Executive Director, Head of Strategic Market Insights
Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
5 months ago
Remote friendly (Boston, MA)
United States
Marketing
Executive Director, Head of Strategic Market Insights
Responsibilities:
- Shape the end-to-end market insights agenda to inform brand, franchise, and portfolio decisions across the lifecycle.
- Serve as a trusted, consultative advisor to senior leadership and cross-functional teams.
- Translate market, patient, and customer insights into clear, actionable recommendations that drive competitive advantage and sustainable growth.
Functional vision, strategy, and operating model:
- Define and drive the long-range market insights vision, operating model, and ways of working aligned with brand, franchise, and corporate priorities.
- Establish and maintain enterprise-wide standards, governance, and operating principles for market insights.
- Design and execute the annual Market Insights functional plan; align resources and budgets with business needs.
- Build scalable capabilities, frameworks, and knowledge management systems to maximize impact on portfolio expansion and future product launches.
- Champion advanced analytics, digital, and AI-enabled approaches in partnership with Forecasting and cross-functional analytics partners.
Leadership, talent, and culture:
- Lead, develop, and inspire a high-performing market insights team; hire and onboard new talent.
- Coach and develop direct reports; elevate team capabilities through mentoring, training, and stretch assignments.
- Create a culture of accountability; set performance standards and escalate risks to quality/timelines.
- Drive rigorous, data-driven debate with senior stakeholders.
Insights strategy and execution:
- Own integrated, end-to-end market insights strategies and plans for brands and pipeline programs.
- Validate and maintain long-term insights roadmaps across the product lifecycle and key stakeholder groups.
- Ensure research quality and appropriate methodologies (qualitative/quantitative primary research, secondary data, analytics, competitive intelligence).
- Pressure test conclusions; translate findings into actionable strategic recommendations.
- Provide forward-looking analysis on macro shifts, policy changes, and competitive moves; proactively elevate risks and opportunities.
- Monitor KPIs for impact and operational excellence; drive continuous improvement.
- Identify and manage strategic partnerships with agencies/vendors/experts.
- Synthesize complex information quickly into simple, actionable narratives and options.
- Connect non-obvious dots across markets/customers/internal data/competitive moves to surface risks, opportunities, and inflection points.
Cross-functional partnership and enterprise impact:
- Oversee insights team as principal advisors and single points of contact from Insights & Analytics to assigned brands/franchises/initiatives.
- Partner with Commercial, Medical Affairs, Market Access, Government Affairs, Supply, R&D, and others to pull insights into brand/lifecycle plans and portfolio strategy.
- Provide executive-level recommendations to senior leadership on market trends, customer dynamics, and competitive activity.
- Lead or co-lead strategic initiatives and ad hoc projects (e.g., new indication/product/market evaluations, scenario analyses, go-to-market strategy questions).
- Reconcile dissenting views and negotiate/persuade on complex topics using high emotional intelligence.
- Partner with executives to shape policies, investment priorities, and resource allocation.
Qualifications / Requirements:
- Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred.
- 15+ years of pharma/biotech experience in market insights or related roles.
- Demonstrated success leading integrated market insights strategy for specialty and/or rare disease therapies.
- Experience in Neurology and Cardiology; broad and rare disease markets strongly preferred.
- Proven track record building and leading scalable, high-performing teams (including people leaders).
- Diverse commercial background (e.g., Marketing, Sales, Strategy, or Market Access) strongly preferred.
- Ability to lead through ambiguity; create structure; synthesize data into coherent, actionable narratives.
- Deep experience in U.S. market launches required; global market insights experience preferred.
- Strong executive presence; ability to influence VP/EVP-level decisions.
- High emotional intelligence; proven ability to reconcile views, negotiate tradeoffs, and balance enterprise/functional/brand needs.
- Excellent judgment; willingness to take prudent risks grounded in objective data.
- Innate curiosity/entrepreneurial spirit; strong ownership.
- Proven ability to learn quickly on new therapeutic areas/markets/methods and raise the bar.
- Ability to operate in a high-velocity, fast-changing environment.
- Exceptional conceptual thinking and pattern recognition.
Benefits:
- Pay scale: $230,000 to $265,000.
