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Director – R&D Strategy

The R&D Strategy team is a dedicated unit within the R&D Strategy, Portfolio and Operations (SPO) function, whose “day-job” it is to think longer term about the ambition for R&D and its progress towards achieving it, as well as to identify external trends and understand the competitive landscape. We identify and provide recommendations on key questions informing the evolution of GSK’s R&D strategy. We will seek to determine current performance, set ambition and propose courses of action, through continuously accessing and interpreting external and internal data.

We are looking for an R&D Strategy Director to work on core R&D strategy questions, collaborating with the strategy project lead, and senior leaders across GSK. Projects will vary significantly in nature and remit, though will typically last 3-4 months and result in concrete proposals and handover with a team responsible for strategy deployment. The Strategy Director will be a core member of project teams within the Strategy team and will engage directly with the R&D Leadership Team (RDLT) and many groups across R&D, leading multi-disciplinary matrix teams where necessary.

In 2023, the R&D Strategy team will be focused on:

• Delivering 2 impactful RDLT strategy retreats on most critical areas of strategy development resulting in clear, actionable plans and proposals; these strategy retreats are developed for and with GSK’s Chief Scientific Officer.
• Identifying and developing sub-strategies for specific key enablers of R&D performance, for example: 1) providing strategic guidance on portfolio shape and mix, informing technical and investment governance discussions, including on portfolio growth and size, 2) testing and refining of the R&D strategy in a specific TA, or 3) assessing how GSK identifies and develops future innovation and manage the lag between demand and ready-to-use technology.
• Ensuring endorsed recommendations resulting from past strategy work transition effectively to implementation, led by functional teams or Operations.

Career progression: The R&D Strategy Team has been a feeder group for key talent at GSK, and allows for exposure to many different parts of the business, as well as exposure to senior leaders across the organization. A successful Director in the R&D Strategy team will have numerous progression opportunities within GSK, both within the strategy team, or with a move to other business lines.

Why you?

We are looking for professionals with these required skills to achieve our goals:

Basic Qualifications:

• Required Education: Degree level in Life Sciences, Business, or other relevant areas.
• Strategy consulting experience from a top-tier strategy consulting firm, or similar experience.
• Experience in managing ambiguity and develop clear, informed strategies from vast and complex datasets.
• Solid analytical skills and the ability to manipulate complex data, propose and test hypothesis and challenge assumptions.
• Rigorous project management, and ability to engage senior stakeholders with a good balance of EQ and IQ.
• R&D experience, or broad understanding with strong curiosity paired with demonstrated learning agility.

Preferred Qualifications:

• PhD, MBA or other post-graduate degrees.
• Excellent communication skills; ability to convey ideas simply and compellingly.
• Ability to both think strategically, working at a global level, and to dive deep into operational issues when required, moving quickly between the two levels of working with a sense of urgency.

#LI-GSK

GSK is a global biopharma company with a special purpose – to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together – so we can positively impact the health of billions of people and deliver stronger, more sustainable shareholder returns – as an organisation where people can thrive. Getting ahead means preventing disease as well as treating it, and we aim to impact the health of 2.5 billion people around the world in the next 10 years.

Our success absolutely depends on our people. While getting ahead of disease together is about our ambition for patients and shareholders, it’s also about making GSK a place where people can thrive. We want GSK to be a workplace where everyone can feel a sense of belonging and thrive as set out in our Equal and Inclusive Treatment of Employees policy. We’re committed to being more proactive at all levels so that our workforce reflects the communities we work and hire in, and our GSK leadership reflects our GSK workforce.

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we are open to all talent. In the US, we also adhere to Affirmative Action principles. This ensures that all qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment without regard to neurodiversity, race/ethnicity, colour, national origin, religion, gender, pregnancy, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, age, disability, genetic information, military service, covered/protected veteran status or any other federal, state or local protected class*(*US only).

We believe in an agile working culture for all our roles. If flexibility is important to you, we encourage you to explore with our hiring team what the opportunities are.

Should you require any adjustments to our process to assist you in demonstrating your strengths and capabilities contact us on [email protected] or 0808 234 4391. Please note should your enquiry not relate to adjustments, we will not be able to support you through these channels

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