Head of Operational Excellence Clinical Development- Vaccines

Role Summary

Head of Operational Excellence within Clinical Development for Vaccines, responsible for defining and deploying the function's OE strategy, building capability, and driving cross-functional performance and continuous improvement. Location: Swiftwater, PA, and Waltham, MA.

Responsibilities

• Drive the deployment of the function’s Operational Excellence roadmap within the function.
• Coordinate diagnostics and/or gap analyses (business case) with Function OE Leaders and operational teams to identify improvement opportunities (from shop floor to function management).
• Ensure the alignment of the function’s Operational Excellence roadmap with Vaccines R&D (function & global) strategic priorities and business needs.
• Ensure that the training is consistent with the provided OE structure.
• Actively contributes to initiative prioritization and arbitration in collaboration with the Function Head.
• Assess and validate that each on-going and closed improvement initiative within the function complies with the core principles of Operational Excellence.
• Pro-actively support function performance and measure the impact of the initiative.
• Consolidate and monitor the function’s Operational Excellence roadmap progress and report to both local and central stakeholders.
• Build required methodologies, tools and standards according to the VRD OE Methodology development plan.
• Support the Function Head in reaching performance targets and propose countermeasures when needed.
• Build, maintain, and continuously improve governance structures, routines, and performance management.
• Drive risk mitigation by escalating critical risks and gaps and enabling decisive action.
• Define adoption strategy and secure execution of change management.

Qualifications

• 10+ years experience in Operational Excellence, including deployment and methodology design.
• Strong understanding of R&D, Clinical Operations or Clinical Development.
• Experience managing OE programs in complex, matrixed environments.
• Background in training, coaching, and people development.
• Completion of an OE Instructor program is a plus.
• Strategic & Tactical thinking; Decision-making & prioritization; Leadership & influence; Communication skills; Coaching & training; Conflict resolution; Continuous learning; Collaboration; Action-oriented; Cross-Function agility; Adaptability; Performance-oriented.
• OE principles and deployment models (Lean, Six Sigma, etc.); OE methodology development, standardization, and implementation; Subject matter expertise in OE principles, tools, and systems; Tactical roadmap definition and initiative portfolio alignment; Portfolio & project planning, execution, and follow-up; Change management and behavioral adoption techniques; Data analysis, problem-solving, and decision-making; Training design and capability-building strategies; Ability to bridge digital innovation with Operational Excellence.
• Languages: Fluent English.

Education

• Master’s degree in science, engineering, or business discipline.

Additional Requirements

• Languages: Fluent English.