Director, US Launch Strategy and Operations

Merck & Co. - North Wales, PA

Full-time - Senior

Onsite - North Wales, PA

Chemical Manufacturing

About the position

Embark on an exciting journey to transform the US market and be at the forefront of US launch strategy & operations with our US Strategy and Commercial Model Innovation (SCMI) organization! If you're a dynamic leader with a successful track record of launching and leading brands across their lifecycles in the biopharmaceutical or related industry, can bring novel ideas to launch readiness, and want to join a diverse and inclusive company that's driven to improve lives, then this career opportunity might be for you. Our Human Health US division has undergone significant transformation over the past few years, focused by an effort to shape our company's future by enhancing our commercial capabilities, being more adaptive to changing market needs and preparing for numerous potential launches of our medicines and vaccines. As Director, US Launch Strategy and Operations, you'll partner across the enterprise with the US Market's Oncology, Vaccines, Pharma and Rare Disease business units to accelerate the growth of launches, revolutionize our commercial model, ignite innovation, and shape the future of our organization, unlocking endless possibilities that can create a lasting impact on patients' lives.

Responsibilities

• Strategically partners with New Product Leaders, Marketing Leaders and BU Chief Marketing Officers to incorporate early US customer input into brand strategy and launch plans.
• Brings novel ideas to prepare for launch readiness and identifies the critical workstreams across all go to market launch components.
• Develops agile launch strategies to accelerate launch planning, cross-functional team execution and integrated resource planning in alignment with the launch ambition.
• Partners with global launch excellence, leadership across all functional areas and marketing leadership to ensure there is strategic alignment across enterprise-wide product launch teams.
• Demonstrates enterprise leadership by influencing, coordinating, and partnering across core and interfacing workstream leadership to ensure launch readiness.
• Develops and implements launch metrics and tracking mechanisms to monitor progress and impact of product launch, providing insights to support decision-making and drive continuous improvement.
• Develops capabilities of launch planners and teams, leading efforts to train and upskill stakeholders by embedding launch capabilities, previous launch learnings and industry best practices.
• Coaches, manages, and leads a team of launch planners.

Requirements

• Minimum 7 years of commercial experience in one or more of the following functions within the biopharmaceutical/pharmaceutical, biotechnology or life sciences consulting industries: marketing, product launches, strategy, commercial operations, or related function.
• Ability to define and operationalize commercial launch strategy.
• Ability to execute senior leader endorsed, cross-enterprise projects across a broad group of stakeholders (COEs, strategic partners, executive sponsors, etc.).
• Strong executive presence, commercial acumen, and communication skills.

Nice-to-haves

• Ability to ask strategic questions to expand thinking, promote cross-functional collaboration, and enhance agility to navigate launches.
• Ability to lead, manage and motivate teams, with or without authority.
• Experience working with Agile Marketing teams.