to ensure timely, high-quality delivery.

Responsibilities

• Facilitate and/or contribute to asset strategy and evidence strategy, and lead development of the integrated project plan to ensure feasibility and alignment with Research Unit strategy, prioritization, and pipeline performance objectives.
• Own the single integrated plan that builds team commitment to shared goals with schedules and budgets based on clear dependencies and assumptions.
• Lead options planning, generate recommendations, alternatives, and tradeoffs to strengthen decision-making and optimize the project strategy.
• Lead team preparation for governance decisions and own schedule, risk, and budget inputs.
• Identify opportunities to accelerate by challenging constraints that impact critical path and near-critical path activities.
• Orchestrate seamless handoffs with focus on the critical path through proactive project plan monitoring, risk management, and cross-functional management of project issues with timely escalation to leadership as required.
• Ensure rigor, consistency, and compliance in established systems to drive timely, high-quality data and reporting in and across projects.
• Build trusting relationships with the team and stakeholders to encourage transparency and collaboration.
• Use strong facilitation skills to lead regular project team meetings and apply consistent best practice for meeting agendas, actions, minutes, and other meeting documentation.
• Establish and sustain agreed-upon ways of working for effective team communication, decisions, and conflict resolution.
• Actively promote GSK’s Code and values, seek diverse perspectives, cultivate psychological safety, and ensure all relevant voices are heard to strengthen outcomes and foster broad commitment.

Qualifications

• Required: BS in Life Sciences or Business related field.
• Required: Minimum 7 years of project management experience in a matrix team environment in pharmaceutical R&D or related industry.
• Required: Five or more years of experience in all aspects of project management, based on established PM principles and methods (e.g., PMI/PMBOK).
• Required: Five or more years of experience building and maintaining high-quality project plans, budget and resource forecasts, and project management documentation (key assumptions, risks, etc.).
• Preferred: MS or PhD in related field.
• Preferred: PMP Certification.
• Preferred: Experience facilitating the identification, visualization, and acceleration of the project’s critical path, including the ability to explain the critical path activities and dependencies to project stakeholders.
• Preferred: Demonstrated expertise in managing project risks, ensuring that the risks across functions are appropriately identified, measured, managed, and communicated.
• Preferred: Demonstrated proficiency in established PM planning tools.
• Preferred: Demonstrated experience facilitating and documenting effective project team meetings.
• Preferred: Understanding of drug/vaccine development and organizational knowledge to validate operational feasibility, challenge project team assumptions, and prompt subject matter experts to consider portfolio strategy and external landscape (regulatory, commercial, and competitive).
• Preferred: Experience guiding team to develop recommendations and options inclusive of benefit, cost, and risk trade-offs to realize the project strategy.
• Preferred: Experience preparing for governance interactions to enable funding, resourcing, and strategic and operational project decisions.
• Preferred: Experience leading or partnering with project leaders to establish and sustain a high-performance team environment.
• Preferred: Demonstrated ability to build trust and strengthen collaborative relationships with matrixed team members across teams, sub-teams, and functions.