Director of Leadership Excellence and Customer-Facing Skills

Role Summary

Location: Cambridge, MA; Morristown, NJ. The Director of Leadership Excellence & Customer-Facing Skills leads the development and delivery of leadership development, customer-facing skills, and strategic account management solutions across General Medicines, Vaccines and Specialty Care. This role reports to the Head of Field Learning and Development and manages a team that collaborates with Senior Field leadership, People & Culture, Field Learning and Development peers, and Global Commercial Training to identify needs and close gaps so that customer-facing leaders and individual contributors have the skills and competencies to drive business success. The position emphasizes harmonized solutions with appropriate customization, implemented in a compliant manner.

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

• Required: 10+ years of relevant experience in Biotechnology or Pharmaceuticals; Undergraduate degree, at least 3 years as a people leader.
• Preferred: MBA.
• Required: Demonstrated success in leading national, home-office based training for a minimum of 3 years.
• Required: Experience leading with & without authority in a matrix environment including global partnerships.
• Required: Project management with proven delivery of outstanding results.
• Required: Experience in having deployed innovative learning solutions for large-scale audiences.
• Required: 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.
• Knowledge: Strategic analysis and planning; Strategic Account Management; Project management; Impactful Communication; Supporting IT platforms for delivery and reinforcement; Leadership development topics; Customer-facing transversal skills; Adult-learning principles; Learning strategy and instructional design; Performance-based development for key stakeholders and team.

Skills

• 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 persistency and resilience
• Training experience strongly preferred 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

Education

• Undergraduate degree
• MBA preferred

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 a high-level drive, passion and ambition for high performance; Challenges continuously the status quo; Develops fresh approaches in order to deliver results; Has well-developed time management skills, mastering in prioritizing tasks and planning own workloads to ensure deadlines and desired results are met.
• Networking: Is a strong relationship builder; Seeks out new opportunities; Demonstrates teamworking and shares best practices always; Has experience of successfully 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 on one’s own, continuous improvement, listening skills, empathy to understand the needs of the different businesses within distinct geographies.