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. You will oversee a global team delivering scalable, sustainable, and science-centric solutions that power research execution across Pfizer and external partners, driving strategic planning 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 and related activities.
• Understanding disease pathophysiology; target identification, qualification, and selection; leveraging omics data to generate hypotheses; mining literature and proprietary data; supporting reverse-translational efforts from clinical data; shaping preclinical model strategy; building translational biomarker frameworks; prioritizing indications and expansion opportunities.
• Vision and Strategy: Define and own the vision and strategy for digital Targets and Mechanisms Solutions, including AI innovation and roadmaps; architect a modular, interoperable digital ecosystem; anticipate technology trends and prioritize investments; collaborate to pilot and scale emerging innovations; identify external solutions and benchmark against best practices.
• Strategic Leadership: Establish and mature a strategic product and platform operating model; govern emerging technologies to ensure alignment with objectives and compliance; design and lead a vendor framework for high-impact partnerships; launch and scale AI programs to embed AI into core workflows and enable process mining.
• Program Delivery Leadership: Oversee global Digital & Technology program delivery, including business case development, KPIs, financial management, and delivery of enterprise and SaaS solutions; manage portfolio finances and ensure audit-readiness and regulatory compliance.
• Team Leadership: Lead and influence a high-performing team, mentor members, foster innovation and continuous improvement, and cultivate learning and talent growth across Digital and Pfizer.
• Strategic Relationships: Build partnerships with research leaders; align Digital & Technology strategy with evolving research needs; foster cross-functional collaboration to deliver impactful research solutions; represent digital R&D in enterprise planning to embed clinical priorities into roadmaps.

Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in a relevant discipline (Basic); Master’s degree preferred (Information Management, Computer Science, Engineering, or Technology Management).
• Experience/Technical Skills: 12+ years of life sciences experience or equivalent in leading platforms and large-scale systems; 10+ years in a leadership role; proven ability to create and implement strategic plans in a large, global organization; experience delivering technology solutions in a pharmaceutical or regulated environment with enterprise software; strong leadership, talent development, and mentorship capabilities; data-centric leadership with experience managing large-scale scientific, clinical, and operational data; proven product management leadership with strategy, execution, and cross-functional alignment; ability to operate autonomously in a matrix environment; effective communication with senior leadership.
• Preferred Qualifications: 15+ years of experience with advanced degree; experience scaling product management discipline; pharmaceutical clinical development experience; coding or hands-on software engineering experience; experience with omics analysis; PMP and Agile certifications.

Skills

• Strategic thinking and product leadership
• AI and data analytics integration into research workflows
• Enterprise software delivery in regulated environments
• Stakeholder management and cross-functional collaboration
• Team mentoring and talent development
• Regulatory compliance and audit readiness

Education

• Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s degree preferred in relevant fields

Additional Requirements

• Limited travel; capable of regional and occasional global travel
• Digital is a 24x7 endeavor; may require participation outside normal hours