Vice President, Head of Oncology Program Management

Role Summary

The Head of Oncology Program Management leads the development and execution of a program management organization responsible for end-to-end delivery of Pfizer's Oncology portfolio—from early research and lead development through clinical development, commercialization, and eventual loss of exclusivity. Overseeing a team of senior Program Management Team Leaders and approximately 50 Global Program Managers across global sites, this leader ensures the effective cross-functional integration of strategy, operations, and execution. In close partnership with Early and Late Development, Clinical Operations, Regulatory, Commercial, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Global Access, and other senior stakeholders, the Head of PM is accountable for achieving key portfolio milestones including FIH, SOCA, POC, pivotal study starts, regulatory submissions, and approvals. This role provides strategic and operational leadership to continuously enhance drug development processes, standards, and execution excellence, ensuring that oncology medicines progress efficiently and successfully through the pipeline.

Responsibilities

• Deliver quality supervision, performance management, and personal development for GPMs.
• Provide mentorship and leadership development for the PM Group leads (people leaders).
• Ensure GPMs have strong leadership, project management skills and competencies to successfully drive delivery of assets from LD to LOE.
• Recruit, retain, and develop top talented qualified Program Management staff.
• Coach GPMs to drive decision making that maximizes business value culminating in high quality strategic and operational delivery within budget constraints.
• Accountable for the performance of GPMs.
• Establish and clearly communicate the standards for quality of the Asset PM deliverables.
• Determine PM P2L training curriculum, endorsements, and ensure compliance.
• Ensure compliance with all Asset PM colleagues with Pfizer policies and standards and local laws and regulations.
• Develop PM department vision; align and motivate staff around PM and broader enterprise vision.
• Central point of accountability and SME for key PM areas of expertise, providing leadership, mentoring, and process improvements. Examples include but not limited to: Risk Management, Submissions, Business Development, Alliance Management, Early Development, End to End Development roadmap, Team Health.
• Develop, evolve, and implement PM competency and capability model.
• Develop and evolve PM roles, accountabilities and working practices to drive consistent high quality.
• Develop onboarding program and materials for new hires/integrations.
• Network across PM groups within Pfizer and the industry to share best practices and innovate industry leading PM practices.
• Establish and maintain effective interfaces among Partner Line Leaders to drive program delivery and initiatives across the category. Resolve line conflicts that escalate beyond PM.
• Partner and guide China and Japan Category PM Leadership to enable inclusion in global programs.
• Partner with Early/Late-stage Team Leadership to optimize team performance (e.g., define Global Product Team operating model, decision rights, lead team health assessments process, etc.).
• Broker agreements with functional line and product team leadership to prioritize and ensure optimal FTE resourcing on teams. Determine GPM allocation to support delivery of portfolio, including algorithm development.
• Lead across functional lines and leaders to define metrics and improve drug development strategies/processes to support Enterprise Blueprint goals and effectively progress all assets in the portfolio.
• Partner to define and simplify cross functional processes such as Individual Product Plans/Clinical Development Plans, etc.
• Category operational leader accountable for delivery of all major asset milestones within the category (FIH, SOCA, POC, Pivotal Start, Submission, Approval) and driving reduction in timeline and increase in value.
• Partners with leadership to stand up organizational construct and advance portfolio; may include governance, TA strategy development, etc.
• Serves as the central point of accountability between Oncology PM and PRD PM – negotiate platform resource assignments and support central PM community of practice.
• Ensure that Global Product Teams and Projects are planned, resourced, prioritized, and delivered according to the Global Product Team Strategy within the agreed time/cost parameters.
• Support/lead enterprise initiatives and strategies as needed - represent Oncology views (e.g., Integrated Evidence Plan workstream).
• Ensure GPMs effectively lead and optimize asset delivery, implement risk management plans, assess alternative development scenarios, and deliver key milestones.
• Ensure GPMs provide high quality Integrated Product Plans, Operating Plans, Lifecycle Management Plans, Global Product Team Budgets, End-to-End timelines, and optimize timeline, cost, value, and quality.
• Ensure preparation for high quality governance interactions that enable decision making at the category and enterprise level.
• Manage information and communications across and above teams.
• Ensure data quality and validity for portfolio reporting.
• Ensure PMs implement asset metrics focused on continuous improvement to optimize business value.
• Where appropriate, may be accountable for direct project management for GPTs or other initiatives, serving as the program operational leader to ensure cross-functional deliverables are achieved on or ahead of schedule, within budget, and with quality that meets or exceeds business needs.

Qualifications

• Deep expertise in project management, portfolio management, drug development, and/or pharmaceutical discipline.
• 15+ years of experience in managing multiple, highly complex projects and portfolio governance, and 5+ years’ Oncology Pharma PM experience.
• Broad knowledge of project management methodologies, principles, best practices, systems, and tools.
• Strong technical experience in a discipline associated with drug development.
• Knowledge of commercial issues that drive late-stage development.
• Demonstrated success in negotiating in an environment of a highly matrix-based organization.
• Experience as a functional line manager with a proven track record in project management leadership role.
• Proven record of implementing project management practices and process improvements.
• Successful track record and experience in budgetary management and fiscal awareness.

Skills

• Training and academic background in one of the disciplines of drug development.
• Knowledge of the fundamentals of Project Management and its application to drug development.
• Expert in understanding stakeholder needs and influencing.
• Budget/expense management.
• Bigger picture/strategic thinking – expert in leading matrixed teams
• Drive for delivery and action
• Networking and alliance building
• Inspirational leadership
• Coaching and development
• Change management

Education

• Minimum requirement: Bachelor’s degree in life sciences, engineering, business, or related field; advanced degree (e.g., MBA, MS, PharmD, PhD) is a plus.