Senior Director, Digital Clinical Creation Center Trial Design & Study Start-Up

Role Summary

The Senior Director, Digital Clinical Creation Center Trial Design & Study Start-Up leads the digital clinical team responsible for technologies that enable clinical trial design and study start-up—the critical beginning phase of the clinical trial process. As part of the R&D Creation Center’s Clinical Development Solutions Team, this role sets strategic direction, oversees product management, and drives AI-powered innovation for Pfizer’s clinical operations platforms and systems. You will guide a global team delivering scalable, intelligent, and patient-centric solutions that accelerate trial initiation and execution across Pfizer and its biotech partners. As a senior leader, you will shape the strategy for clinical platforms and systems, integrating advanced technologies such as generative AI, real-time data pipelines, and predictive analytics to improve trial efficiency and decision-making. In collaboration with Digital peers and Pfizer R&D Clinical Development & Operations teams, you will deliver technical services—including architecture, quality, analytics, and data management—to design, build, and implement innovative, cost-effective, and sustainable solutions. This leader is accountable for project and enhancement delivery for over 30 systems, including Veeva Study-Start-up, ClinSpark, Planisware, and AI technologies. The ideal candidate brings experience at the intersection of clinical development and digital technologies, a passion for impact at scale, extensive experience scaling and creating delivery model efficiencies, a commitment to developing talent, and the curiosity and courage to innovate AI in an evolving digital and healthcare landscape.

Responsibilities

• Vision and Strategy
  • Defines and owns the vision and strategy for digital clinical capabilities that enable clinical trial design and study start-up, emphasizing a product-centric model that supports Pfizer’s development strategy through cutting-edge digital technologies.
  • Anticipates technology trends, prioritizing investments in AI and automation that enable scalable, efficient delivery and accelerate clinical planning and study startup.
  • Collaborates across Digital and business areas to architect and scale innovations that strengthen Pfizer’s clinical development strategy and deliver measurable business outcomes.
• Strategic Leadership
  • Establishes, matures, and governs a strategic product and digital operating model, ensuring clear ownership, accountability, and continuous evolution to meet business needs.
  • Operationalizes emerging technologies through robust governance frameworks, aligning with regulatory, compliance, and clinical objectives.
  • Designs and leads a strategic vendor framework to manage partnerships with critical vendors (e.g., Veeva, Planisware), ensuring quality delivery and scalability.
  • Leads AI delivery to embed machine learning and automation into the clinical planning and study startup workflows, while building process mining capabilities to identify inefficiencies and drive continuous improvement in the digital delivery model.
• Program Delivery Leadership
  • Owns global digital program delivery, ensuring efficient scaling of solutions and streamlined delivery processes across clinical platforms.
  • Drives delivery of global, enterprise, and SaaS solutions with a focus on accelerating study startup and optimizing clinical planning.
  • Oversees delivery management and engineering leadership for clinical planning and study startup projects, a solutions portfolio (30+ applications), and financials ($20M), ensuring predictable, high-quality outcomes.
  • Demonstrates command of modern delivery methodologies (Agile, DevSecOps) and enforces practices that reduce cycle times and improve delivery efficiency.
  • Accounts for financial stewardship, including accurate forecasting, cost optimization, and strategic sourcing to scale delivery without compromising quality.
• Team Leadership
  • Creates an environment that champions a product mindset, continuous improvement, and AI innovation while delivering complex solutions at scale.
  • Mentors and coaches team members to build technical capabilities and a product mindset, fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, and agility.
  • Cultivates expertise in solutions engineering, digital product management, program/project management driving reskilling and talent growth across Digital and Pfizer.
  • Develops solutions to highly complex problems, ensuring decisions align with enterprise priorities and clinical development objectives.
• Strategic Relationships
  • Builds strong partnerships with clinical development leaders, acting as a trusted advisor for digital strategies that accelerate study startup and planning.
  • Aligns digital product roadmaps with evolving patient and trial needs, translating complex capabilities into specific, actionable business value.
  • Fosters collaboration between clinical operations and digital innovation teams to embed clinical priorities into technology roadmaps, ensuring shared ownership and scalable delivery.

Qualifications

• Required: 12+ years life sciences experience preferred or equivalent experience leading platforms and large-scale systems
• Required: 10+ years of experience in a leadership capacity with increasing scope of responsibility
• Required: Demonstrated ability to create and implement high impact strategic plans in a large, matrixed global organization
• Required: Demonstrated ability and experience in technology solutions delivery in a pharmaceutical or regulated environment with demonstrated capabilities managing large scale, enterprise software requirements definition, designs and implementations in global 24-by-7 environments
• Required: Proven experience as a leader with capabilities in talent and succession planning, mentoring technical leaders, recruiting and developing colleagues
• Required: Experience as a data-centric technology leader with experience managing large-scale clinical scientific and operational data
• Required: Familiarity with data collection, aggregation, transformation, and creation of analytics and submission-ready datasets
• Required: Proven experience leading product management teams with accountability for strategy, execution, and cross-functional alignment
• Required: Track record of leading large, global technical teams in developing enterprise-scale technology and solution strategies
• Required: Ability to manage communication to ensure alignment of strategies and day-to-day operations with team members and business unit partners
• Required: Ability to gain credibility with senior leadership and effectively influence and collaborate

• Preferred: 13+ years of experience with advanced degree and progressive leadership growth
• Preferred: Experience building and scaling the product management discipline, including frameworks, processes, and talent development strategies
• Preferred: Experience specifically in pharmaceutical clinical development

Additional Requirements

• Limited expectations for travel; candidates must be capable of travel within the region, to other regions
• Digital is a 7x24x365 endeavor
• This role may require physical or virtual participation on a weekend, holiday, or after normal business hours