Director of Leadership Excellence and Customer-Facing Skills

Role Summary

Director of Leadership Excellence and Customer-Facing Skills leads a team that develops and implements leadership development, customer-facing skills, and strategic account management solutions across General Medicines, Vaccines and Specialty Care. Reports to the Head of Field Learning and Development and collaborates with Senior Field leadership, People & Culture, Field Learning and Development peers, and Global Commercial Training colleagues to understand needs and gaps and ensure the customer-facing organization is equipped with the skills and competencies to drive business success. Location: Cambridge, MA; Morristown, NJ. The role requires a strong background in leadership, customer-facing skills, strategic account management, project management, adult learning, training, and strategic thinking, with a bias toward enterprise leadership, needs-based design, proactive communication, and optimization of solutions.

Responsibilities

• Leading the Leadership Excellence & Customer-Facing Skills team with a focus on developing the skills, behaviors, and mindset of customer-facing personnel, both leaders and individual contributors.
• Partnering with senior leadership to identify, prioritize and execute skill development for their respective customer-facing teams, aligned to the business’s strategic imperatives.
• Prioritizing training needs in order to build, revise and implement curriculum to meet changing market demands for customer-facing leadership and individual contributors.
• Building alliances and partnerships with Senior Leaders and global/local business partners to increase consistency and capability to align strategy and manage change effectively.
• Partnering with the Field Learning and Development Leadership team to align skills to business needs.
• Partnering with TA leadership team to measure and monitor the impact of training on the business and make recommendations for improvement.
• Collaborating with the broader Customer Facing Capabilities/Commercial Training team for support in execution of the overall customer-facing leadership and individual contributors’ curriculum.
• Collaborating with other Global partners and functions to identify and leverage existing resources and best practices in developing customer-facing leadership and individual contributors within the organization.
• Assessing external environment to establish benchmarks and to understand and leverage innovative techniques and best practices in developing customer-facing leadership and individual contributors within and outside of Pharma/Biotech industries.
• Performing other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of relevant experience in Biotechnology or Pharmaceuticals; Undergraduate degree, MBA preferred, including at least 3 years as a people leader.
• Demonstrated success in leading national, home-office based training for a minimum of 3 years.
• Experience leading with and without authority in a matrix environment including global partnerships.
• Project management with proven delivery of outstanding results.
• Experience in having deployed innovative learning solutions for large-scale audiences.
• Experience leading and developing diverse teams across multiple functions; Demonstrated leadership ability to drive change within an organization, cultivating support and maximizing contribution from team members.

Education

• Undergraduate degree; MBA preferred

Skills

• Strategic analysis and planning
• Strategic Account Management
• Project management
• Impactful Communication (written and oral)
• Supporting IT platforms for delivery and reinforcement
• Leadership development topics
• Customer-facing transversal skills
• Adult-learning principles
• Learning strategy and instructional design, including training methodologies
• Performance-based development for key stakeholders and team
• Demonstrated ability to think strategically
• Ability to work in a team environment with collaboration across multiple functional areas
• Strong project management skills
• Ability to develop rapport and credibility with key stakeholders
• Strong facilitation skills and executive presence; ability to communicate to all levels of the organization
• Ability to leverage networks, to develop people, coach and give feedback, empower people
• Ability to lead change while achieving business goals and objectives, act for change, challenging continuously the status quo
• Proven track record of strong execution and results
• High persistence and resilience
• Training experience including needs analysis, training design and development, understanding of adult learning principles and measuring training effectiveness
• Demonstrated ability to motivate teams, foster collaborative environment, negotiate and influence in a matrix environment, exercise tact and diplomacy in stressful situations
• Experience of leading a team, working with field sales force and driving talent development of a team
• Ability to demonstrate appropriate interpersonal styles and techniques and is able to modify one’s behavior to gain acceptance of ideas or plans
• Strong quantitative abilities and experience managing a budget

Additional Requirements

• Leadership: Leads by example and walks the talk; role models the principles and behaviors of Play-To-Win and Thoughtful Risk Taking. Engages others through active and impactful communication; demonstrates drive, passion and ambition for high performance; challenges the status quo; develops fresh approaches to deliver results; has well-developed time management skills and the ability to prioritize tasks and plan workloads to meet deadlines.
• Networking: Strong relationship builder; seeks out new opportunities; demonstrates teamwork and shares best practices; has experience leading projects in multicultural environments and in a matrix organization.
• Personal Characteristics: Hands-on, accountability, creativity, initiative, high persistence and resilience, stress management, learning agility, result orientation, ability to work independently, continuous improvement, listening skills, empathy to understand the needs of different businesses across geographies.