Application instructions:
- Apply via Ionis website; reference requisition # IONIS004011.
Responsibilities:
- Shape the end-to-end market insights agenda to inform brand, franchise, and portfolio decisions across the lifecycle.
- Serve as a trusted, consultative advisor to senior leadership and cross-functional teams.
- Translate market, patient, and customer insights into clear, actionable recommendations that drive competitive advantage and sustainable growth.
Functional vision, strategy, and operating model:
- Define and drive the long-range market insights vision, operating model, and ways of working aligned with brand, franchise, and corporate priorities.
- Establish and maintain enterprise-wide standards, governance, and operating principles for market insights.
- Design and execute the annual Market Insights functional plan; align resources and budgets with business needs.
- Build scalable capabilities, frameworks, and knowledge management systems to maximize impact on portfolio expansion and future product launches.
- Champion advanced analytics, digital, and AI-enabled approaches in partnership with Forecasting and cross-functional analytics partners.
Leadership, talent, and culture:
- Lead, develop, and inspire a high-performing market insights team; hire and onboard new talent.
- Coach and develop direct reports; elevate team capabilities through mentoring, training, and stretch assignments.
- Create a culture of accountability; set performance standards and escalate risks to quality/timelines.
- Drive rigorous, data-driven debate with senior stakeholders.
Insights strategy and execution:
- Own integrated, end-to-end market insights strategies and plans for brands and pipeline programs.
- Validate and maintain long-term insights roadmaps across the product lifecycle and key stakeholder groups.
- Ensure research quality and appropriate methodologies (qualitative/quantitative primary research, secondary data, analytics, competitive intelligence).
- Pressure test conclusions; translate findings into actionable strategic recommendations.
- Provide forward-looking analysis on macro shifts, policy changes, and competitive moves; proactively elevate risks and opportunities.
- Monitor KPIs for impact and operational excellence; drive continuous improvement.
- Identify and manage strategic partnerships with agencies/vendors/experts.
- Synthesize complex information quickly into simple, actionable narratives and options.
- Connect non-obvious dots across markets/customers/internal data/competitive moves to surface risks, opportunities, and inflection points.
Cross-functional partnership and enterprise impact:
- Oversee insights team as principal advisors and single points of contact from Insights & Analytics to assigned brands/franchises/initiatives.
- Partner with Commercial, Medical Affairs, Market Access, Government Affairs, Supply, R&D, and others to pull insights into brand/lifecycle plans and portfolio strategy.
- Provide executive-level recommendations to senior leadership on market trends, customer dynamics, and competitive activity.
- Lead or co-lead strategic initiatives and ad hoc projects (e.g., new indication/product/market evaluations, scenario analyses, go-to-market strategy questions).
- Reconcile dissenting views and negotiate/persuade on complex topics using high emotional intelligence.
- Partner with executives to shape policies, investment priorities, and resource allocation.
Qualifications / Requirements:
- Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred.
- 15+ years of pharma/biotech experience in market insights or related roles.
- Demonstrated success leading integrated market insights strategy for specialty and/or rare disease therapies.
- Experience in Neurology and Cardiology; broad and rare disease markets strongly preferred.
- Proven track record building and leading scalable, high-performing teams (including people leaders).
- Diverse commercial background (e.g., Marketing, Sales, Strategy, or Market Access) strongly preferred.
- Ability to lead through ambiguity; create structure; synthesize data into coherent, actionable narratives.
- Deep experience in U.S. market launches required; global market insights experience preferred.
- Strong executive presence; ability to influence VP/EVP-level decisions.
- High emotional intelligence; proven ability to reconcile views, negotiate tradeoffs, and balance enterprise/functional/brand needs.
- Excellent judgment; willingness to take prudent risks grounded in objective data.
- Innate curiosity/entrepreneurial spirit; strong ownership.
- Proven ability to learn quickly on new therapeutic areas/markets/methods and raise the bar.
- Ability to operate in a high-velocity, fast-changing environment.
- Exceptional conceptual thinking and pattern recognition.
Benefits:
- Pay scale: $230,000 to $265,000.
Application instructions:
- Apply via Ionis website; reference requisition # IONIS004011.