Role Summary
The Senior Director, Area Field Leader (AFL) is a second line sales leader responsible for leading, developing, and coaching a team of 5-6 Regional Field Leaders (RFLs) who each manage a team of 6-8 sales representatives or Kidney Territory Account Managers (KTAMs). This team’s focus is on educating and building awareness with nephrologists and within Kidney Centers of Care in a pre-launch setting. Focus will shift to kidney product education, account management, and demand generation in a post-approval setting. This role reports into the Vice President, Field Sales & Strategic Customer Engagement, U.S. Commercial, Kidney. This role is one of 3 Area Field Leaders (AFLs) and will be responsible for ~40 field-based employees across ~5-6 regions. The Senior Director must live within the geographic area they are leading; US East.
Responsibilities
- Leads recruiting and building out of 5-6 regional field teams; hires, coaches, and retains a high performing team, drives results while living the Vertex values
- Establishes sales & access goals, contributes to the shaping of forecasts based on market insights
- Supports business goals and maximizes patient impact by leveraging data analytics and field insights and providing strategic guidance and clear execution direction to the Regional Leads and their teams
- Provides consistent field input, including strong collaboration with the US Kidney Marketing Team to shape approaches that positively drive performance
- Partners compliantly with other field team members and headquarter colleagues to proactively analyze and address customer needs, market dynamics, and trends that support brand and portfolio objectives
- Identifies area, territory, and institution specific opportunities and barriers, in partnership with cross-functional partners, to ensure success
- Tracks team performance and holds leaders accountable against expectations; leads the team to adjust execution as needed in response
- Tailors coaching to Regional Leaders and their specific development goals to positively impact outcomes for patients
- Creates a positive and collaborative team culture within assigned geographic area and across the nation
- Participates in cross-functional leadership meetings/events, cultivating engagement and alignment with those partners to support key initiatives.
- Role models ethics and integrity to support our culture of compliance and earn trust with external stakeholders
Knowledge And Skills
- Fosters the highest level of teamwork and collaboration; excellent coach
- Experienced in executive level customer service; exemplary communication skills
- Ability to proactively think of creative solutions to achieve desired results when faced with barriers, engaging with appropriate team members and escalating issues effectively
- Excellent communication skills
- Demonstrated understanding of the legal, regulatory, and compliance environment, ability to model expected behavior for the team and shape policies
Education And Experience
- Bachelor’s degree; Master’s degree preferred
- 12+ years of experience in healthcare/biopharmaceuticals marketing, sales or an equivalent combination of experience and education
- 5+ years of supervisory/management experience, including direct experience leading teams as a 2nd line leader, or an equivalent combination of experience and education
- Significant customer engagement experience, including leading regional sales teams in a highly competitive specialty care or rare disease space
- Kidney/renal experience preferred
Other Requirements
- Employee will be required to establish certain customer credentials and requirements, which include, but may not be limited to, successful completion of training, background screens, drug testing and vaccinations
- Must live and work within the territory. Depending on the territory’s geography and work requirements may also be required to live within a reasonable distance to a major airport
- Valid driver’s license and in good standing
- Travel by car or airplane up to 80% of the time and work after hours as required by business needs