Senior Director, Targets and Mechanisms Solutions

Role Summary

The Senior Director, Targets and Mechanisms Solutions leads strategic direction, product management, and AI-driven innovation for Pfizer’s Targets and Mechanisms platforms and systems within the R&D Creation Center’s Discovery, Pre-Clinical, and Translational Solutions Team. They oversee a global team delivering scalable, sustainable, science-centric solutions to power research execution across Pfizer and external partners, driving strategic planning for platforms and systems and integrating AI, data pipelines, and predictive analytics to enhance efficiency and decision-making.

Responsibilities

• Enablement: deliver ecosystem architecture, quality, analytics, and data management to design, build, and deliver innovative, cost-effective, and sustainable solutions to identify biological targets for therapeutic modulation; enable Pfizer’s Research Units across Oncology, Vaccines, Internal Medicine, Inflammation & Immunology, and Integrative Biology; support reverse-translational efforts from clinical data; build translational biomarker frameworks linking preclinical insights to early clinical decisions; prioritize indications and expansion opportunities using genetics, multi-omics, and competitive intelligence.
• Vision and Strategy: define and own the vision and strategy for digital Targets and Mechanisms Solutions, with a focus on AI innovation and product capability roadmaps; architect a modular, interoperable digital ecosystem; anticipate technology trends and prioritize AI investments; collaborate to pilot and scale emerging innovations; identify external solutions and monitor best practices.
• Strategic Leadership: establish and mature a strategic product and platform operating model for scalable innovation; govern emerging technologies to align with objectives, regulatory, and compliance requirements; design and lead vendor frameworks for high-impact partnerships; launch and scale AI programs to embed AI into core workflows and enable process mining for continuous improvement.
• Program Delivery Leadership: oversee global program delivery, manage business cases and KPIs, and handle financial management for complex continuous delivery; deliver global enterprise solutions; manage delivery management and engineering leadership of portfolios; ensure software development methodologies (Agile, Waterfall, DevSecOps) drive business outcomes; manage budgets, sourcing, and earned value; ensure GxP compliance and readiness for audits.
• Team Leadership: model continuous improvement and innovation; mentor and coach to foster diversity and collaboration; cultivate learning, reskilling, and talent growth; develop solutions to highly complex problems and make decisions across business units.
• Strategic Relationships: build partnerships with research leaders; align Digital & Technology strategy with evolving research needs; collaborate across cross-functional teams to deliver impactful research solutions; foster collaboration between research and digital innovation to accelerate delivery and embed clinical priorities into technology roadmaps.

Qualifications

• Required: Bachelor’s degree in a relevant discipline.
• Experience/Technical Skills/Tools: 12+ years life sciences experience or equivalent in leading platforms and large-scale systems; 10+ years in a leadership role with increasing scope; proven ability to create and implement high-impact strategic plans in a large, matrixed global organization; experience delivering technology solutions in a pharmaceutical or regulated environment with enterprise software in global 24x7 contexts; strong leadership and talent development capabilities; data-centric, innovative leadership with experience managing large-scale scientific, clinical, and operational data; proven product management leadership with accountability for strategy and execution; ability to lead in a matrix environment and influence senior stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Education: Master of Science in Information Management, Computer Science, Engineering, or Technology Management.
• Experience/Technical Skills: 15+ years with advanced degree and progressive leadership; experience scaling product management discipline; pharmaceutical clinical development experience; coding or hands-on software engineering experience; experience with omics analysis.
• Certifications/Training: PMP Certification; Agile Certification.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant discipline (required).
• Master of Science degree in Information Management, Computer Science, Engineering or Technology Management (preferred).

Skills

• Leadership of large, global technical teams; strategic thinking and governance; product management and AI-driven solution delivery; data management and analytics; collaboration across digital and research domains; regulatory compliance and quality assurance; stakeholder management and cross-functional influence.

Additional Requirements

• Limited travel; capable of regional and inter-regional travel as needed.
• Digital is a 24x7x365 endeavor; may require participation on weekends, holidays, or outside normal business hours.